http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2npyz...k-ticker-why-eas-market-valuation-has-crashed WOW 50% stock market value wiped off in 9 months
This is what scares me about the media. If you're not knowledgeable in a field, you're almost bound to take a normally credible source as fact on any future publication you don't know much about. Hell, I do this all the time on this very site, whenever a BT reviewer starts going into the underlying architecture of processors or GPUS - I'm forced by my lack of knowledge to assume the writer of the article knows at least more than I do, and do my best to keep up with what's being said. Sadly, the article doesn't supply nearly enough information to even begin to justify it's title or over-arching theme of doom and I really can't be bothered to go and look for the evidence that someone should have supplied to assert their theory. It may be the case that yes, this is an inadvertent accurate depiction of EAs financial position, but it's certainly not qualified by the data (or lack thereof) they've provided in this article! Needless to say, EA is probably A-ok!
If you want a better source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=european-daily It's not just rumour.
Gone 5.30, about to dash for the doors. Quick synopsis is: Share price is irrelevant without other figures to clarify the business position, none of which are ever mentioned. In your car: 1000BHP - Awesome! 1Ft-lb of torque only though - Useless. In your computer: 64 Core CPU - Awesome! Shame each core is only clocked at 10Mhz - No good. There are 100's of things that EA themselves could have done intentionally, with full knowledge of what effect it would have on per-share-price, to actually improve their business position overall. IIRC in the article they only mention the company market cap once - the companies end position of $4Bn? How do you know without looking it up that initial market cap wasn't $3bn, and despite the now lower per-share-price, that the number of outstanding shares hasn't increased dramatically to offset this?
current share price is $12.2 on nasdaq down 46cents a share , and thats since opening today. so seems the traders are quite jittery over something
Hmm those are stock share prices. If a company tanked that much within a year, there's some serious concerns. But there has to be a reason for the devaluation. They haven't exactly lost that much business have they? Unless of course origin cost them half their stock. Which is ludicrous.
In all honesty is anyone really that surprised at this with their lack of innovation or games that capture you of recent times? I feel like this was bound to happen eventually and it was just a ticking time bomb waiting to happen. Even the companies who's games have been capturing people for ages (eg: WOW) are starting to lose users on them.
exactly , games are becoming so similar - take the Syndicate "reboot", take a great game and concept and then just turn it into "another" FPS rather than create a game with a USP. Maybe they will start to get the message soon that we are looking for A.) Some originality and B.) Give us a game that can use our PC hardware - not just what the outdated xbox 360 can offer.
And now we must understand why there isn't originality for ISPs which are AAA titles. The reason is the rising cost of game development, companies run by investors aren't going to be willing to actually spend money on risky development. And neither are they going to close off a section of the market (consoles) when they are the more profitable market. It's a conflict between investment and creativity. For the investor, whatever moves units counts. It's a shame but that's how it works. It's why indie games are getting popular, the proliferation and entrance cost is much easier on the wallet for indie and small scale games. AAA titles can't be expected to be cheap nor can it be expected to be creative. After all, investors don't like risks. And companies must not offend the investors. So the corporate nature says.
EA won't just die. They have valuable IP's even though they keep remaking the same game every year. Need a great sports game, just buy last year's game at very cheap price. The NFS games will appeal to a certain demographic group and once they grow up, younger generation will come in and fill the gap. Started playing from NFS>NFS2>NFS2SENFS3>NFSMW>NFSU>NFSU2>NFS Shift>NFS Shift 2. I', still a sucker for NFS, but then I don't see the need to buy another NFS until NFS manage to rip off Forza 4 for PC. I think the best was NFS2SE. That was a game at a time you needed a great pc to just run it. Also, when some small indie does great, EA just buys them. Not that worried about EA tbh.
Tbh their are so many factors in regards to its stock-prices, EA related or otherwise. To start E3 came and went this year and a number of big players such as Ubisoft unveiled some pretty impressive titles, where as EA really failed to offer anything out of the ordinary, Deadspace 3 was probably the highlight. In the longer run, most of EA's long running series are coming to an end and nothing has yet been announced to replace them. Then their was the whole Mass Effect 3 thing. Its sales where great, but in terms of company image, releasing day one DLC and offering a less than satisfactory ending is sure to harm their PR and in the long run might just be another 'stay away'sign for investors. Then their is the game industry which is slightly stagnant atm with PC games being bottlenecked by Consoles and Consoles only being capable of handling the same thing's more or less that we have seen over the 5 or 6 years or so. With no innovation and no real reason for gamers to buy new titles, particularly when they have a large back-catalogue of games that all more or less play and feel the same as these 'new' games (Though double checking - The NASDAQ is up while EA is down, perhaps EA's titles are just that extra bit more uninspiring). Then we get the Casual gaming industry that's been growing over the past few years and offers a real threat to large AAA companies like EA who tend to produce games for the more invested gamer (sure you can claim the difficulty of their games is 'casual', but I mean casual as in phone apps and the like) It might also be based on some internal struggles within EA or particulars regarding EA's strategies that investors don't like. We might not have been informed, but most investors will have their sources. Hell it could be the fact that they have essentially taken a fremium games model for Battlefield 3 (arguably their headlining game) yet are opting to charge for the game itself, which A. Will Alienate new players and B. Will anger current players. Perhaps player numbers are declining online in BF3 (cant say myself, not been on in months) and investors don't see the game lasting much longer against the likes of Call of Duty. EA has also been a tad bi-polar lately and seems to be making a number of messy decisions. Such as the whole Steam mess and it going back on previous statements (such as claiming that BF3 Content will never be charged, always free). tldr: Its not going to be a single factor (if it was wed hear about it - think big as in letting go half of their staff of closing down multiple offices), but more likely going to be a number of factors, particularly around its competition and the market as a whole and how it compares that will be pushing its prices down. What there is no denying is that these drops are cause for concern, but their are just so many factors to consider its impossible to say why the prices are as such, and thus impossible to say how serious they really are.
With stocks though who knows what actually happened? What I can say though is that their PR hasn't been positive at all this year (getting voted worst buisness.. which was bull has that should always be Haliburton) and the whole BF3 issue where the entire audience was divided. What interests me is how BF3 will sustain itself given that most of the servers are rented out by EA.
