SWTOR and the EA stock plummet

[Digglett]

It didn't kill LOTRO. That game is in far better shape than it was before going F2P and is releasing it's 5th expansion soon.

WoW has now lost 4 million subs? I don't think so. It hasn't even hit 2 million.

Pretty much, F2P seems to on all accounts do more good than bad for most companies.

[Gothicshark]

The stock dropped because wow subs have dropped, do you think people WONT buy MoP now? Is that the perception? It's flat out wrong then...

What kind of backwards logic are you making? Investors deiced to sell when a company looses sales, so now customers wont buy the new product...what?!? they are two unrelated issues. the sales for MoP will have to do with the fickle customers who may or may not buy the product based on the sheep like mentality customers have. My guess MoP will sell, and WOW will have a 10% increase of Subs for 3-6 months. However, if MoP fails to have high returns than investors will not invest in Activision Blizzard Inc. Because investors look at quarterlies and consumer reports. EA took a hit over ME3 because of Consumer reports showing a high % of dissatisfaction.
Think of consumers as sheep, and investors as people who make money based on what the sheep eat. Now think of Hippy protestors as goats in the next field. The investors watch the sheep and ignore the goats. This is the simplest way to look at it.

[Leonard McCoy]

What kind of backwards logic are you making? Investors deiced to sell when a company looses sales, so now customers wont buy the new product...what?!? they are two unrelated issues. the sales for MoP will have to do with the fickle customers who may or may not buy the product based on the sheep like mentality customers have. My guess MoP will sell, and WOW will have a 10% increase of Subs for 3-6 months. However, if MoP fails to have high returns than investors will not invest in Activision Blizzard Inc. Because investors look at quarterlies and consumer reports. EA took a hit over ME3 because of Consumer reports showing a high % of dissatisfaction.
Think of consumers as sheep, and investors as people who make money based on what the sheep eat. Now think of Hippy protestors as goats in the next field. The investors watch the sheep and ignore the goats. This is the simplest way to look at it.

It's not backwards. The two are totally related. They dropped the stock because it lost customers and because the perception is that the game won't recover it. The customers who left CLEARLY WEREN'T SATISFIED. That's a foolish perception IMO as the game will probably return some of it's sub so I don't see why leaving the ship makes any sense what so ever. The sheep are actually trolls in alot of cases and I can't think that it's reasonable to base investment decisions on what @easuckballs21 on twitter thinks.

[Gothicshark]

WoW has now lost 4 million subs? I don't think so. It hasn't even hit 2 million.

World of Warcraft hit an All time high right at the launch of Wrath with 13 million subs. it leveled off at 12 million for a long time, currently Blizzard does not give out the total subscription numbers only the income from subscriptions, which is estimated between 9-10.3 million subs. If you take the high estimate and subtract it from the low current estimate you have a potential loss of 4 million subscribers since 2010.

---------- Post added 2012-06-22 at 03:20 PM ----------

The sheep are actually trolls in alot of cases and I can't think that it's reasonable to base investment decisions on what @easuckballs21 on twitter thinks.

Ok you are confusing Sheep and goats again, @easucksballs21 would be a goat, sure a goat may or may not eat the grass that is meant for sheep, but it is expected to complain about it. What is noticed by investors is when the sheep complain. Which happened with Mass Effect 3, so much so that it really took a lot of people off guard. Because sheep normally don't complain that is why they are sheep. Now the only people kicking up a fuss might be goats, but that is because most of the sheep moved on to something different, and it is highly likely they wont go back to Bioware. That is what the investors have noticed.

Which news do you think an Investor pays attention to? Yahoo, MSNBC, BBC, CNN, or something else? the answer is something else, Investors Business Daily, Forbes and several lesser know financial only news groups. If it hits headlines on one of these Investors pay close attention.

Take back hit both. Granted there are a lot of factors which will determine if a protest on a product is made up of actual customers or not, the sad truth is Most of the initial push on the take back movement was actual customers that is why it got noticed.

[rhorle]

A lot of people seem to be ignoring this.

And no one has yet addressed the glaring inconsistency I pointed out on page 7.

That is because VG Holding corp is still a part of EA. It is why EA talks about SWTOR subscribers and earnings during EA quarterly reports. It was ignored because it was wrong and isn't an inconsistency.

[Dazzy]

"The decline I'm talking about is clearly visible - starting last November and carrying on almost uninterrupted right up to this week."
If you bothered to read the article you would see that .Hence why it was stated SINCE the Swotr launch not BECAUSE OF THE swotr launch

Heres a picture of how their stocks have been going.

So what catastrophically horrible game was released at the beginning of august 2011?

Looks like a game company that hasn't released a mega franchise game in about a year to me. Better planning maybe to spread them out a bit.

[rhorle]

The point is that the negative press or spin on things like the mass effect 3 ending and swtors perception as a disappointment has affected the investors outlook on the stock. I don't think that's simply the case and goldman sachs is an excellent example because negative press against the financial institutions certainly hasn't hurt the investors outlook on them.

Which industry got a billion dollar bailout? Gaming or the financial institution? There is a reason why some industries aren't impacted by bad press or public out cry as much as other industries. I'm sure investors weren't giving banks a good when outlook thousands were going to switch to credit unions and resulted in the debit card fee's being changed.

---------- Post added 2012-06-22 at 07:57 PM ----------

Which is also not very rational in my opinion as many of those people will likely return when Blizzard finally gets around to putting out new content for MoP. The stock market is almost as bad as people on the forum claiming wow is dead and the sky is falling.

The announcement and subscriber loss they mentioned happened during new content releases and a time where new content was only a month or so away. It was very rational for investors at that point in time

[Gothicshark]

So what catastrophically horrible game was released at the beginning of august 2011?

Looks like a game company that hasn't released a mega franchise game in about a year to me. Better planning maybe to spread them out a bit.

The high point coincides with a profit report which was really good.
http://www.vgchartz.com/article/8735...9m-in-revenue/


as for what happened in July, not August. EA acquired popcap games. When ever a company buys out another company it will take a temporary hit on the markets.

[Jarlathe]

The way I'd see it as an investor is this:

The game buying community is turning very hostile toward EA. Best to sell up while sales are good, because if this run of bad press and consumer outrage continues, then there's every possibility that EA's revenue might turn just as sour. And that's bad for your share price. There's more to the market than hard sales numbers after all.

This is the most logical thing said so far. The smart investment money in the entertainment industry ties to read the market, just like any other investment vehicle. This is no different then say manufacturing, where a down turn in consumer confidence can signal whether or not an investment firm will rate a stock a sell or buy.

---------- Post added 2012-06-22 at 08:22 PM ----------

Granted EA sports titles are the best sports titles, but What is the actual market share for FIFA? NBA? Madden? Mean while the dead bodies of 100+ potentially good games lay at the feet of EA.

(look up Spore, Earth and Beyond, Need For Speed if you want a good example)

Just going to point out, EA sports games are the only ones that feature the NBA, NFL, NHL ect. This doesn't make them good (IMHO they are shit), it just means that they are the only game in town.

For instance, I played Nascar Racing 1, 2, 3 and 4. They were great games and reflected the love that Papyrus put forth in making them. Even Nascar Racing 2003 wasn't bad. But guess what? EA bought the rights and pretty much made a shit racing game. Gone were the sim characteristics of the game.

EA wanted one thing, and one thing only. To make a bucket full of cash without putting any effort in to continuing make a quality series. They got away from the simulation and made the game into an arcade racer, then just updated some paint jobs, updated the teams and slapped a new name on the box and sent it out the fucking door every year. They added nothing to the games from the time they took over the licensing, to the time the lost it.