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I'd like to add some perspective to some EA hysteria propogated by the mainstream media.
#1. NASDAQ Investors are nervous and touchy about any piece of negative news.. not just EA.
#2. EA has a high implied volatility right now... so the stock over-reacts to both good and bad news.
#3. the stock price has been lower than what it closed at today throughout a 10+ day stretch in December. A few days ago it was within 7% of what the stock price is right now.
#4 PROFITS AND REVENUE ARE UP compared to 2017's all important XMas/HOliday quarter.
#5 EA had a 20% drop for about an hour in the middle of the night... it lasted 1 hour at something like 3 am. I'm seeing "20% drop" headlines. Its pretty misleading.
In the past companies like EA and ATVI produced double digit revenue and profit growth. This makes adventurers put their money in. Welp, EA and ATVI's monster growth days are over for the next year or two. The venturists are putting their money in other places that might show monster growth. EA and ATVI are off their list.
To give a pro sports team analogy. EA is 1 of the best teams in the league and they just lost 3 games in a row. Many media are painting it like they lost 20 games in a row and the owner wants to sell the team. This hysterical screaming combined wit "i told you so" commentary generates lots of views and clicks. My full context perspective is really boring and will generate no views or clicks.
I hate EA just like the next guy.. but framing misleading narratives about EAs imminent demise will just make people even more angry when EA just keeps on rolling along.
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On February 07 2019 12:45 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
To give a pro sports team analogy. EA is 1 of the best teams in the league and they just lost 3 games in a row. Many media are painting it like they lost 20 games in a row and the owner wants to sell the team. This hysterical screaming combined wit "i told you so" commentary generates lots of views and clicks. My full context perspective is really boring and will generate no views or clicks.
EA is not one of the best in the league. Hasn't been for quite some time now. They just haven't been releasing good games (just like other "giants") recently. What we got from them could be called mediocre at best.
Personally I don't give a damn about probably 90% (maybe even more) of the IPs that EA and ATVI possess.
To put it in perspective:
The last EA game I was actually interested in and bought: 2011 (SWTOR)
The last ATVI game I was actually interested in and bought: 2012 (D3, although I've lost interest in it in favor of D2)
So, for at least 7 years now those companies haven't published anything that I would like to even try out.
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Madden NFL , FIFA. Battlefield, The Sims.
These franchises have been around forever. Why? people keep on buying them year after year. Why? because they played them the year before.
On February 07 2019 18:50 Manit0u wrote:The last ATVI game I was actually interested in and bought: 2012 (D3, although I've lost interest in it in favor of D2)
Skylanders isn't aimed at you. Doesn't mean ATVI is bad. Skylanders is a Diablo for 10 year olds. Not my thing.. but kids loved it. 100% incubated and grown within ATVI.
Skylanders is solid proof ATVI is capable of pretty amazing stuff.
Personally, I'm not into WoW or FIFA or Diablo3 or Skylanders or Battlefield. That doesn't mean these are bad games though. They are just not my kind of games.
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It's the first time I've even heard of Skylanders. LOL
In any case, why are you trying to go out of your way to defend companies that don't publish your kind of games?
Also: WoW is a bad game now (coming from WoW fans), Battlefield is pretty bad too, FIFA is utter garbage, Diablo 3 is not even in the same league as D2.
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Good games or bad games doesn't matter. As long as it sells, they're relevant to the discussion.
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You have to remember though that their problems started pretty late in 2018. We'll have to wait some more to actually see potential fallout from that.
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In order for me to take a pessimistic stance on EA's future performance seriously I'd need to see numbers attached to it. "Angry Joe" yelling into a microphone wont do it.... as entertaining as that may be..
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On February 07 2019 20:52 Manit0u wrote:
It's the first time I've even heard of Skylanders. LOL
In any case, why are you trying to go out of your way to defend companies that don't publish your kind of games?
Also: WoW is a bad game now (coming from WoW fans), Battlefield is pretty bad too, FIFA is utter garbage, Diablo 3 is not even in the same league as D2.
Jimmy's definition of a good game is a game that sells well.
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On February 08 2019 00:29 Godwrath wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2019 20:52 Manit0u wrote:
It's the first time I've even heard of Skylanders. LOL
In any case, why are you trying to go out of your way to defend companies that don't publish your kind of games?
Also: WoW is a bad game now (coming from WoW fans), Battlefield is pretty bad too, FIFA is utter garbage, Diablo 3 is not even in the same league as D2. Jimmy's definition of a good game is a game that sells well.
Long term engagement is objective proof of quality.
So you can talk about how EA NHL '94 is a poorly designed game if you wish. Its hard to give it any credibility when a competitive community has surrounded the game and evolving play styles for 25+ years.
Same thing with FIFA. Its just not lasted 25 years so its not as extreme. FIFA was not always #1. EA had to win a giant war with many other publishers/studios for the #1 sports sim on the planet. They won that war by making the best game.
https://tay.kinja.com/the-fifa-vs-pes-rivalry-a-match-report-1818800409
"Pro Evolution Soccer received near-universal acclaim from critics. Eurogamer declared it the ‘best football game on any console ever’ whilst BBC Sport (who wrote game reviews back in the early 00’s apparently) called it ‘essential’. The game was a huge hit, demolishing the competition critically and the reviews would only get better. Pro Evo 2 wasn’t a huge innovation, but again hit the highs of the first, with an impressive 93/100 on Metacritic. Pro Evo 3, 4 and 5 were all the same. PES were the Invincibles."
" FIFA on the other hand really struggled to find its feet this generation. "
I've been listening to how "the sky is falliing" since EA NHL '95 came out in September of 1994. Largely, its a group of angry young people with very little life experience spouting off. As much as i still love NHL '94 ... the EA NHL series continues to roll on with its annualized sequels. The series continues ..year after year.. and decade after decade to be the best hockey sim there is.
All this said, if someone can accurately project , with #s to back it up, a substantial decline in EA's revenue and profit.. i'm all ears.
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Their revenue matters very little. If you bought EA stock in June last year you would consider it a great waste of money pretty soon after. Publicly traded companies live and die by the stocks.
Apparently something is not right with EA and ATVI for shareholders to lose faith in them. It remains to be seen if they manage to recover like they did after similar dip in 2009. This time around they don't have Mass Effect 2 to help them out and their game lineup looks rather weak. Even their FIFA IP dropped down 25% year-to-year and was overshadowed by other games.
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It is more that shareholder's desires do not line up with keeping quality studios with good talent in house. Or developing new IP. They want returns, but dislike the risk of developing new IP and games. For a long time this meant that EA and Activsion could just buy up studios with good game ideas(Guitar Hero, Destiny and so on). But they are now hitting a problem that their cultural of burning down studios has become common knowledge and their ability to recruite is being hurt. No studio is going to be able to hang on to any talent if they are acquired by EA. They will just jump ship or start they own studio.
Video game development, in the US specifically, has hit the limit of the "we can always find someone hungry to work in games to code for us" mentality. It is now common knowledge that the average career in video games if 5 years and people leave the industry due to being burn out. No one wants that. There is a push to unionize that is building steam. So we are seeing companies like EA and activision start to look around and try to figure out exactly how they move forward. Because they can't keep doing what they are doing.
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On February 08 2019 02:57 Manit0u wrote:
Their revenue matters very little.
My comment was revenue AND profit. not just revenue.
I guarantee you revenue and profit matters to every single EA employee. Without revenue and profit your company can only behave like Theranos for a couple of years at most before everyone gets laid off.
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On February 08 2019 02:57 Manit0u wrote:
Their revenue matters very little. If you bought EA stock in June last year you would consider it a great waste of money pretty soon after. Publicly traded companies live and die by the stocks.
Apparently something is not right with EA and ATVI for shareholders to lose faith in them. It remains to be seen if they manage to recover like they did after similar dip in 2009. This time around they don't have Mass Effect 2 to help them out and their game lineup looks rather weak. Even their FIFA IP dropped down 25% year-to-year and was overshadowed by other games.
I think it is growth. Quite often stock prices are driven more by growth and potential then they are by revenue and profit.
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On February 08 2019 00:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2019 00:29 Godwrath wrote:On February 07 2019 20:52 Manit0u wrote:
It's the first time I've even heard of Skylanders. LOL
In any case, why are you trying to go out of your way to defend companies that don't publish your kind of games?
Also: WoW is a bad game now (coming from WoW fans), Battlefield is pretty bad too, FIFA is utter garbage, Diablo 3 is not even in the same league as D2. Jimmy's definition of a good game is a game that sells well. Long term engagement is objective proof of quality.
I disagree with you, but to be honest, i wasn't trying to start a discussion, just to state where you are at. But since you stated your opinion i would like to know if this is exclusive to games:
Is Avatar the best movie of all times ? Star wars Force awakens also objectively one of the best movies ever done ?
Harry Potter or the Lord of the rings some of the best books ?
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I like the idea that quality is be objectively determined. And length of use is the best way to measure it. Which means that a lifelong smoker has found the highest quality habit because it kills them the slowest.
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Galaxy of Starcraft. Make it happen lol. I would play that shit in a heartbeat.
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Why wouldnt this guy create his own Youtube Channel and spread this bullshit? The market for content like is enormous
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On February 08 2019 05:09 Godwrath wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2019 00:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On February 08 2019 00:29 Godwrath wrote:On February 07 2019 20:52 Manit0u wrote:
It's the first time I've even heard of Skylanders. LOL
In any case, why are you trying to go out of your way to defend companies that don't publish your kind of games?
Also: WoW is a bad game now (coming from WoW fans), Battlefield is pretty bad too, FIFA is utter garbage, Diablo 3 is not even in the same league as D2. Jimmy's definition of a good game is a game that sells well. Long term engagement is objective proof of quality. I disagree with you, but to be honest, i wasn't trying to start a discussion, just to state where you are at. But since you stated your opinion i would like to know if this is exclusive to games: Is Avatar the best movie of all times ? Star wars Force awakens also objectively one of the best movies ever done ? Harry Potter or the Lord of the rings some of the best books ?
I'd say long term engagement is objective proof that the company manages to keep their consumers happy, which is a proof that the creators know what they are doing.
Good/Quality depends on whether you see something as a product or a piece of art and for the evaluation of the latter taste plays a major role. If you see it as a product and developer mainly as a job then Fifa and Avatar were/are great product to sell.
Also the Lotr books are beautiful! 
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What you fail to mention though, is that you can have completely different take on player retention.
EA is pushing new versions of the same garbage year after year. They're supposed to be those mega franchises that bring in a lot of money to it. Now take a look at GTA V, which is a 5 year old game that sold more copies in 2018 than anything from EA apart from Madden. If you have a good quality product it can remain relevant for years. Everything that EA is putting out has a lifetime of 1 year. That's not how you build good consumer base, you have big turnout rate and low loyalty, which puts pressure on the company to push those releases year after year or they'll lose most of their consumers. If you release a good product that's viable for many years and has good replay value you build a loyal fan base, which can wait a couple of years for your new product, giving you more time and leeway.
That's how I see it.
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