EA makes lots of money in first quarter

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 4 August, 2010

FIFA, B:BC2 and… Scrabble do the biz.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Scrabble on the Apple iPad helped EA make tons of money during its first quarter ended 30th June.

FIFA World Cup has so far "sold in" three million units, EA said.

Net revenue ended up ahead of expectations at $539 million. But it was down compared to the same period last year – a result EA blamed on "a reduced title slate".

EA released six major titles between April and June this year, compared to the 10 it released during the quarter 2010.

Revenue from digital was $188 million, though, so EA's happy.

It all contributed towards an unexpected $96 million first-quarter profit.

EA made a loss of $234 million a year earlier.

"We had a solid first quarter, exceeding expectations both top and bottom line," said CEO John Riccitiello.

"Top quality titles like 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, innovative digital offerings for titles like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Scrabble on the Apple iPad are driving the business.

EA had some nice things to say about itself last night. It said it's the number one publisher on high definition consoles, with 22 per cent segment share calendar year-to-date, as it calls it.

It claimed to be the number one PC publisher, with 33 per cent segment share at retail calendar year-to-date and strong growth in digital downloads of full-game software.

EA sold three of the top 15 selling games in Western markets during the quarter: FIFA World Cup was number four, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was number seven and FIFA 10 was 12.

And EA claimed to be the number one publisher across all platforms on the Apple App Store in the June quarter. EA had nine of the top ten games when the iPhone 4 launched in June.

EA will be less happy with the Wii, however. It saw a 75 per cent year-over-year decline in sales on Nintendo's motion-sensing console. Sales dropped from $161 million to just $40 million. Ouch.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DAN.E.B #1 2 years ago

    Well they deserve it a hell of lot more now then they did a few years ago.
    It just goes to show gamers wont keep buying games unless you put time,effort and money in to them.
    Tiger Woods could do with an over haul tho!

  • flaming.carrot #2 2 years ago

    Now bring back SSX for the HD consoles please.

  • macmurphy #3 2 years ago

    I think Activision have stolen the title of 'company people like to hate.'

    EA have had some really solid offerings the last few years - their commitment to quality can be seen in Moore's aiming for a 90 metacritic score for FIFA, in the general quality of their annual iterations (though I agree Tiger is feeling a little tired), but also in their willingness to try and produce new quality IPs - Mirror's Edge and Dead Space spring to mind. Sadly the latter pair propbably did the worst as far as profits go, but hopefully they can find a space alongside their big budget franchises for the new things that will keep passionate gamers on their side.

    They have also done a great job publishing other house's titles on consoles - Left for Dead with Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm on the horizon. They also have done some really innovative online stuff - people can cry about project ten dollar all they want but EA have also overseen Battlefield 1943 and are coming up with Deathspank and Shank. They are really trying to push the DLC market. They have also tried innovative models which, whilst looking a little patchy at the moment (I'm looking at you APB/NFSW) will hold them in good standing for when MMOGs become a little more mainstream and cross over to consoles.

    They're not faultless, but they're not the corporate whores they once were and it seems like they have finally twigged that great sales are achieved through making great games. Back in the day EA games were always big budget but also were often average - never too bad but never great either. And their studio wrecking antics lost them a lot of love. You can disagree with a lot of their past but ultimately you have to judge them on their current software output so it grips me when people still like to give them shit. Some of my my best games from this generation - Left 4 Dead, Fight Night, Burnout, Battlefield, FIFA, Boom Blox, Tiger Wii, Grand Slam Tennis - have had an EA sticker on the box, and so they're alright by me.

  • schnide #4 2 years ago

    Good, good and good. I never thought I'd say that. This is massive vindication of the very brave direction that EA have taken themselves in and an admirable alternative to the practices of Activision.

  • Diogo_Ribeiro #5 2 years ago

    "Tiger Woods could do with an over haul tho! "

    And in the game too, etc.

  • bad09 #6 2 years ago

    "I think Activision have stolen the title of 'company people like to hate.' "

    As I'm on PC I'd say Ubiscum are the filth of the industry right now, Acti are are just greedy gits trying it on who don't offer me that much I'm interested in anyway.

    Anyway good on EA they certainly have become one of my main money drains over the last couple of years. Still they are stumbling a bit on the "good guys" direction with project 10 dollar and the online pass punishing 2nd hand consumers as they don't have the balls to fight the high street who are abusing the 2nd hand market

    Most disappointing though was them dipping their toes into the poison that is Ubiscum always connected DRM, I hope that C&C4 is the first and last time EA, because if you make me boycott Dead Space 2 and Crysis 2 I'll murder the first born of every EA member of staff!

  • ignatiusjreilly #7 2 years ago

    Another thread where everyone goes on about how awesome and brave EA are for publishing Mirror's Edge and Dead Space. Such risky and innovative games, released two years ago.

    Still sacking people left and right, still buying and closing studios, still releasing yearly updates for the most obvious games (or tri-yearly in the case of NFS), still shutting down multiplayer servers and splitting off online play with a single-use code. But hey, they released a survival horror game, how brave they are.

    When every big game developer basically has a choice of two or three publishers, it's hardly surprising they will publish a good game once in a while. IMO they're still one of the mega-publishers removing real flavour from the games industry and replacing it with a generic strawberry-flavoured e-numbers.

    The best thing about them is the EA Partners Program, which coincidentally is the one area of the business where they have least influence over the actual games and let the dvelopers get on with it.
    Edited by 1 at 04/08/10 @ 10:01

  • IronGiant #8 2 years ago

    Any idea how many copies Bad Company2 has sold overall?

  • BabyJesus #9 2 years ago

    Release Scrabble here please.

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #10 2 years ago

    "Release Scrabble here please. "

    It might help if you told them where "here" was...

  • IkariW #11 2 years ago

    ALL publishers are greedy... Surely there is enough hate to go around?... ;)

    I couldn't give a rats a$$ who is the publisher of a game, I buy games because they are good, not because of the publisher.
    Although I do occasionally buy games because of the developer...

    Publishers are just the money, Developers create.
    So yes, Dice, Visceral, BioWare and Criterion etc, have created some great games of late, thus boosting EA's money pitt.

    Ikari

  • BabyJesus #12 2 years ago

    Take a wild guess which region I'm referring to on a european website.

  • ignatiusjreilly #13 2 years ago

    Just had a look on Wikipedia for EA's upcoming games this year:

    * Crysis 2
    * EA Sports Active 2.0
    * EA Sports MMA
    * FIFA 11
    * Grand Slam Tennis
    * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1: The Videogame
    * Madden NFL 11
    * Medal of Honor
    * NCAA Football 11
    * Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
    * NHL 11 (PS3, Xbox 360)
    * Rock Band 3
    * Skate 3
    * The Sims 3
    * NBA Elite 11

    Of 15 games, 12 are sequels and more than half are sports games. Am I the only one who looks at that list and sighs?

  • schnide #14 2 years ago

    @ignatiusjreilly

    Yes, you might be. Perhaps you forget the days when FIFA really was just an endless update of dross, whereas now it's overtaken PES and for now put it out to pasture. Or when the MOH sequels were of the same or lesser quality of the Treyarch COD titles, now being taken seriously again with inclusions such as DICE handling the multiplayer (even if it is clearly to challenge COD's crown). Skate is the leading skateboard franchise. Rock Band is (arguably) superior to the endless clones of Guitar Hero. There's no other game like The Sims. NFS is being relaunched with a highly credible racing developer. Are you suggesting EA should give up their highly successful sports franchises just because they also have a refocus on quality?

    To top this off, Riticello has on numerous occasions come out with statements about EA's resurgence which has sent their stock price plummeting, but they've not only stuck to their guns but also made a financial success of it as this article shows.

    How's that sigh?

  • PoundHound #15 2 years ago

    @ IronGiant - Just over 4 million combined on PS3 & 360, according to VGChartz.

  • ignatiusjreilly #16 2 years ago

    @schnide

    With the billions of dollars FIFA and NFS have made over the last couple of decades am I supposed to be impressed that they finally made them half-decent games? Or that they are 'rebooting' Medal of Honor to make it exactly the same as the world's best-selling video game? Or that Rock Band is slightly better than Guitar Hero, and SKATE is the "leading skateboard franchise"?

    This is the second biggest publisher in the world, with thousands of employees, about 50 worldwide studios under their wing and many more crushed under their boot, and this is the best they can do? Maybe you are more easily impresed than me.

    There are other, more interesting games on the horizon for next year I will admit, but that particular list looks utterly uninspired and honestly your argument doesn't convince me otherwise at all.
    Edited by 1 at 04/08/10 @ 12:29

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #17 2 years ago

    "Take a wild guess which region I'm referring to on a european website. "

    How the fuck would I know? I live in a country, not a region, and Scrabble has been out in the UK App Store for ages and ages.

  • darleysam #18 2 years ago

    PoundHound, for future reference, VGChartz is about as accurate and trustworthy as asking a cat to walk across a calculator, doubling the resulting number, and whatever other ludicrous series of events I could add on to bring you to a number that bears no relevance to the actual number of games sold. There's a good article somewhere about how VGChartz comes up with their numbers, but I can't find it right now. You're better off using VGsales, though

  • schnide #19 2 years ago

    @babyjesus

    Ignore the "Reverend," he's just trying to stay relevant by using naughty words and never, ever having anything constructive to say.

  • schnide #20 2 years ago

    @ignatiusjreilly

    Er, well I don't know if it's you that EA are specifically trying to impress, but if you're asking me whether it's impressive that a company turned their back on the easy option and actually started making good games then I'd say yes. Was that a business decision? Undoubtedly that was part if not most of it. But for half decent, try the best football game there is in FIFA's case - NFS we obviously have to reserve judgement on.

    I didn't realise you'd played MOH so my apologies. Have you written a review I can read so I can tell all the ways it's exactly the same? Given that MOH started this all off, with COD taking over the mantle, I think you can at least afford to reserve judgement on the latest iteration.

    Yes and yes to Rock Band and SKATE.

    As for crushing studios, see the part about EA being a business. What would you propose exactly, that they keep every studio on and have the entire company go under? I don't know how they go about closing them, and I'm sure it's entirely unpleasant for all involved, but without this knowledge I can at best play devil's advocate.

    Since you've admitted there are more interesting games (to you) on the horizon, that adds weight to it - I'm sorry this still doesn't convince you, so in the meantime you'll just have to keep banging the drum while everyone else pays the company the increased respect that I personally believe they've earned.

  • Bumston #21 2 years ago

    Yeah don't feed the troll

    [link url=http://flattopscotch.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/lovely-c hap/
    ]http://fl attopscotch.wordpress.com/2010/...[/link]

  • ignatiusjreilly #22 2 years ago

    @schnide

    OK, well we can agree they have improved (although perhaps not on the degree of improvement).

    It's just that for a company with so much talent and resources at their disposal, the fact that 80% of the rest of their games this year are sequels (and the other 20% consist of a Wii conversion which is virtually a sequel, a movie tie-in, and an MMA game which has its own dodgy backstory), I'm not ready to start singing their praises and complimenting their bravery quite yet.

    However I'll always admit that if profit is a company's number one concern, trying to please people like me is probably a bad idea - yearly sports games, sequels and COD copycats is probably the smart decision for any CEO of an enormo-publisher like EA.

  • ignatiusjreilly #23 2 years ago

    @Bumston

    If a troll is someone who purposefully tries to cause arguments, what's the word for someone who creates a website dedicated to slagging off said troll?

  • YoshiMcTaggis #24 2 years ago

    A troll's dream customer?

  • schnide #25 2 years ago

    @ignatiusjreilly

    Points taken - if all they were doing was producing those updates and not making them good, I think you'd have cause for complain and it'd be the same EA of old. The concensus, and share price, seems to be otherwise. If making good updates also allows them to finance smaller projects and new IP though, I'm happy with that.

    And to be fair, they'd be hard pressed to make themselves look any worse than Activision as long as Kotick's at the helm there. Out of the two, I know who I'd rather my money went to and on that I hope we can agree.

  • bad09 #26 2 years ago

    "I couldn't give a rats a$$ who is the publisher of a game, I buy games because they are good, not because of the publisher."

    I used to be that way to until sadly the business practices of these big publishers started meaning I had to wise up to who I'm giving money to and have to ignore great games because of publisher actions.

    / glares at Ubiscum
    Edited by 1 at 04/08/10 @ 15:45

  • ignatiusjreilly #27 2 years ago

    @schnide

    Yeah we can agree there, and as long as they are reserving some of their revenue to do anything a bit different I will give them some credit.

    And not to go on about it, but the Syndicate story that just popped up on Eurogamer. EA signed Starbreeze, an interesting, talented and innovative developer, and set them to work on a sequel to an awesome PC strategy game, except this time it's for consoles and being turned into an FPS (not confirmed, but a pretty good assumption). Exactly the sort of thing that annoys me personally, while everyone else goes "awesome!" and EA score another hit, furthering cementing our slide into mediocrity.

    It's my problem I guess, but I like to rant on it ocassionally. Hope I didn't annoy you too much by ranting in your direction this time :)

  • schnide #28 2 years ago

    Not at all, nice to have a big of intelligent debate. Let's see what they do with Syndicate first shall we? I loved it on the Amiga, so I hope they don't screw it up either. Their current FPS form suggests they want good things.

  • PoundHound #29 2 years ago

    Darleysam - I understood that their console figures were dubious, however, I believe their software totals are much more accurate(?). Still, I don't have a cat or a calculator, so VGChartz will do for now :p

  • IronCladChicken #30 2 years ago

    Wouldn't the best thing to do be to purchase the games you like regardless of publisher?

    We do need larger publishers to keep the industry active and relevent - & since publishers are both a buisness and dealing with risky prooperties (who knows how well a game will sell) - At least this way publishers will be aware that there are markets other than the casual gamer.

    Eventually we can hopefully end up with something like the Hollywood setup, where, while big budget movies, marketed at the masses are being made to keep the revenue comming in (an extra few quid stamped on the ticket price for 3D doesn't hurt), it's still worthwhile for distributers to make the smaller more innovative/interesting movies that aficionados prefer - The smaller budget means publishers will more likely recoup their costs, the greater creative freedom attracts the more talented 'talent' & then end product is likely to be more interesting to the more discerning movie-goer.

    Personally, I refuse to buy any game that costs over £30 (usually around £25 is y cut-off point). I'm sure the development costs require the higher price; I just don't feel the finished product is worth that kind of money.