News EA posts $1 billion loss

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/05/06/ea-posts-1-billion-loss/1

Electronic Arts has posted a net loss of more than USD 1.1 billion after a slow financial year.

 

I'm sure if they put more effort into the games they make, they would be getting more profits, and less loss *sigh*

 

Makes the rumors of the Apple buyout all the more interesting...

 

does this net loss also incorporate the companies they have bought this year?


but i agree a bit more time and care over games goes a long way

 

It doesnt matter what company you are, that is a LOT of debt to have hanging over you... hopefully the cost cutting measures this year will make it look more respectable next year... but not at the expense of the quality of games. it seems whever EA gets something right it gets kicked in the teeth (Dead Space, Mirrors Edge etc)

 

Must be all those pirates robbing the EA treasure ships off Somalia...

 

I don't feel sorry for EA considering they strong armed and raped (wallets, buyouts etc) their way to the top. They (past 2 CEOs) took a dump on the consumer claiming they're making/publishing master pieces. When in reality they're still making/publishing piece of crap games with a shinny box.

 

Ea have done this to themselves, they've ruined there reputation with gamers wolrdwide, first it was just releasing plan old crap, but these day it's more to do with releasing what should be a good game, but is buggy/broken in some way and them just abandoning it instead of fixing it.
It's got to the point now that I won't buy a EA game until I know its working as it should, I always wonder why reviews gloss over game breaking bugs in games, like mirrors edge.

 

+1

 

Recession, what recession? I just bought a ROFLCOPTER!
Will EA increase quality, hoping that will entice gamers, or will they dumb down further with cheap tat franchise games? I predict the latter. The Sims 3 anyone?

 

So hang on - they had sales of $4.2 billion but it cost them $5.3 billion to produce?? Talk about accountancy fail

 

I always say, turnover is worthless, if you get turned over.

 

too many people have been screwed over, too frequently, i know loads of people that just will not buy an EA game - far too many promises, that never come off.

poor ole EA.....

 

I'd buy more of their games if they made them work properly in wide screen; most of their games require hacks to work properly.

 

I'm in the heartless "serves them right" camp. Though my reason for hating EA is not because they continually churn out buggy/crap games, but because those games are being developed by studios who, when they were independent, were full of talent.

 

Westwood used to be one of my favorite companies, then EA stepped in and half the dev team quit.

 

Please don't use the term "fire" when referring to layoffs. Traditionally being "fired" means you screwed up. Being "layed off" means the company screwed up.

 

Oh I know how about they put secure rom on there future games too and I will proceed to not buy or play those as well.

Also westwood was awesome, I died a little inside when they got take over.

 

Westwood was awesome. In some ways I almost hope the juggernaut that is currently EA fails. They is gettin too big for their britches.

Big conglomerate developers such as EA can lead to crappier games, in my opinion. Small companies will spend the extra time to put a quality product out the door because they know a good game can mean their ultimate survival or utter failure.

EA can afford to churn out crappy games for a time, but perhaps they've been doing this too much. They are reporting a loss that would make any company cringe. A company's purpose is to make money. If it continues to lose money at an increasing rate, there is something wrong.

 

No real surprise.

Pretty much every game they release has turned into a annual improvement free orgy of sequels.

Then there is another issue, games are too often released full of bugs, also they don't release enough patches to fix whats broken and often those patches are late.

On top of that, they have a digital distribution system which does not work in most cases.