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

[mtsr]

There are new players on the server I play.

 

You have a beef with EA? Take it up with them, not interested in beefs.

I'm here for the swtor, the Bioware, and no I haven't any beef with EA and want no part of yours.

[Jackobite]

My predictions is....

 

I dont care,

we get 16 guys/girls playing in my guild each night., thats all that matters to me.

 

some amateur stock brokers here care more about EA's price than EA do.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Jackobite

[Captiosus]

Meh.

 

I've had to endure plenty of business, finance, and economics courses throughout my educational career. Enough to know that predicting EA's fiscal solvency viewed through the lens of one product is a fool's game.

 

In all fairness, TOR could utterly fail and EA would be fine. Hell, BioWare could completely fail and close and EA would still be fine. EA is a behemoth that owns IPs across all levels of gaming. There's only one division I believe would spell financial concern for EA, and that division is EA Sports.

 

If EA were to lose their exclusivity contracts with the NFL, PGA, and FIFA, then, and only then, would I be concerned about their financial status.

 

Edit: The only thing I'll predict is that EA will continued to be vilified by gamers (for several good reasons, and some not so good ones) and that vilification will continue to shake investor confidence. I don't expect a massive drop in their price from current levels after the May announcement.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Captiosus

[Lord_Karsk]

I think they will say they now have 1.3 m subs with the actual number beeing 700 k.

Alot of people like i'm guessing who paid for 6 months.Dont know if they use those numbers aswell.

 

Anyways the only reason this game will fail during 2012 is because bioware fails on the STAR WARS experience !

 

By that i mean players cant look like they actually live in the star wars universe.Armors are a disaster !

 

The massive feeling is little with dead zones and no end game pvp fun for either casual or competetive.

 

No space combat, and i mean real space combat not the fail on rails thats in the game.And because of this engine i belive they will not make massive space combat.Guessing it will be tiny 10 vs 10 maps were you can only fly in 3D view not first person with unresponsive controls and objecctive based maps like ground combat that wont work for space.

 

Developers not caring about an active and alive huge end game planet but on lvl alts with people ending up on fleet standing around like zombies with nothing to do.

 

No minigames like real fast podracing or cardgames were players cant bet against each others or the system.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Lord_Karsk

[Shingara]

Seriously who cares how many are playing as long as your friends are and there are enough to pvp against, who cares what the shares do or whats said about EA.

 

Who cares aslong as they add content, keep the servers alive and functioning correctly and why do so many care what others are doing. Its not a case of keeping up with the person next door. If your having fun enjoy it simple as that so why the concern that bobby on the forums doesnt like it ?.

 

Dont people have there own minds anymore.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Shingara

[Cerion]

Shhh dude, you can't talk about stock prices or even reference stock prices unless you have a degree in finance or you'll get trolled.

 

You don't have to have a degree...but you have to know what the hell you're talking about...

[Goretzu]

Go on record!

 

Post your predictions and why!

 

 

 

With the 30 day free subs this number is meaningless.

 

Every single account with a free 30 days will count as a "sub".

[Space_Gimp]

Lemme guess, you're one of those xbox-babies who think Halo was the beginning of FPS gaming.

 

I grew up with Nintendo 64 with Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2.

[Goretzu]

Seriously who cares how many are playing as long as your friends are and there are enough to pvp against, who cares what the shares do or whats said about EA.

 

Who cares aslong as they add content, keep the servers alive and functioning correctly and why do so many care what others are doing. Its not a case of keeping up with the person next door. If your having fun enjoy it simple as that so why the concern that bobby on the forums doesnt like it ?.

 

Dont people have there own minds anymore.

 

 

 

I care, mostly because 90% of the 30 people I came to SWTOR with have left.

 

SWTOR needs things that will bring them back!

[OddballEasyEight]

With the 30 day free subs this number is meaningless.

 

Every single account with a free 30 days will count as a "sub".

 

and that statement was refuted no less than 2-3 posts below the post you quoted... read the whole tread first.

[Goretzu]

and that statement was refuted no less than 2-3 posts below the post you quoted... read the whole tread first.

 

Someone said something on the interent.

 

That's not "refuted". If it were nothing ever said would be true.

 

 

Have they actully specifically stated anywhere the dates they'll only be counting?

 

Personally I think they'd be mad not to count the free subs, and I imagine that's what their marketing dept. will be pushing them to do, although equally it could backfire, so maybe they won't (but as most MMORPGs routinely count ALL free trials it I wouldn't bet on it).

Edited April 24, 2012 by Goretzu

[Drakkip]

You don't have to have a degree...but you have to know what the hell you're talking about...

 

And by saying they have some explaining to do about stock prices being down is wrong how?

 

Sooo what you're saying is I don't understand the reasons behind why their stock is down?

 

So in other words someone should explain it to me why their stock is down?

 

So in other words there is some explaining to be done why their stock is down?

 

Wait... isn't that what I first said?

Edited April 24, 2012 by Drakkip

[Shingara]

I care, mostly because 90% of the 30 people I came to SWTOR with have left.

 

SWTOR needs things that will bring them back!

 

what does that have todo with share prices and financial reports or how many subscribers there are world wide for the zones its been released in, did the people who came with you and left for there own reasons stop you from being able to make new friends with people who also stayed along with yourself ?

 

Im not having a go at you but wouldnt it be better to make new friends with people who enjoy the game as much as you.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Shingara

[Goretzu]

what does that have todo with share prices and financial reports or how many subscribers there are world wide for the zones its been released in, did the people who came with you and left for there own reasons stop you from being able to make new friends with people who also stayed along with yourself ?

 

The way things are heading I'll have to "make friends" on a new server, with legacy that just won't happen (I'll just be another one that quits - I'm not regrinding all that legacy just to reroll on a server that might go the same way - seen it all in WAR before).

 

But if SWTOR cannot get at least some of those 90% back with improvements then it is doomed.

 

 

 

 

However you obivously never played Warhammer Online as EA pulled the Developement plug.

 

If is is not making enough money they just mothball and milk it. Sub numbers and share price matter to your game experience, whether you accept it or not.

[Shingara]

The way things are heading I'll have to "make friends" on a new server, with legacy that just won't happen (I'll just be another one that quits - I'm not regrinding all that legacy just to reroll on a server that might go the same way - seen it all in WAR before).

 

But if SWTOR cannot get at least some of those 90% back with improvements then it is doomed.

 

 

 

 

However you obivously never played Warhammer Online as EA pulled the Developement plug.

 

If is is not making enough money they just mothball and milk it. Sub numbers and share price matter to your game experience, whether you accept it or not.

 

Well actually i did play warhammer, even when i used to get instant lag death in fort battles and kicking gankers up the bum when they were a chicken, Taking war is a bad example though, there was a huge battle between ea and goa that impacted very badly on the game itself. As for EA's share prices for me they have very little todo with the fortunes of swtor.

 

We have no idea what the minimum subs are for creating profit but we are way way way above it, they have tons in development and i dont see how the 90% of your friends leaving are any basis for the fortunes of swtor but only reflect the nature of the 90% of the people who you came with. im sure you could find 27 people on your server on your side to be friends with and guild with to not make you not have to change server and restart your legacy.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Shingara

[Goretzu]

Well actually i did play warhammer, even when i used to get instant lag death in fort battles, Taking war is a bad example though, there was a huge battle between ea and goa that impacted very badly on the game itself. As for EA's share prices for me they have very little todo with the fortunes of swtor.

 

We have no idea what the minimum subs are for creating profit but we are way way way above it, they have tons in development and i dont see how the 90% of your friends leaving are any basis for the fortunes of swtor but only reflect the nature of the 90% of the people who you came with. im sure you could find 27 people on your server on your side to be friends with and guild with to not make you have to change server and restart your legacy.

 

Even with 2-3 servers WAR is probably currently still making a profit, however it had very little actual developement after Live due to EA (even LOTD was mostly developed pre-launch).

 

But that's because it has ~1 Dev and no real developement, which is what I mean, SWTOR is currently getting a decent amount of development, but the team doing it must be sizeable and expensive.

 

The 90% of people I came with were all really looking forward to SWTOR and had been for a long time, if it cannot retain them, then it is NOT retaining an awful lot of other people (as we may see with time).

[Dext]

I don't think TOR has too much to worry about with GW2 at most GW2 will be the game people play along with whatever they are subscribing to rather than instead of...in fact I'm betting that GW2 doesn't break half a million sales in it's first two months.

 

Also Guild wars 2 is going to e a nice game but just like toy sen on here for it come out the same thing is going on over there. Is it going to be fun but, its not going to be the end all and be all of games.

[DieAlteHexe]

Even with 2-3 servers WAR is probably currently still making a profit, however it had very little actual developement after Live due to EA (even LOTD was mostly developed pre-launch).

 

But that's because it has ~1 Dev and no real developement, which is what I mean, SWTOR is currently getting a decent amount of development, but the team doing it must be sizeable and expensive.

 

The 90% of people I came with were all really looking forward to SWTOR and had been for a long time, if it cannot retain them, then it is NOT retaining an awful lot of other people (as we may see with time).

 

It will, as always, come down to how many are needed to continue reasonable amounts of development/fixes. If the subs. go below that mark, then it's likely to go into life-support mode as many other MMOs have. No clue if they've made their investment back, I would think so by now, but haven't followed closely enough to hazard a guess. After that it's down to having "enough" to carry on.

 

I've no fear that, in the foreseeable future anyway, SWTOR has plenty to stay above the "life-support" stage but remain below the "WoW" stage. And that's fine. So long as it doesn't go stagnant, I'm in and even if it does go stagnant, I'm in 'til I accomplish my personal goals.

[Shingara]

Even with 2-3 servers WAR is probably currently still making a profit, however it had very little actual developement after Live due to EA (even LOTD was mostly developed pre-launch).

 

But that's because it has ~1 Dev and no real developement, which is what I mean, SWTOR is currently getting a decent amount of development, but the team doing it must be sizeable and expensive.

 

The 90% of people I came with were all really looking forward to SWTOR and had been for a long time, if it cannot retain them, then it is NOT retaining an awful lot of other people (as we may see with time).

 

Well this is what i meant with war, for me the basic concept of war is one of the all time great mmos but its one of those great in concept and poorly done, mostly on the part of the servers which were run by GOA thus EA's battle to remove them.

 

There was little point in EA investing huge ammounts of cash into WAR because the servers just were pap and people were leaving in droves due to the insane lag.

 

I know exaxctly where your coming from too with why your friends left, they fully expected a fleshed out mmo with everything in it from every title they had seen and expected it to have everything from what they had come from which was never going to happen at launch.

 

Over time we will get all the features so even if they dont retain everyone when the features do come of which we have alot of now and most others in development I and i suspect you also due to being in mmos from launch know to be patient as these things will come.

[Sanxxx]

We have no idea what the minimum subs are for creating profit but we are way way way above it

 

That sentence fails in so many ways.

[Cerion]

Sure, but to dismiss that it might be an indication of something not so great is silly.

 

In what bizzarro world is 'stagnating' at 1.7 million subs an indication of something 'not so great.'

 

This is the problem with people stuck in the pessimism of the echo chamber. They've convinced each other through virtual pats on the back and unquestioning validation that 1.7 million subs is HORRIBLE.

 

OMG, SWTOR has 'stagnated' at 1.7 million subs...tehy must be doin' it wrong!!

[DieAlteHexe]

In what bizzarro world is 'stagnating' at 1.7 million subs an indication of something 'not so great.'

 

This is the problem with people stuck in the pessimism of the echo chamber. They've convinced each other through virtual pats on the back and unquestioning validation that 1.7 million subs is HORRIBLE.

 

OMG, SWTOR has 'stagnated' at 1.7 million subs...tehy must be doin' it wrong!!

 

Heh. EQ was lauded for having 250k subscribers. This was, of course, before the great explosion that was WoW by which now all sub. bases are compared.

 

It's about profit and if a game is profitable it will still be around...UO, EQ etc. Still around.

[Captiosus]

In what bizzarro world is 'stagnating' at 1.7 million subs an indication of something 'not so great.'

 

This is the problem with people stuck in the pessimism of the echo chamber. They've convinced each other through virtual pats on the back and unquestioning validation that 1.7 million subs is HORRIBLE.

 

OMG, SWTOR has 'stagnated' at 1.7 million subs...tehy must be doin' it wrong!!

 

Let's be fair, though. The "1.7 million subs" is also the optimism echo chamber. Someone said that must be the number and if we repeat it enough it must be true. I don't believe TOR has 1.7 million subs just as I don't believe WoW has 10.5 million subs. The reality of the situation lies somewhere between the two chambers.

 

Unfortunately, we're not entirely privy to that information. So the wheel keeps spinnin'.

[Ancen]

While I'll agree with your general anti-doom-saying sentiment, you do realize that they could say subscriptions have remained at 1.7 million, but subscriptions could still have dropped, right?

 

Anything from 1,799,999 to 1,700,001 can be considered 1.7 million. If you don't think they're doing some fancy footwork when they toss that number around...

 

The reality is the number have had to change, but they're being extremely clever by using general figures.

 

That sort of change at that level would be a relatively generic churn rate + new subs, or a negligible change on that scale.

 

Who's talking about WoW? When you resort to ad hominem, you lose credibility in the discussion.

 

Wow, sore subject for you, eh?

[Ancen]

My predictions is....

 

I dont care,

we get 16 guys/girls playing in my guild each night., thats all that matters to me.

 

some amateur stock brokers here care more about EA's price than EA do.

 

Haha, more like "wanna-be day traders" .

 

Heh. EQ was lauded for having 250k subscribers. This was, of course, before the great explosion that was WoW by which now all sub. bases are compared.

 

It's about profit and if a game is profitable it will still be around...UO, EQ etc. Still around.

 

Well said. People forget the scale of the MMO market historically in the face of the anomaly that is/was WOW.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Ancen