Q3 Electronic Arts financial reports are not out.

[RiVaN_]

Here is my speculation, pure speculation based on what we have seen and what has been happening.

 

This new IP has many who work on SWTOR double hatting roles for production on that game as well as on SWTOR. We now that nearly a large portion of the SWTOR team was double hatting roles with Shadow Realms and that was one of the reasons that Game Quality suffered between the launch of Oricon and Shadows of Revan. I'm betting that the largest part of the development team is focused on the new IP with limited time dedicated to maintaining SWTOR.

 

They are really excited about the new IP, they have been able to keep a lid on it for 5 years. Little things have leaked here and there that BW had a secret project they have been working on. This has been rumored to be SWTOR 2 since the whispers of a new game from BW started, but this leads me to believe that the new IP is going to be a SIFI MMO.

Now I'm gonna go off the deep end for a moment; I'm speculating that they are using SWTOR as a testing ground for the systems and aspects that they are creating for the new IP. What better way to determine if a game will be successful than to get paying customers to test portions of it in a game that is slowly fading away?

 

This would explain several things things;

1 the reason almost everything they release lately has major bugs and problems because they are copy and pasting the code and then bruteforcing it into the game engine to make it work.

2. It explains why they have had a laser like focus on stuff that is quick and easy to create. They know the only players left in SWTOR are those that are loyal to the Star Wars Brand and will be here until the servers are shut down. They know we will keep paying them as long as they throw us a bone from time to time.

3. It explains why they don't appear to really care about what the community thinks and are just giving us what they want to give us.

4. It explains why they haven't even tried to capitalize on the release of 2 Star Wars movies or time some really big, really awesome releases alongside the release of The Force Awakens or Rogue One.

 

As for SWTOR not being mentioned in the Quarterly report and Subscriptions having gone up 15%.

I think that they don't want to mention where SWTOR is in their radar because compared to this time last year it is not even close and it probably continues to slide. Also don't forget that a great many of EA's games have subscription plans, not just SWTOR. They could probably post an increase in Subscriptions across all of EA even after shutting down the SWTOR servers.

 

For sometime I have maintained the opinion that the only thing that will kill SWTOR is BW pulling the plug or making a huge mistake. I think that 5.0 is that huge mistake, but I think it was done on purpose to test the stuff they are putting into their new IP.

[Ottoattack]

http://investor.ea.com/results.cfm

 

Nothing about SWToR. Good or bad?

 

Personally at this stage I'd call no news good news in the financial reports.

 

When it comes to the financial world no news is usually not good news. If something is doing great you advertise it trying to garner attention to drive share prices-up. You would not advertise bad news cuz it will drive share prices down. In that case you try to hide bad news or talk about it as minimum as possible (as legally required).

 

For a minimum no news is not good news. It might be bad though.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Ottoattack

[RiVaN_]

That being said, I don't think the MMO model has much longer to survive (in general, not just for SWTOR) under the EA umbrella.

 

If you want to read the tea leaves from this, however. The fact that a title that once had plans to rival WoW (and BTW potentially be EAs biggest portfolio product ever), isn't even mentioned shows that EA could now care less about the title. In other words, it is dead in EAs eyes - as it should be considering the performance of some of their newer titles. From an individual title's perspective, I think it may indeed be safe to say this title is not going to survive much longer in the EA umbrella.

 

I couldn't agree more.

[RiVaN_]

There is this of interest:

 

Quote:

And at the end of the fiscal year, our BioWare studio will be delivering an all-new IP – a clean-sheet design with new concepts, new gameplay mechanics, and new stories set in a unique new universe. This game has the potential to fundamentally disrupt the way people think about an action title, bringing friends together to play in exhilarating new ways. We’re very excited about the future of this new franchise and its ability to attract a large global audience.

 

Please remind me, when does BW/EA end their Fiscal year? Isn't it something weird, like April?

Edited February 1, 2017 by RiVaN_

[Wayshuba]

Please remind me, when does BW/EA end their Fiscal year? Isn't it something weird, like April?

 

No, they are referring to the end of EAs fiscal year, which is March. BioWare no longer exists as a separate company, they are just studio brand under EA.

[DarthDymond]

Please remind me, when does BW/EA end their Fiscal year? Isn't it something weird, like April?

Last day of March.

 

Q1: April-June

Q2: July-September

Q3: October-December

Q4: January-March

Edited February 1, 2017 by DarthDymond

[Wayshuba]

Here is my speculation, pure speculation based on what we have seen and what has been happening.

 

Funny, because that loose statement caught the eye of Forbes as well. (Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2017/02/01/is-bioware-crafting-eas-destiny-and-the-division-competitor/#26b19bee72ee)

 

They speculate that BW is working on a competitive product in the "loot shooter" segment as Activision has "Destiny" and Ubisoft has "The Division", while EA has no title in this lucrative market (sounds a lot like what they were saying in 2010/11 about the MMO space when BW was working on SWTOR).

 

My thoughts, after reading this article is we may be seeing two titles like this come from EA. What Viseral is working on with Star Wars (EA loves to use big IP when they are behind in a segment) and potentially one from BW. The article also notes that in order for Bungie (Destiny) and Massive (Splinter Cell) have had to put all other projects on hold just to "keep up with the demand for new content in those games".

 

As noted in the article, if this is something they have been working on since 2012, they have had something in the works now for FIVE years. Which means it has to be much bigger than a single-player desktop title. You also have EA pointing out in the report how profitable multi-player online services have become.

 

It will be interesting to see but the article does make a lot of sense. EA doesn't play in the "loot shooter" space right now and it has been very lucrative for their two biggest competitors. What I think is safe to say though, is EA is giving up on the MMO space.

 

Neither of this is good for the future of SWTOR and some might even say it foreshadows this title coming to a close soon. Something to consider - the very first full year of launching a major MMO with the Star Wars IP, Ea made the decision to shift BW resources to this secret project. I think this game launching and tanking in the first six months put the writing on the wall and EA ALREADY shifted the resources back then. They didn't even decide to make an attempt at saving SWTOR. Just ponder that one for thought.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Wayshuba

[Divona]

Neither of this is good for the future of SWTOR and some might even say it foreshadows this title coming to a close soon. Something to consider - the very first full year of launching a major MMO with the Star Wars IP, Ea made the decision to shift BW resources to this secret project. I think this game launching and tanking in the first six months put the writing on the wall and EA ALREADY shifted the resources back then. They didn't even decide to make an attempt at saving SWTOR. Just ponder that one for thought.

 

EA took funding away from this game long ago. My estiamtion around 3 years ago. All that Bioware Austin team has is their own budget that they get from subs. Im not even sure if CM money are being used for this game and will go directly to EA as profit. So what BWA is trying to do as last breath is to come up with a plan that is as cheap as possible but as much they can with that small budget. Reaso nwhy they recycled all old 3+ year content.

 

Most Star Wars fans are now looking towards Disney and their new upcoming titles this year for EP9 launch and 2018.

In mobile gaming Disney already launched few SW titles and doing very well.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Divona

[ShinDoRai]

i would like to see a moba dota2 inspired game with star wars ip combined with battleforge cashgrab and soloplay ability where they can squezz star wars ip like hell with RNG BOXES !!!! surpise

where u pay for heroes, cosmetics like here (established™), new zones, quests etc.

and full f2p like dota 2 like here:eek:

 

this season all seems looking good for rts games. could that some kinda thingy can pop up

 

or a nice new EaW would fit also great.

 

some RNG thoughts

Edited February 1, 2017 by ShinDoRai

[RiVaN_]

Funny, because that loose statement caught the eye of Forbes as well. (Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2017/02/01/is-bioware-crafting-eas-destiny-and-the-division-competitor/#26b19bee72ee)

 

Neither of this is good for the future of SWTOR and some might even say it foreshadows this title coming to a close soon. Something to consider - the very first full year of launching a major MMO with the Star Wars IP, Ea made the decision to shift BW resources to this secret project. I think this game launching and tanking in the first six months put the writing on the wall and EA ALREADY shifted the resources back then. They didn't even decide to make an attempt at saving SWTOR. Just ponder that one for thought.

 

I don't believe that BW or EA will let Dragon Age fall, nor do I think that they will abandon Mass Effect given it's popularity. BW has 3 studios which leads one to believe that they can support 3 titles and leave one active title in maintenance mode. I'm going to guess that when the new IP is announced (and if that is toward the end of their fiscal year then the announcement will be soon) support for SWTOR drops down to monthly cartel market updates only. Once Visceral is ready to ship their new Star Wars title then SWTOR is a gonner. Since Neither Mass Effect nor Dragon Age require an abundance of support BW is in position to support a RPG based, cooperative Loot shooter. I'm envisioning something that uses a large part of what they already had built for Shadow Realms but incorporating everything that is popular in gaming now.

 

I think that the Galactic Command system, loot, the interface, all of it, is something we will see again in that game, or at least the ultimate evolution of it reskinned and rebranded.

 

At the end of the day, I still believe that right now we are paying BioWare to test and help them perfect the systems they are going to implement into their new IP. Right or wrong, we shall soon find out I'm sure.

 

Oh, and I agree completely, EA never tried to save SWTOR. They let BW take it and try to do what they could with it. I think that BW did a good job for a while, but in the end to much money was spent on Blurr trailers and not enough spent in actual game content and development. I don't believe that EA ever intended to help make SWTOR a success as evidenced by all the other Star Wars titles that they have allowed to be produced in the interim and none of them included characters or references to SWTOR.

The fanbase kept SWTOR going this long, not EA. I'll give BW some credit, if my assumptions are even close to accurate then they made something out of nothing for a long time. It's sad to see what has become of this once promising MMO.

Edited February 1, 2017 by RiVaN_

[ShinDoRai]

recyling is also recycling/reprocessing is also a season thing i think

[Talon_strikes]

I think your are drastically overestimating what one new Operation is going to do for this game. Most raiders have or are moving from the game now. When they move to a game that is providing them with 3-4 new raids per year, there is nothing one new raid is SWTOR is going to drag them back for.

 

To be frank and honest, SWTOR would have to have an expansion this year with maybe 8 new flashpoints, 4 new warzones, 4 new Ops, a couple of new fully-explorable planets and more story content to even attempt to draw players back. A minimal trickle of content that is three years too late is not going to do it.

Retweet

[TechTheHic]

I don't believe that BW or EA will let Dragon Age fall, nor do I think that they will abandon Mass Effect given it's popularity. BW has 3 studios which leads one to believe that they can support 3 titles and leave one active title in maintenance mode. I'm going to guess that when the new IP is announced (and if that is toward the end of their fiscal year then the announcement will be soon) support for SWTOR drops down to monthly cartel market updates only. Once Visceral is ready to ship their new Star Wars title then SWTOR is a gonner. Since Neither Mass Effect nor Dragon Age require an abundance of support BW is in position to support a RPG based, cooperative Loot shooter. I'm envisioning something that uses a large part of what they already had built for Shadow Realms but incorporating everything that is popular in gaming now.

 

I think that the Galactic Command system, loot, the interface, all of it, is something we will see again in that game, or at least the ultimate evolution of it reskinned and rebranded.

At the end of the day, I still believe that right now we are paying BioWare to test and help them perfect the systems they are going to implement into their new IP. Right or wrong, we shall soon find out I'm sure.

Oh, and I agree completely, EA never tried to save SWTOR. They let BW take it and try to do what they could with it. I think that BW did a good job for a while, but in the end to much money was spent on Blurr trailers and not enough spent in actual game content and development. I don't believe that EA ever intended to help make SWTOR a success as evidenced by all the other Star Wars titles that they have allowed to be produced in the interim and none of them included characters or references to SWTOR.

The fanbase kept SWTOR going this long, not EA. I'll give BW some credit, if my assumptions are even close to accurate then they made something out of nothing for a long time. It's sad to see what has become of this once promising MMO.

 

For the bold and underlined; since it is a different company and all, I don't believe there was a direct relation unless Lucas Arts was pulling the strings and there is really nothing more than coincidence; but I always felt like SWTOR with classes and theme park is exactly what they tried to do with SWG with the NGE. What I think the reality is, was there was a thing called WOW. SWG tried to shape into it and SWTOR was designed with that mold in mind.

 

So as it relates to a new game in development by EA or the path being taken here in SWTOR; I have not played Destiny or the Division. Are they doing something similar with loot and content released as 1 boss at a time or chapters?

[PlasmaJohn]

1 the reason almost everything they release lately has major bugs and problems because they are copy and pasting the code and then bruteforcing it into the game engine to make it work.

Didn't read the article but I assume the new IP is on Frostbyte. IMO it would take a huge amount of effort to force features intended for a Frostbyte based game into the hacked Hero Engine that SW:TOR uses.

 

4. It explains why they haven't even tried to capitalize on the release of 2 Star Wars movies or time some really big, really awesome releases alongside the release of The Force Awakens or Rogue One.

Nah, Austin's crack design team felt that Keeping up with the Valkorians was a superior story.

 

Seriously, if you're going to focus on story why in the bloody blue blazes would you NOT ask Disney where the official lore was going? It's not like the scripts weren't locked down by the time KotFE/ET was a twinkle in Ben's eye.

 

Rogue One would have been so easy to tie in too. Small story on Jedd'ah, a new GSF map and maybe a flashpoint. Not doing this borders on fiscal malfeasance.

 

OTOH maybe the Valkorianiad is the tie-in. *shudders* Did somebody just say "meesa"?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Back on SWTOR though. Sub services climbed 16% noted as being primarily driven by EA Access and Origin Access. Since SWTOR is condensed into that, even if there was a loss, they won't need to mention it because overall sub service revenue is up. I think it would only be pointed out if it was down (like the previous quarter) and EA then needs to explain why it is down.

 

That's not entirely true. That was "Subscriptions, advertising, and other digital purchases contributed $104 million to net sales, up 16% year on year."

 

Which is an incredibly broad and generalised category. The 10-Q in a couple of months should have the proper breakdown and if this game is losing money YoY or not meeting targets that's where they are obliged to say so.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Nothing explicit, but Q3:FY16 was the "Star Wars: The Old Republic community has grown to the highest subscriber level in nearly three years" quarter and in Q3:FY17 the subscription segment as a whole is "up 16% year on year" over that quarter.

 

SWTOR itself may have gone down, stayed flat, or gone up (by less than Access / Origin), but if it did drop off it wasn't a serious enough decline to blunt the segment's overall growth.

 

"Subscriptions, advertising, and other digital purchases contributed $104 million to net sales, up 16% year on year."

 

I'm trying to make sense of all this in my head here now ...

 

Last month they attirubted a 1% or $1 million loss in subscription revenue YoY to SWToR. Ignoring the SWToR point and heavily rounding numbers if it dropped $1 million and that's 1% for Q2 then both Q2 2015/2016 were very close to 100 million?

 

Yet for the above to be right and including extra streams than just subscription ( advertising, digital purchases ) would mean that stream in 2015 was around 90 million meaning that Q3 was $10 million less than Q2 last year? Colour me confused ...

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Last time around the revenue was down in the area of subscriptions, advertising and other. SWTOR was mentioned as a main contributor for a 1% loss. This mention was made in the 10-Q form.

 

This same area is now 15% UP. No mention of SWTOR but the 10-Q form is not there yet so we cannot compare this yet.

 

There is nothing we can take from this beyond the fact that the part that SWTOR belongs to is doing well. Whether that's also thanks to or in spite of SWTOR is completely in the realm of speculation at this stage.

 

Read my above post ... maybe you can help me make sense of it too because something just isn't adding up for me.

[mmmbuddah]

I warned about this many many times that 2017 is probably last straw for EA and 2018 might not even have plans for this game as its uncertain how many subs will be left end of this year.

 

If they keep down this road, I dont think many. I am leaning more and more toward FF14 atm. And I am sure I am not the only one.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Funny, because that loose statement caught the eye of Forbes as well. (Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2017/02/01/is-bioware-crafting-eas-destiny-and-the-division-competitor/#26b19bee72ee)

 

They speculate that BW is working on a competitive product in the "loot shooter" segment as Activision has "Destiny" and Ubisoft has "The Division", while EA has no title in this lucrative market (sounds a lot like what they were saying in 2010/11 about the MMO space when BW was working on SWTOR).

 

My thoughts, after reading this article is we may be seeing two titles like this come from EA. What Viseral is working on with Star Wars (EA loves to use big IP when they are behind in a segment) and potentially one from BW. The article also notes that in order for Bungie (Destiny) and Massive (Splinter Cell) have had to put all other projects on hold just to "keep up with the demand for new content in those games".

 

As noted in the article, if this is something they have been working on since 2012, they have had something in the works now for FIVE years. Which means it has to be much bigger than a single-player desktop title. You also have EA pointing out in the report how profitable multi-player online services have become.

 

It will be interesting to see but the article does make a lot of sense. EA doesn't play in the "loot shooter" space right now and it has been very lucrative for their two biggest competitors. What I think is safe to say though, is EA is giving up on the MMO space.

 

Neither of this is good for the future of SWTOR and some might even say it foreshadows this title coming to a close soon. Something to consider - the very first full year of launching a major MMO with the Star Wars IP, Ea made the decision to shift BW resources to this secret project. I think this game launching and tanking in the first six months put the writing on the wall and EA ALREADY shifted the resources back then. They didn't even decide to make an attempt at saving SWTOR. Just ponder that one for thought.

 

Poor journalism to form their conclusions really if your summary is accurate ( can't be bothered reading the article after your summary )

Fallout 4 was arguably mostly a single player desktop game and was in development full time for 4+ years. They mentioned working on it since Fallout 3 dropped in 2008. So for them to say "Oh it's 5 years dev time it must be an online game" is rather silly.

 

Also Bioware have limited experience with pure shooters beyond Mass Effect ( and Andromeda has been getting that attention ) so why would you suddenly get them focusing on such a game? It makes no sense when there are other studios that could accomplish this. Also EA have Titan Fall 2, Battlefield 1, Battlefront ... they have more than enough online shooters to make up this segment even if it's not purely "loot based" as they coin it like Destiny. As for The Division ... that hasn't exactly been resounding success.

 

This game won't close until it stops being profitable. We might see even less content to cry about but they can easily keep it open making money until they have something to replace it with.

 

EA don't own the IP remember so their usual business practices don't apply. Any profit they can make from a game helps offset whatever money they need to pay to Disney for the IP in the first place ( and none of us know how that deal works ).

[DarthDymond]

"Subscriptions, advertising, and other digital purchases contributed $104 million to net sales, up 16% year on year."

 

I'm trying to make sense of all this in my head here now ...

 

Last month they attirubted a 1% or $1 million loss in subscription revenue YoY to SWToR. Ignoring the SWToR point and heavily rounding numbers if it dropped $1 million and that's 1% for Q2 then both Q2 2015/2016 were very close to 100 million?

 

Yet for the above to be right and including extra streams than just subscription ( advertising, digital purchases ) would mean that stream in 2015 was around 90 million meaning that Q3 was $10 million less than Q2 last year? Colour me confused ...

Fiscal Year 2015:

Q1:FY'15 - $80M

Q2:FY'15 - $91M

Q3:FY'15 - $100M

Q4:FY'15 - $91M

 

Fiscal Year 2016:

Q1:FY'16 - $71M

Q2:FY'16 - $83M

Q3:FY'16 - $90M

Q4:FY'16 - $95M

 

Fiscal Year 2017:

Q1:FY'17 - $87M

Q2:FY'17 - $83M

Q3:FY'17 - $104M

Q4:FY'17 - $???

 

There's obviously some rounding or recharacterizations going on from time to time, as Q2:FY'16 was pegged at both $83m and $84m at different times, but everything should be within about a million or so.

Edited February 1, 2017 by DarthDymond

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Fiscal Year 2015:

Q1:FY'15 - $80M

Q2:FY'15 - $91M

Q3:FY'15 - $100M

Q4:FY'15 - $91M

 

Fiscal Year 2016:

Q1:FY'16 - $71M

Q2:FY'16 - $83M

Q3:FY'16 - $90M

Q4:FY'16 - $95M

 

Fiscal Year 2017:

Q1:FY'17 - $87M

Q2:FY'17 - $83M

Q3:FY'17 - $104M

Q4:FY'17 - $???

 

There's obviously some rounding or recharacterizations going on from time to time, as Q2:FY'16 was pegged at both $83m and $84m at different times, but everything should be within about a million or so.

 

Yeah that makes sense and wow what a jump YoY - be interesting to see what's driving that since their "Origin/EA access" was rather vauge?

 

Either way we can safely assume player numbers are significantly down YoY here for Q3 so with that big leap there for Q3 it might be quite hard to pinpoint what sort of loss this game made unless they outright mention in it in the 10-Q which they may do with a "this growth offset by a X loss in SWToR" sort of statement.

[Psychopyro]

Yeah that makes sense and wow what a jump YoY - be interesting to see what's driving that since their "Origin/EA access" was rather vauge?

 

Either way we can safely assume player numbers are significantly down YoY here for Q3 so with that big leap there for Q3 it might be quite hard to pinpoint what sort of loss this game made unless they outright mention in it in the 10-Q which they may do with a "this growth offset by a X loss in SWToR" sort of statement.

 

Yes, but there is also the negative 405m on the report. It's deferred, basically meaning they are carrying it now instead of when it either will, or as I suspect has happened. Some of that may be offsets to make that Q3 look better. Remember, they just have to take the loss sometime during the year.

 

I do suspect though that the increase is due to the Access program being fairly new, plus they announced that ME would be part of access. They may have driven up subs to that.

[Avinler]

That's not entirely true. That was "Subscriptions, advertising, and other digital purchases contributed $104 million to net sales, up 16% year on year."

 

Which is an incredibly broad and generalised category. The 10-Q in a couple of months should have the proper breakdown and if this game is losing money YoY or not meeting targets that's where they are obliged to say so.

 

They will file a 10-Q in the next 10 days, you don't have to wait a couple months.

[DarthDymond]

They will file a 10-Q in the next 10 days, you don't have to wait a couple months.

 

He might be thinking about the 10-K? Not sure though.

[Avinler]

"Subscriptions, advertising, and other digital purchases contributed $104 million to net sales, up 16% year on year."

 

I'm trying to make sense of all this in my head here now ...

 

Last month they attirubted a 1% or $1 million loss in subscription revenue YoY to SWToR. Ignoring the SWToR point and heavily rounding numbers if it dropped $1 million and that's 1% for Q2 then both Q2 2015/2016 were very close to 100 million?

 

Yet for the above to be right and including extra streams than just subscription ( advertising, digital purchases ) would mean that stream in 2015 was around 90 million meaning that Q3 was $10 million less than Q2 last year? Colour me confused ...

 

I think you are crossing up a couple different time periods and a couple different revenue classifications.

 

The 1% decrease was stated on the Q2 FY17 10-Q report. Net revenue for "Subscriptions, advertising and other" for that same Q2 FY17 period was $83 million and for Q2 FY16 it was $84 million.