News

Electronic Arts reports skyrocketing sales in record financial quarter
Posted: 01.02.2012 22:16 by JonahFalcon Comments: 4
Electronic Arts has reported that the publisher has enjoyed its biggest financial quarter in almost 8 years, and attributes it to its wildly successful digital distribution revenue, as well as income from some of its stalwart franchises.

According to CEO John Riccitiello, "Electronic Arts today announced preliminary financial results for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2011. We are pleased to report a strong holiday quarter driven by Battlefield 3, FIFA12 and a strong showing by our digital games and services. Star Wars: The Old Republic is developing a committed community of players with more than 1.7 million active subscribers and growing."

According to EA's report, The Old Republic not only currently has 1.7M active subscribers, but sold more than 2M units in a single month. Riccitiello stated in an investor conference call that the game far exceeded sales expectations. Riccitiello also stated in the call that the future of The Old Republic could go "in many directions", but did not elaborate.

Battlefield 3 and FIFA 12 both sold over 10M units, while Madden NFL 12 sold 5M units, all to date.

EA's renewed foray into casual gaming and social networking were also wildly successful. After acquiring PopCap in August, the casual game company enjoyed 30% increase in revenue. Social networking game network Playfish enjoyed a major income increase with Risk: Factions and The Sims Social. EA even had a heavy presence in iOS gaming as the number one publisher in Apple's App Store in December.

During the EA conference call, Riccitiello also credited Electronic Arts' new digital distribution system Origin with over $100M in non-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) revenue since the services June 2011 launch.

Electronic Arts has targeted several games as key earners for the Q4 2011, including Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Syndicate, Mass Effect 3, SSX, Grand Slam Tennis 2, FIFA Street and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13.

Comments

By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Feb 02, 2012
herodotus
"FIFA 12" is a brilliant game, no denying it and while I have a love/hate relationship with "BF3" it is quite a good game (despite the flaws, PB problems and Battlelog, love it or hate it). Origin for me is like Impulse. Aside from "BF3", no other title needs it to be running in the background so why bother?
"SW:TOR" sales may increase in March when the Oceanic version is released, but thousands have already bought an import copy so it might not be my a significant amount. Can't really see it growing that much.
Bad decision to remove current and future EA games from Steam. Heck, even Impulse is going to be adding Steam games shortly. Orign is roundly disliked, and I'm afraid the prices in the Origin Store for Australians are ghastly at AUD $70-90.
By SiyaenSokol (SI Elite) on Feb 02, 2012
SiyaenSokol
I am not interested in supporting Origin. I also think that it was a great mistake to remove future EA games from Steam, as Steam is the largest Third Party Distributor.

Impulse has already started to add some Steam games. Valve games like Half-Life is already on it's way.
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Feb 02, 2012
JonahFalcon
EA had to move away from Steam. Valve was trying to get a commission on all of their games' DLC. EA still publishes games on Valve - provided there's no DLC associated with it. They also sell games on Direct2Drive, Impulse, etc, because they DON'T try to get a commission on their DLC.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Feb 02, 2012
herodotus
The trouble with D2D (which is now GameFly and requires it's own Steam-like Client), Gamersgate and Impulse is that they are region-restricted when it comes to EA games. So instead of costing the earth to buy (as in the Origin Store), they are simply unavailable for Oceanic audiences.
So it's crap either way. Then Steam isn't out of the naughty corner either for charging top shelf RRP for most AAA titles now.
In the words of Colonel Tigh: "Frak off!".