EA to Release Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2012 Results on May 7, 2012

[Partyrockk]

Don't you mean you couldn't?

His sentence just needs to be reorientated.

[amantheil]

Yep I miss the days when gamers played games...now they are all wall street speculators. I was looking at the General forums last week and the game is discussed very little. Most of the posts are about nonsense like this, or some other drama.

 

I commented on this in another thread, but I also don't understand the obsession with EA stock reports. To me it's pretty simple - if the game is enjoyable, you keep playing. If it stops becoming fun, you stop playing. I couldn't care less what EA's quarterly results are.

 

Do these people base all their decisions this way? "Hey Bob, what do you want to drink? Coke or Pepsi." "Let me log onto CNN's financial pages and see which one has a higher stock price and had the best quarterly P/E ratio. Then I'll tell you what I'd like to drink."

[Gokkus]

What will happen:

* Some Posters wont reply as it will make them look stupid

 

True, i definitely am not going to embarrass myself again by posting in a thread like this.

[Jett-Rinn]

What will happen:

* Some Posters will move the goal Posts

* Some Posters will claim "heh told you so"

* Some Posters will say its nothing

* Some Posters wont reply as it will make them look stupid

* Some Posters will "predict" the end

* The Game will go on and just about everyone in the thread will keep playing it

 

Pretty much

[Partyrockk]

I commented on this in another thread, but I also don't understand the obsession with EA stock reports. To me it's pretty simple - if the game is enjoyable, you keep playing. If it stops becoming fun, you stop playing. I couldn't care less what EA's quarterly results are.

 

Do these people base all their decisions this way? "Hey Bob, what do you want to drink? Coke or Pepsi." "Let me log onto CNN's financial pages and see which one has a higher stock price and had the best quarterly P/E ratio. Then I'll tell you what I'd like to drink."

I disagree. Players have a vested interest in their MMO succeeding or not succeeding. Player population trends and outlooks play a huge roll in the player experience. It's not shocking to find players interested in financial numbers.

[amantheil]

I disagree. Players have a vested interest in their MMO succeeding or not succeeding. Player population trends and outlooks play a huge roll in the player experience. It's not shocking to find players interested in financial numbers.

 

Fair enough. I was exaggerating for the sake of humor :-). I understand the concern, but I don't think Quarterly Fiscal results will tell much.

 

I can tell you that people are really over-talking the impact of the free month. I don't know exactly what fiscal calendar EA uses, but the fourth quarter ended well before the free month was given out. I'd guess the fiscal year ended 12/31 or 3/31: in either case the 30 months they just gave away won't factor into the numbers.

[Jett-Rinn]

Fair enough. I was exaggerating for the sake of humor :-). I understand the concern, but I don't think Quarterly Fiscal results will tell much.

 

I can tell you that people are really over-talking the impact of the free month. I don't know exactly what fiscal calendar EA uses, but the fourth quarter ended well before the free month was given out. I'd guess the fiscal year ended 12/31 or 3/31: in either case the 30 months they just gave away won't factor into the numbers.

 

But... but ...1.7 million are only here becuase of the free 30 days!!!!

 

True story!

[Adderdin]

Its funny how most people who defend SWTOR and EA/Bioware tend to have around 1000-2000 forum posts, around 50-75 posts per day.

 

Active only in discussions regarding the current weak state of active subscriptions, server merges and generally related to not so big population.

 

Defending the game using every mean, reporting people who dont agree with them for harrasment or actually anything they can.

 

I wonder if they are being simply paid to defend the game or work for some PR department.

 

As for the game... welll http://www.swtor.com/server-status

 

1 Very Heavy in US

1 Heavy in US

rest more or less light/standard

 

EU servers

95% light at this moment

 

Asia/Pacific 1 standard 2 light

Edited April 24, 2012 by Adderdin

[unseenmaji]

Its funny how most people who defend SWTOR and EA/Bioware tend to have around 1000-2000 forum posts, around 50-75 posts per day.

 

Active only in discussions regarding the current weak state of active subscriptions, server merges and generally related to not so big population.

 

Defending the game using every mean, reporting people who dont agree with them for harrasment or actually anything they can.

 

I wonder if they are being simply paid to defend the game or work for some PR department.

 

Yeah but censorship will only work on these forums word of mouth has already smashed any chance for SWTOR to suceed. It is recommended to other gamers to avoid it and fact EA is involved many people hate that company, honestly more than 80% of gamers would celeberate the day EA goes bankrupt.

[shepardcomander]

Fair enough. I was exaggerating for the sake of humor :-). I understand the concern, but I don't think Quarterly Fiscal results will tell much.

 

I can tell you that people are really over-talking the impact of the free month. I don't know exactly what fiscal calendar EA uses, but the fourth quarter ended well before the free month was given out. I'd guess the fiscal year ended 12/31 or 3/31: in either case the 30 months they just gave away won't factor into the numbers.

 

For the fun of assumption, let's pretend this is the caseand there is that much lag between in-game results and financial reporting. That means that the initial 2 million box sales dropped to 1.7 miilion accounts before the early access period ended.

[Kthx]

I wonder if they are being simply paid to defend the game or work for some PR department.

 

This is a pathetic argument. It's as lame as calling people who think like you hired lackeys for competitors. All you do by making arguments like this is to show your desparation.

 

As for the game... welll http://www.swtor.com/server-status

 

1 Very Heavy in US

1 Heavy in US

rest more or less light/standard

 

To be specific, 40 of 123 (32.5%) are Light. The remaining are Standard, Heavy, or Very Heavy.

 

EU servers

95% light at this moment

 

It's 1 am in central Europe.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Kthx

[kottonmouth]

Because the free 30 days doesn't happen until after the financial report, they did it that way specifically for the doom cryers.

 

Nice try.

 

Stop posting every two seconds. Anybody with eyes can see that not too many ppl play this game anymore; there are websites talking about the declining subs. Due to overzealous time purchases many accounts are still active but are the players active in the game at this point? No not really, we need server merges asap.

[Mezla]

 

Asia/Pacific 1 standard 2 light

 

Wait. Did you just suggest that 3 of the top 5 healthiest servers are standard and light? Really?

[Kthx]

Anybody with eyes can see that not too many ppl play this game anymore; there are websites talking about the declining subs.

 

There are tons of web sites talking about how the world will end on December 21, 2012. I don't see how this helps your argument.

[notebene]

I predict it has no impact on me. I don't look at a game and not play paralyzed because I am uncertain as to the future of a game 2 months from now, 6, 24, etc.

 

Do people play non-MMOs like this? Do you play CoD or Batman or Farmville or ME1-2-3 or Diablo or whatever like that? Do you buy it, play for an hour, then go post on reddit or wherever all you "that was 45 seconds ago" crowd goes to ask the question: "Hey, this game is awesome, I played for an hour, but I don't want to finish it and enjoy myself if you guys aren't going to be talking about it in 45 seconds? What are you guys playing right now? What are you guys playing in 45 seconds?"

 

 

I play it if it's fun, I stop playing it when it's not, or they kick me out because they shut the whole thing down.

 

Either way, I gained everything and lost nothing.

[Kthx]

Wait. Did you just suggest that 3 of the top 5 healthiest servers are standard and light? Really?

 

By picking a time when it is a weekday morning in the region in question (and 1 am in Central Europe).

[MbaxterBeau]

Perspective. The wow server I played on was proudmoore and at it's busiest there were probably 80 toons online. That was the Ally side and I started out playing horde and I left the horde because it ended up being about 8 toons in org when it was crowded.

 

They claim to have 10 million subs and that server only had that many people playing at the peak times.

 

I'm not here to defend BW but for this game to be in it's early days they are doing VERY well.

 

Let's focus on building a community in the game and support each other instead of focusing on server populations.

[Adderdin]

By picking a time when it is a weekday morning in the region in question (and 1 am in Central Europe).

 

People get your IQ checked, please think sometimes.

 

Its global service. Night time in europe is Day time elsewhere.

 

Now the americas - 1 Heavy, 17 standard, rest light.

EU - only light.

Asia pacific - 2 standard 1 heavy.

 

Pick any time you want and servers are generally the same Globally only few heavy or very heavy, some standard, most light. If their financial report will say that there is a healthy number of subscribers, it will be only because they added a free month for everyone, and thus more accounts are still active. But nobody plays.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Adderdin

[ConradLionhart]

Perspective. The wow server I played on was proudmoore and at it's busiest there were probably 80 toons online. That was the Ally side and I started out playing horde and I left the horde because it ended up being about 8 toons in org when it was crowded.

 

They claim to have 10 million subs and that server only had that many people playing at the peak times.

 

I'm not here to defend BW but for this game to be in it's early days they are doing VERY well.

 

Let's focus on building a community in the game and support each other instead of focusing on server populations.

 

I dare people to /who the number of level 85s on Stormwind or Ogrimmar on a light and medium server, and see if that number is 6x more than what you get from a light or medium server here.

[marseluswallace]

so i wonder if the games subs havent dropped then why do so many people say so many servers are dead then.

 

Depends on peak times. Usually after work is when people get on. Although I find it strange that Sundays are dead on my server...must be alot of church goers???

[Captiosus]

So here's the article link you requested of me. Luckily I found it without too much trouble.

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/23/bioware-doing-anything-and-everything-to-keep-players-logging-in-to-swtor/

 

Let's see if your predicted response plays out.

 

And this is supposed to prove what, exactly?

 

Let's look at the only relevant lines from the article:

"BioWare claim that subscriber numbers haven’t dropped, but concurrent users at peak times have. This, Erickson says, is the reason why players are noticing a lot of ‘light’ server populations – and also why mergers are on the cards, but not a priority."

 

CLAIM. A claim is not equal to "proof". I can claim I have 100K in my bank account. That claim might be believable if you saw my bank account information from a couple months ago showing I had a similar amount. But you can't dispute the claim because you don't have access to my current bank records. Simply stating something doesn't make it true. There's no proof of anything in this article. There's a PR claim that plays on the optimism of a prior report. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Again, and you can try to argue otherwise all you want, 1.7 million is nothing but optimism based on a document from two months ago. A document whose submission deadline fell in the middle of people's initial 3 month time cards.

 

Gotta love how he keeps talking about mergers not being a priority. It shows they're completely out of touch. They know concurrent users are in the tank on most servers, and people are actively not logging in because their servers feel like ghost towns, but fixing the problem isn't "a priority".

[iheartnyc]

For the fun of assumption, let's pretend this is the caseand there is that much lag between in-game results and financial reporting. That means that the initial 2 million box sales dropped to 1.7 miilion accounts before the early access period ended.

 

Ah I love educating people here.

 

It's not an assumption, champ. No need to strain your brain pretending so. Electronic Arts is a publicly listed company with a fiscal year ending on December 31, 2011. You do realize that all US public companies are on the same disclosure schedule as each other, unless they qualify for an exemption? See below. 4Q numbers. December 31, 2011.

 

http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/712515/000119312512041653/d291203d10q.htm

 

The flash subscription numbers, which the CFO announced on February 2, 2012, are as of February 2, 2012. Well after the early access period ended, not before, as you foolishly stated.

[iheartnyc]

Stop posting every two seconds. Anybody with eyes can see that not too many ppl play this game anymore; there are websites talking about the declining subs. Due to overzealous time purchases many accounts are still active but are the players active in the game at this point? No not really, we need server merges asap.

 

"not too many ppl"

 

"there are websites"

 

Did people forget how to speak with nuance and specificity? Have we all been brainwashed to hedge everything we say with caveats and modifiers? If you want to present an argument (as you did, "overzealous time purchases = active accounts but players are not active" - don't get me started on the logical inconsistency there), at least be specific in your support. And don't cite "are websites" which are citing each other in a massive ************. Come on, this is high school level research and writing I am asking for here.

[iheartnyc]

People get your IQ checked, please think sometimes.

 

Its global service. Night time in europe is Day time elsewhere.

 

Now the americas - 1 Heavy, 17 standard, rest light.

EU - only light.

Asia pacific - 2 standard 1 heavy.

 

Pick any time you want and servers are generally the same Globally only few heavy or very heavy, some standard, most light. If their financial report will say that there is a healthy number of subscribers, it will be only because they added a free month for everyone, and thus more accounts are still active. But nobody plays.

 

Please get your IQ checked. It's not called a "financial report." And you have no way of knowing it's only because they added a free month for everyone. And even so, the "financial report" (we call it an annual report filed on form 10-K), is as of and for the year ended December 31, 2011. The free month happened after the end of the reporting period. Sorry.

 

By the way, lawyers at places called "Skadden Arps" or "Davis Polk" or "Sullivan & Cromwell" or "Paul Weiss", and auditors from places called "Deloitte Touche & Tomahtsu" and "Pricewaterhouse Coopers" and "Ernst & Young" write and audit the annual report on 10-K. You think some guy from the marketing department at EA is going to convince these lawyers and auditors to fudge accounting numbers? Riiiight, give me some of what you're smoking.

 

One of the top accounting form of its time, Arthur Andersen, founded 100 years ago, tried to do some fudging for a company called Enron. AA dissolved thereafter. And regulations were far more lax in 2000 than they are now. Now companies have to deal with Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. BUt of course they will lie and manipulate, just to convince some gamers that sub numbers are high!

Edited April 25, 2012 by iheartnyc

[iheartnyc]

People get your IQ checked, please think sometimes.

 

Its global service. Night time in europe is Day time elsewhere.

 

Now the americas - 1 Heavy, 17 standard, rest light.

EU - only light.

Asia pacific - 2 standard 1 heavy.

 

Pick any time you want and servers are generally the same Globally only few heavy or very heavy, some standard, most light. If their financial report will say that there is a healthy number of subscribers, it will be only because they added a free month for everyone, and thus more accounts are still active. But nobody plays.

 

Not quite. You should read the GMT time schedule. London is 5 hours ahead of US. You posted this at approximately 8pm EST, which would be 1am London. A couple hours later depending on which continental country you choose.