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Title: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Elfen Lied on 2008 October 30, 21:47:01 Quote Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Electronic Arts Inc., the world's second-largest video-game maker, lowered its forecast for the fiscal year and said it would cuts jobs in response to a deteriorating economy. The shares fell. The company will eliminate 6 percent of its jobs to save $50 million a year, Redwood City, California-based Electronic Arts said today in a statement. Profit excluding some costs will be $1 to $1.40 a share for the year ending in March, below the $1.30 to $1.70 projected in July. Retailers are seeing a decline in foot traffic, Chief Financial Officer Eric Brown said in an interview. Shelf space for video games is increasing at key stores, he said. [/b] ``We're performing at or better than the overall industry so we're taking share,'' Brown said. ``We've adjusted as we think necessary.'' Electronic Arts fell $3.73, or 13 percent, to $24 in extended trading from a close of $27.73 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock has fallen 52 percent this year. The company reported its second-quarter net loss widened to $310 million, or 97 cents a share, from $195 million, or 62 cents, a year earlier. Excluding some items, the 6-cent loss matched the average of 21 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales rose 40 percent to $894 million, lifted by ``Rock Band'' and the ``Madden'' football titles. Sales in the current quarter will be hurt by a drop in consumer confidence and a delay in the release of a new ``Harry Potter'' game, Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey said in a research note yesterday. The Potter game was postponed after Time Warner Inc. pushed back the release of ``Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince'' to July from next month. Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks, maker of the ``Rock Band'' play-along video game, announced it will produce a title with songs from the Beatles for the 2009 holiday season. Electronic Arts distributes ``Rock Band.'' To contact the reporter on this story: Michael White in Los Angeles at mwhite8@bloomberg.net link (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aYRgRPg4miCM&refer=home) I really want to know their PC Game numbers. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: dusdeedawn on 2008 October 30, 22:03:41 Well, if they would stop adding bullshit to their games, people would stop suing their asses, and maybe actually want to play some of EA's games, no? Ah, well, there's no accounting for bad business, I guess. It sucks that people are losing their jobs, though.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: SoggyFox on 2008 October 30, 22:11:24 Of course - rather than start using -good- business practices to restore our confidence, they are -firing- people. Needless to say, I'm wishing JR gets everything he deserves. And it always works. Nemesis likes me.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Zazazu on 2008 October 31, 00:17:27 Uh, guys, almost everyone is cutting jobs. 6% in this economy is not at all shocking.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: SoggyFox on 2008 October 31, 00:21:21 Yes, but....they wouldn't being needing to, if they hadn't been treating us like crap - half of the economy's problems stem from corporate greed and from what I've seen, JR is not exactly on the nice end of the spectrum.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: fway on 2008 October 31, 01:29:50 Aww, poor EA ::) why not treat your employees like crap, too. I wouldn't just blame it on bad sales/etc. I blame it on the Fed, if you want to know what I'm talking about, just google "Zeitgeist the Movie". If they got the damn DRM off their games, it is possible that they wouldn't have to cut anything.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: SoggyFox on 2008 October 31, 02:23:16 Its a lot more complicated, but basically, the bad economy is not helped by the US government continuing to give tax breaks to corporations that have moved their jobs out of the country, it is not helped by giving people who don't -need- to spend money a tax break - give that to middle classes and lower, they still buy. There are a lot of things at the root of our current mess.
Not my fault, I never voted for Bush....for that matter, I've never voted for a Republican outside of local elections. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: kenmtl on 2008 October 31, 04:03:41 Whoa on the communism there Soggy.
And ya in tough times it's not so surprising. However having buttsecks'd your fan base probably isn't going to help the turnaround. Lets hope next quarter is better than last. NOT. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Erhama on 2008 October 31, 08:40:36 It's people like JR who make me frustrated and angry....
DRM = Bad Games = Good DRM + Games = You dumbasses... EA should learn to love, they didn't obviously learn that in Kindergarten, so go back to kindergarten, please? =3 If they didn't put in the DRM, sales would have gone so much farther than they are. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: justso on 2008 October 31, 09:21:51 The crap thing is the people who are making all the shite decisions will still have their jobs. The little guy will get it right in the neck. When the powers that be have cut the jobs and saved the company money, they will be awarding themselves huge well done bonuses. They will learn nothing and continue to screw us over.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Pescado on 2008 October 31, 10:42:23 This is why it is important to not only NOT buy SecuROM, but to stigmatize and ridicule anyone who DOES! Just as people who actually respond to spam are as much The Enemy, if not more so, than the spammers themselves, PEOPLE WHO BUY SECUROM ARE THE BIGGEST PART OF THE PROBLEM. They must be scorned, mocked, and ridiculed!
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Paden on 2008 October 31, 17:28:38 I've been doing that since Bon Voyage, Pescado, so that's nothing new. They need to get the high money bastards out of the the offices and put in lower-paid folks in that give an actual damn about the customers. Cut about three to five of the biggest wage earners outta there and they may actually save some money.
On another note, I'd love to see the voter be able to veto the pay raises the Senators and Congressmen get. They vote themselves a jump in money and don't understand why the hell the voters want them out of office. They whine about their cost of living going up and really, that's stupid. If they'd learn how to live like normal humans with one home and a mortgage, one car and payments and trying to put food on the table while paying all of their own bills, they might not get such an inflated sense of entitlement. Same goes for the corporate CEOs; make them live like normal wage-earners for once. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: HugeLunatic on 2008 October 31, 18:10:30 On another note, I'd love to see the voter be able to veto the pay raises the Senators and Congressmen get. I would love to see this. I don't understand how they are the only ones that decide their own pay raises. Can you go into work and say I want a pay raise? And get it? No. You have someone else deciding whether or not you've earned it. Most of those Senators and Congressmen haven't earned a pay raise. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Paden on 2008 October 31, 18:55:15 The only thing that many of them have earned is pay cuts, but I don't see that happening. Or jail time for some of them. I wish.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: SoggyFox on 2008 October 31, 19:50:01 They also get a pension, even if they only serve one term.
The reason they can decide such things is because Congress handles the budget. At one point their pay wasn't so bad, only 120k a year or something - but when you are already rich, why do you need to get paid? And since almost all of congress starts as a lawyer, they aren't poor. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Saraswati on 2008 November 01, 22:24:57 This is why it is important to not only NOT buy SecuROM, but to stigmatize and ridicule anyone who DOES! Just as people who actually respond to spam are as much The Enemy, if not more so, than the spammers themselves, PEOPLE WHO BUY SECUROM ARE THE BIGGEST PART OF THE PROBLEM. They must be scorned, mocked, and ridiculed! That approach has been picking up speed since Spore got released.. I noticed a change of attitude among the posts I saw, and it was a lot more common for the posters on the big forums to understand the issues involved, and understand them really well.. Which is why EA didn't really get away with the nonsense of increasing the activations from three to five, people KNEW it was a token gesture. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: justso on 2008 November 01, 22:56:06 I have been public enemy no.1 since I refused to buy spore. Thank god for the release of Fable 2. All thoughts of spore are now forgotten, at least for now.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: SoggyFox on 2008 November 01, 23:30:56 Well, and also its a loud of crap, whther its 3 or 5 or 50....its still a limit on something -you- buy, and with money so tight right now, people won't stand for it.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Saraswati on 2008 November 01, 23:38:00 actually that hadn't occurred to me, but of course that would be part of someone's buying decision when they don't have large amounts of cash to spread around..
By the way, EA screaming "one million sold" of Spore was a bit of hogwash.. what it was was more like 400,000 on PC and the rest made up from platforms like mobile and DS.. which don't cost as much. ;) And considering The Witcher's sold a million and Sins of the Solar Empire sold at least half a million by now, it's hardly the mega-hit they hoped for. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Skadi on 2008 November 02, 00:57:55 And Pirate Mushroom doesn't pay for her DS games either :D
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: SoggyFox on 2008 November 02, 15:13:48 actually that hadn't occurred to me, but of course that would be part of someone's buying decision when they don't have large amounts of cash to spread around.. By the way, EA screaming "one million sold" of Spore was a bit of hogwash.. what it was was more like 400,000 on PC and the rest made up from platforms like mobile and DS.. which don't cost as much. ;) And considering The Witcher's sold a million and Sins of the Solar Empire sold at least half a million by now, it's hardly the mega-hit they hoped for. Not to mention Fallout 3 just came out, with an Oblivion type engine... Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: silver on 2008 November 02, 19:28:58 What I would like to see ... what makes me truly curious ... would be to see EA's sales figures since 2001, which was the last time that the US economy was really terrible, before the alleged "recovery". (Yeah. Tell that to the people tossed on the street who spent months and even years looking for a job that MIGHT pay the rent. For some reason, some politicians don't seem to realize that a job is NOT a job is NOT a job. A Wally-world job usually doesn't pay anywhere near a good manufacturing job. But I digress.)
I do have sales figures from 2007/2008 from a Wall Street Journal article. If the projected income from late 2008 was/is even WORSE than they expected, many more employees should be afraid. Be very afraid. According to this article, EA was betting very heavily on Spore to bail their butts out. Guess Spore wasn't quite the saving grace they thought it would be. And STILL, they won't listen to their customers and at least consider using Steam. They will happily blame pirates and the economy, but not their own stupid business practices. Anyway ... found a chart on this page: http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t39684.html According to the article I have, 2008, though, seems to be a year of steady losses, with losses of over 400 million forecasted in the last fiscal quarter of this year. But that was as of September 2, 2008. If EA is seeing even more losses, eek! This was the best I could come up with: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122539935362185471.html Hmmmmmm ........ P.S. Off-topic, slightly, I was trying to find a copy of that article I have, since it has a huge grease spot on it, and reading the chart could be difficult, and came up with these articles: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/14/AR2008091400885.html http://voices.allthingsd.com/20080909/gamers-fight-back-against-lackluster-spore-gameplay-bad-drm/ and: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/riccitiello-investors-don-t-give-a-sh-t-about-quality Reading about EA IS entertaining! Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: lexilove on 2008 November 02, 22:46:48 *snippety snip* That article makes me laugh every time! XDhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/14/AR2008091400885.html I have bought every Sims 2 EP except for Pets, and I purchased Spore for my birthday. Yes, I was aware of SecuROM, but I figured it wouldn't hurt my computer (it didn't). But so many people are having computer trouble right now because of that sucky DRM that EA thinks is going to stop Pirates. If they haven't noticed, people are illegally downloading their games left and right; it obviously hasn't stopped anyone. Spore runs extremely slowly on my computer, and yes, my computer has better specs than required to run the game. Now the game won't even start up, and I just uninstalled it about 5 minutes ago. Now I'm going to join the masses and write a 1-star Amazon review. ;D Anyway, I'm glad EA is suffering for what they did to their consumers by putting SecuROM on their games. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Paden on 2008 November 02, 23:33:27 Go to RYG or the PRISM to see how to check for SecuROm and removal instructions, just in case.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: SnarkyShark on 2008 November 03, 03:46:39 Reading about EA IS entertaining! Probably more so than their SecuRom infested games. Maybe their next release should be a strategy game called Sim-EAssholes. The goal could be to buy as many successful software companies as you can and figure out all kinds of unique and creative strategies for destroying them, all while increasing your own salary and cutting your workforce. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Saraswati on 2008 November 03, 08:00:54 Snarky, have I told you I love you again this month.. ;D
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: Nightmare on 2008 November 03, 13:03:15 Reading about EA IS entertaining! Probably more so than their SecuRom infested games. Maybe their next release should be a strategy game called Sim-EAssholes. The goal could be to buy as many successful software companies as you can and figure out all kinds of unique and creative strategies for destroying them, all while increasing your own salary and cutting your workforce. QFMFT (http://gi60.photobucket.com/groups/h19/7BKRK218RK/2cylon_muahaha1.gif) Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: SoggyFox on 2008 November 06, 03:05:40 *steals Snarky for another brother* Your dry wit is such a comfort right now. You can be part of my shark brother collection - I just hope you don't mind hugs and kisses on the cheeks from females.
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: missangelica on 2008 November 06, 04:21:16 *steals Snarky for another brother* Your dry wit is such a comfort right now. You can be part of my shark brother collection - I just hope you don't mind hugs and kisses on the cheeks from females. (http://tinypic.com/monm0) Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: ChaosInAMinor on 2008 November 06, 08:57:22 *steals Snarky for another brother* Your dry wit is such a comfort right now. You can be part of my shark brother collection - I just hope you don't mind hugs and kisses on the cheeks from females. *Bunny/Pancake Macro snip* Don't YOU have a shark brother collection? All the cool kids do. Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: SoggyFox on 2008 November 12, 01:58:52 Well, okay - the other is more a spider type - but his most memorable character in the game I know him from is a Shark.... >.> :)
Title: Re: Electronic Arts Lowers 2009 Forecast, Will Cut Jobs Post by: missangelica on 2008 November 12, 02:06:14 Well, okay - the other is more a spider type - but his most memorable character in the game I know him from is a Shark.... >.> :) Days later I still have no idea what you're talking about. :P |