EA takes financial hit with The Godfather

The game looks like crap. Mafia (which came out two years ago) looks twice as good as The Godfather and the vehicles handle more realistically.

"much anticipated title"???

Much anticipated by who? I loved the movie. But making a sad GTA knockoff doesn't excite me in the least.

I am with most of the people here in guessing the game will be less than stellar, but this report is misleading. EA didn't lose money, it's stockholders did. Once stock is issued and bought a company keeps that money and has no obligation to pay it back, although some do in the form of dividends.

EA is now worth less and stockholders took a dive, but the company hasn't lost money.

The only way EA would lose money would be if they bought back shares from investors for 401k handouts and stock options, but even if they did it would only be a small portion of all the shares in circulation. I think that's called treasury stock if I remember correctly, but I only got a B- in corporate finance

Im sorry but am I the only one who thinks this looks hot?

Its great that it retails cheaper. Maybe more people will pick it up. And not every game that has freeroaming and gangsters in it has to be a GTA clone... Get over it.

If this was a next-gen release it would have been hyped through the roof.

"Opportunity costs" of $800 million means that EA could have done something else instead of making the Godfather and made $800 million. Not sure it's applicable here.

Biggest BS news release ever. Shows there's alot of dumbasses amongst gaming journalists. I'm not sure who's worse: the folks that originally wrote this piece or the ones that blindly pass it along.

Stocks rise and fall everyday and in the short term those fluctuations have nothing to do with the long term real-world performance of said company.

I've played the game and it's actually pretty cool. Not groundbreaking, graphics are kinda weak, but it's more like 'Mafia' than 'GTA,' which is a good thing.

Check out this big feature on the game -- some funny stuff there: http://videogames.aol.com/features/godfather

Oh come on u did not expect it to be good did you? Its EA FFS!!! All they do is buy a movie licence and make a shit game and think people will buy it.

EA ITS NOT IN THE GAME ITS UP YOUR A##

800$ million in opportunity costs to make another battlefield or medal of honor... ugh is anyone tired of playing their crap?

hmmmmmmm fan and freakhead like it.... sounds like ea damage control to me, the game looks like a joke

What's with EA and licenses? I haven't seen the figures, but do licenses make a difference? Like if Mafia were billed had the Godfather license and moniker would it sell better? How baout GTA? What if GTA were called Godfather, would it sell better? Also how could you lose money that you never had to begin with?

Not enough people are tired of it yet, mandarin - KEEP SPREADING THE WORD! Given enough time, we can enhance even among the common plebes the association of EA with crappy games and murdered franchises.

Nice "shill" there, Dan.

"Check out this big feature on the game -- some funny stuff there:"
Come on...what gamer actually talks like this? Much less, links in a preview of a game in his entry?

You have to work more on your "hardcore gamer" personality.

Your use of the term "opportunity costs" doesn't make any sense. If the OCs were truly $800 million, that means EA could have made a different $10-20 million game that would have made $800 million more than the Godfather.

well i can agree that EA is loseing its edge... let me use an example off topic the NBA live series i was a big fan... always put down 2k sports and yet never played a 2k sports game untill they came out with nba 2k6 i played it and its 5 times better then live sure it doesnt have a dunk contest and such but its more realistic the graphics are way better.. and EA mainly majors in sports... to lose thier edge on that well.. who knows where the company is going..

I've actually picked up this title and while I'm not disagreeing that delaying Godfather hurt EA by missing out on the buying potential of the Holiday Market, I have to say this. The game itself is graphically superior to the Grand Theft Auto titles, the cars handle not like sports cars but like the non-powersteering, non-plastic hunks of steel that were available in the timeline. No you can't hope for the performance of a Ferrarri wrapped up in a Model A. As for the combat system, it's simple innovative the grappling and the use of the right thumbstick (somewhat akin to Rise to Honor) to pummel your opponents lends a fluid and gritty realism to your characters rise to power. The target locations in gunfights (while not a novel idea) works here and the close quarters executions (similar to the punisher) lend a stylized nearly gun-fu quality to the game.

The story is phenomenal. Your character (who happens to be fully customizable down to whether or not you want a mole on the left or right side of your forehead), blends seamlessly into the background of the Godfather movies taking part in some of the more thrilling hits and scenes all the while attempting to take over his own piece of the New York/Jersey pie.

At forty dollars this game is easily the best buy on the market to date and for all of you naesayers that don't believe me go ahead and rent the thing from your local videostore. At worst it's five bucks out of your life. At best you've found a game that you're truly going to enjoy.

Peace.

I think that EA is definitly losing its edge. All they come out with is sequals or screw other companies over by buying rights from something. An example would be when they bought the Madden rights in 2005. I thought the ESPN football games were very good and I was sad to see them go. Anyways, to sum it all up EA is just a big bitch to the other companies and there not even as good as some others. Halo is not EA, and their are better games out there than some EA sequal.

yea exactly the Socom series for ps2 is not EA and in my opinion its one of the best 3rd person shooter/online games out there.