Report: Investors shouldn't put faith in EA 'management's current guidance'

great, when they finally start making great games they lose money and will eventually start making shit again. Fuck me sideways

This should be interesting

Not the outcome of the story, but whether or not haters have enough left in the tank for a 3rd potential flame war

How to fix EA and make them profitable again:

1. No more WWII/Battlefield games from DICE
2. Shut down EA Black Box/Canada and/or force them to stop making shitty NFS games and Street titles
3. Shut down EA Montreal
4. Invest more money/time/management power into Visceral Games
5. Shut down EA Phenomic
6. Shut down EA Salt Lake
7. Punch John Riccitiello in the face and promote Peter Moore to CEO

Problem = Solved

Riccitiello thinks the money comes in with licensed movie tie-in games and Madden. I'd rather have Moore in there because he'd be willing to give original IP's a shot rather than sequel after sequel.

For the past 20+ years, EA has sucked balls to the walls. Their games have always lacked playability and class. Name 1 good EA franchise that has had a successfull "Collection" release...Nothing.

I hope EA goes bankrupt one day, they suck so hard, they've purchased amazing companys and brought them down to pure garbage. Better now than never that people start seeing this company how crap they are.

This is good news...no great news.

Idc about either EA or actizzard, i want Take Two to rise up from wutever place there in and be as successful but also be a private company that way wall street doesn't turn them into mindless zombies.

First off aside from Dead Space, which wasn't truly developed by EA, as much as a subsidiary that they put together via stolen or bought out groups.

Left 4 Dead was a Valve Game... just an FYI.

Mirrors Edge while unique and an innovation, had a rough and skewed storyline and was pretty poor in my opinion.

All the sports titles can go to Hell for all I care, I hate how people would rather play sports on their TV then just go out and play them... so stupid, and I'm not even a fan of sports in the first place.

Aside from that... EA has a HORRIBLE TRACK RECORD, releasing RE3 with Anime-style combat and vehicles / units was just stupid, and they ruined the C&C franchise with Tiberium Wars, and further with Kane's Wrath.

They just bought Bioware and Bioware is resisting them quite a lot but they can't resist forever, I just hope EA has the sense to not fiddle with Bioware aside from giving them more money to make better games.

Battlefield, let's see last one I bought was 2142 which was a great concept and turned out pretty poor, and they haven't shown that much support to it in reality, not directly or critically at least. As for Bad Company and all those others, it's time to stop milking the series name for an adequate game and make something good, and I'm sick of WWII games, and thus won't be buying 1943, as I know many others who won't as well.

Let me take a look at EA's site and post what else they've ruined.

DeadSpace is being milked, and while a sequel is inevitable (which is stupid as there is no WAY the ending would have been like that, it's illogical and unrealistic in all manners, and just plain stupid) they have done poorly with Extraction and their new Wii focus.

It's obvious they are going to ruin GI Joe, the question is do they do it before or after the movie ruins itself (I have high hopes but I doubt they'll come true).

They've milked Sims beyond all doubt, despite it being profitable it's become rehash.

Lord of the Rings Conquest was a colossal failure in truth, but they plan on milking that, just like BFME and BFME II which were also failures.

I'm keen on believing they ruined Spore.

All the movie rehash's and Harry Potter games are becoming sickening as they all suck.

I hope they crash Brutal Legend because it's a stupid concept in all manners anyway, and so it deserves to die...

Dante's Inferno is a weird concept which shows how studios are running out of good ideas.

Army of Two was a failure in all manners and was just stupid, and now they want to make a new one, to appeal to those Xbox Live idiots (not people who play an Xbox, just the stereotypical Xbox Live players).

Never been very fond of the Mercenary games but I won't put on a line on that franchise just because of my lack of insight into it.

We all know how much their sponsoring of Warhammer Online did... it is a massive failure, in terms of a good MMO.

Crysis was good I'll give it that, but it paled in storyline and focuses more on multiplayer to my dismay, I blame EA for that focus.

When's the last time a good Medal of Honor came out?

After reviewing all 400 games.of theirs it's safe to say they have had only 2 good games within their entire history of being a publisher / developer...

They've killed so many Franchises like WestWood and numerous others, that it's pathetic, now they are buying out good companies to get their funds so they can kill them as well (probably unintentional but due to incompetence).

Why Peter Moore left Microsoft is beyond me.

This Cowen "research" is riddled with illogical metrics in regards to Wii and so calls into question ALL their EA 'analysis' as well.

Eg: Top 5% accounted for 31.8 percent of total game sales on Wii, compared to 34.2 per cent on the PS3 and 41.2 per cent on the Xbox 360.

This was used as a reason not to work on Wii, but is actually a bad thing. High percentages for a tiny fraction of the 3rd party market (particularly the 360) means an extremely anemic market place remaining for 95% of titles.

Eg: Top 5% of third-party titles on Wii sold an average of 860,000 copies, compared to the more lucrative numbers of 1.2 million on the PS3 and 2.5 million on the Xbox 360.

This is incomparable as the number of titles available for Wii dwarf the number of titles available for the others (thanks to shovelware). This means you're comparing the average of the top 10 third party games on PS3 to the average of the top >20 third party games on Wii. Totally irrational (and a cherry picked metric that particularly disreputes the Wii).

Eg. "where Rock Band and Guitar Hero figures are ignored"

This is pointless, baseless, anti-Wii, and frankly contradicts the point they're trying to make, seen as Rock Band was published by EA. Rock Band is excellent evidence that the right product on the Wii can lift your bottom line, and that putting more effort in on your Wii iterations (ala RB2>RB1) improves your sales.

Eg. Wii sold an average of 860,000 copies, compared to the more lucrative numbers of 1.2 million on the PS3 and 2.5 million on the Xbox 360

Joystiq put "lucrative" in, but Cowen research cited this as reason Wii support is bad. SALES ARE VANITY PROFITS ARE SANITY. Sales are meaningless without costs. I've heard most HD games have break even sales of ~2 million. This would mean the AVERAGE game in the top 5% of 360 3rd party sales would make small money. In fact it means the lower half of the top 5% might not make money at all. This indicates a good chance that 97.5% of 360 games don't make money. It's probably less, and probably even less that lose money. But I wouldn't be surprised if >80% of 360 games LOSE MONEY. THE PS3 is even worse. I wouldn't be surprised if the only PS3 games earning are COD4, MGS4 and GTA4. By comparison an average 860,000 on the Wii is actually a high return on investment if the average Wii 3rd party spend is likely around $3~4 million with a break even number