Halloween is a scary time of year, no less when you’re posting a $310 million net loss. EA CEO John Riccitiello sees “weakness” at retail in October and we’re betting this isn’t the end of the road of sorrow for game publishers around the globe.
Electronic Arts isn’t unfamiliar with bad times and we’re sure to see them make constant adjustments to their headcount, game releases and press as the economy goes into a bit of a slump. Although the game industry won’t see as big a hit as the financial market, everyone is going to watch their spending during slower economic times.
That slowness is a red flag for the mega-publisher, which says it’s “proactively making cost adjustments now.” One of those adjustments is the axing of some 600 EA employees across the globe. (Kotaku)
Last year Electronic Arts lost a “small” $195 million during the same time, not exactly a gold star on the financial records but it sure looks better than this loss. A few games may crumble under the economic pressures, Tiberium for example, but let us not forget the good times! EA posted some nice figures for Spore, Madden NFL 09, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.
So, they mixed a few sequels with a few new franchise hits and gave gamers some pretty hot titles for the year. Of course, hot titles in our hand do not always translate to positive revenue in theirs.
Hi guys.
As always: thanks for the episode, it was fun to listen to it 🙂
Regarding your topics in this episode:
I am very hyped for the new Atari console, but i can´t describe why. Maybe because the Atari 2600 was my first console as a kid, and i am a little bit nostalgic? The new one looks good, but as Jonah mentioned: the console will rise or fall with the games and they did not show anything right now (or i did not see anything).
I never played Ys as a kid, because as far as i know, the are not available in german, and as a kid, i was not able to understand english 🙂 The bumping mechanic seems a little bit awkward, but on the other hand it´s something different to everything else 🙂 I saw some videos about the newer versions of Ys (PS4 releases). Did one of you play them/one of them and can tell me, if one of them is worth playing?
I play Fortnite on PC sometimes with my friends. I did not bought the game, so i only can play the battle royal part and this is fun to me, if i play it with friends. I also played it on my mobile … for 2 minutes … its unplayable in my opinion … as expected 🙂 But if you want to play a round on PC with Discord or TeamSpeak to coordinate, let me know. My ingame Name is the same as here : Jackosis.
I have one question to all 3 of you: are you thinking about streaming some gaming of you or do YouTube Videos? Some kind of Let´s Plays or sth like that? I think it´s more work, so i don´t know if you would have the time for that 🙂
And for the OffTopic: right now i am into the a very old series: SpinCity with Michael J Fox (in germany its called Chaos City … don´t ask me why) and i started watching The Walking Dead.
I wish you a great week and a happy easter weekend and hope to get a new episode very soon 🙂
greetings from germany,
Ralf