Tag: Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Posts Growth In Q4 2016


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Electronic Arts has posted its year end results for the fiscal year 2016, and everything is coming up profit. The publishing behemoth raked in $4.5 billion in revenue this past year, up from the $4.3 billion in the fiscal year ending in 2015. According to the company’s own projections, the next year should continue the trend with an estimated $4.9 billion.

As sales of digital goods climb, packaged games continued to lose market share. Digital revenue has taken over physical media by a growing margin, $2.5 billion compared to $2.0 billion, while EA’s profit margin has increased to an eye-popping 82.7%. PC gamers make up 26% of EA’s revenue while consoles account for 51% with mobile making up the rest. The console market had the strongest growth the past year, a 22% increase in revenue year over year.

Gamers hoping to see the end of downloadable content will have to wait another year, as customers spent $1.1 billion on “extra content,” a separate figure from the $570 million spent on mobile. Subscriptions and ad revenue made up $339 million while full game downloads accounted for about half a billion.

Fiscal year 2017 sees the launch of several big name titles, including Battlefield 1, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, and Mass Effect Andromeda.

There was no mention of The Old Republic that we could find in any of the documents.

(Source: EA)

In Plain English: Bassett V. Electronic Arts Dismissed


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It’s been over a year since we last checked in on the curious case of Justin Bassett and Electronic Arts, so a brief history may be in order:

Justin Bassett sued Electronic Arts over the company shutting down their game servers even though the games are still available in stores with online play advertised on the box. EA attempted to take the case into arbitration, citing their EULA, and Bassett argued that the arbitration clause was not valid as it was added later on. EA argued that Bassett agreed to the new EULA when he attempted to log into the online servers. Last year, the judge sided with Electronic Arts and threw the case into arbitration.

As I said back then, we will probably never know what the final ruling was as arbitration results are almost always sealed to the public. What we do know is that, as of last month, the case has been dismissed with prejudice.

Plaintiff Justin T. Bassett (“Plaintiff”) and defendant Electronic Arts Inc., the parties to the above-captioned action, stipulate and agree, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), that Plaintiff hereby does and shall voluntarily dismiss the above-captioned action, and all of the claims within it, with prejudice.

What does that mean? Dismissal with prejudice bars Bassett from bringing an action on the same claim in the future.

[Column] EA Access Is A Pretty Good Deal


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EA Access is a side-service available for Xbox One that trades a subscription for access to numerous Electronic Arts titles. $5 monthly or $30 annually grants access to the EA Vault, a number of full games, and ten hour trials of games that recently released or in many cases haven’t been released yet. There are other perks that have shown up, like a 10% discount to EA titles when buying digitally, occasional sales, and more likely on the way.

As someone who doesn’t exactly play many of EA’s games, I bought into the annual subscription with some doubts. After a few months of using the service, I am confident that it has paid itself off between the free games and free trials, and I wanted to offer my experience because a cursory glance around the web shows numerous people having the same reaction I did: “A subscription to play EA games? What a ripoff!” As I’ve learned covering MMOs, the very presence of a subscription service tends to leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, especially when stacked on top of another subscription (in this case Xbox Live).

And let’s be clear about one thing, I’m not saying that this service is for everyone. For some, EA Access will objectively offer nothing of value, and I make that clear in my points below. For everyone else, it’s a matter of weighing costs and benefits, and I promise not to dive into the though processes of “at $2.50 a month, you can’t afford not to subscribe!” This article specifically covers the Xbox version of EA Access.

1. If You Like Sports Games…

Let’s be fair, the girth of sports titles in the EA Access vault is because Electronic Arts knows exactly how quickly sales drop after a new Madden or NHL game releases, but if you’re a sports fan on a budget then $30 a year to play all of the previous year’s sports titles isn’t a bad deal at all. Right now a subscription gets you access to Madden 16, FIFA 15, NBA Live 15, NHL 15, Madden 15, EA Sports UFC, Madden 25, and FIFA 14. Three football, two soccer, one basketball, hockey, and MMA fighting.

The inclusion of Madden NFL 16 to the list last month is probably a sign that you won’t have to wait until the next game in the series is out in order to keep up with your sports rosters, you’ll probably just have to wait for the sales to diminish to within the margin of error. If you consider pricing, $30 for a year to play a number of sports titles, so long as you’re willing to be six or seven months behind the latest release, isn’t a bad deal. If you do buy the current sports titles, EA Access gives 10% off of those Ultimate Team packs that sell so well according to EA’s reports.

In addition, you have UFC 2, NBA Live 16, FIFA 16, NHL 16, and Rory Mcilroy PGA tour available as ten hour trials, so in addition to the previous year’s sports titles you also have access to a fair amount of play on the current list of games to give you an idea on whether or not you want to buy up. And look at it this way, by the time Madden/NHL/FIFA 17 comes out, 16 will probably be playable in the vault for free.

2. 10 Hour Trials

I was surprised to see EA offering ten hour trials on some of their newest games, since it clashes with the push on opening day/week sales being the most crucial to a title’s success. Having some form of trial system makes sense, Playstation Plus offers full game trials in the realm of an hour or so to give a nugget of gameplay and then cut it off while the momentum is still going. And while you might assume that the trials are of older titles or EA Partner games, the list is populated by Star Wars Battlefront, Need for Speed, Unravel, and Plants Vs Zombies 2. In fact, many of these games are pushing ten hour trials before launch day.

A 10 hour trial is risky business; it’s more than enough time for many gamers to burn out on a title they would have bought and lost interest in the same time frame, with the only difference being EA loses on a $60 sale. The presence of very new titles showing up on EA Access can groom customers into putting off pre-ordering to wait for the demo, thus harming game sales even further. Finally, it means that the game has to engage the player on a level that, after the ten hours, they are still willing to go out and pay full price for the title.

I suppose in a way that the game trials could at least improve sales further down the line. Someone who plays the game through the end of the trial period must have liked something about it, otherwise they would have stopped playing by then, and that person might see the game months down the line at $30 and pick it up. It isn’t a full priced sale, but it is a sale nonetheless. Or they’ll just wait for it to hit the EA Access vault.

For me, this function saved me the money of buying Star Wars: Battlefront. After playing a good eight hours of the trial, I’m glad that I didn’t throw down any real money. Sure EA lost a sale, but they saved themselves a disgruntled, disappointed customer for future games.

3. The Vault

I’d be willing to put money down on Dragon Age: Inquisition being a big factor in many EA Access purchases, at least considering the game was added to the vault less than a year after its launch and happens to be the only game apart from Titanfall and Popcap’s games that isn’t part of an annual franchise. The list of titles in the EA Vault are games that the hardcore fans already picked up on day one, meaning the subscription is a way to pick up some revenue from the moderately interested.

Currently the vault includes Madden 16, Battlefield Hardline, Dragon Age: Inquisition, NBA Live 15, FIFA 15, NHL 15, Madden 15, UFC, Titanfall, Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, Peggle 2, Need for Speed Rivals, NFL 25, FIFA 14, Battlefield 4, and Plants Vs Zombies. Many of the games on the vault are showing up less than a year after launch, as low as six months and likely well before they hit $30 retail.

The downside is that EA’s vault happens to target a very specific demographic: Shooter and sports fans. If you have no interest in Battlefield/Titanfall or EA Sports, there is literally nothing here for you outside of a couple of Popcap games that can be bought cheap elsewhere and Dragon Age: Inquisition that can likely be picked up pre-owned on the cheap. Since many of the EA Sports titles abandoned the PC platform years ago, they’ve been replaced in the Vault library with the full Dragon Age and Dead Space series, as well as Sim City and This War of Mine. If it weren’t for the annual $30 price being unavailable on PC, I’d say it was a better deal than the Xbox One version.

On another hand, many of the games in EA’s vault play better with the knowledge that you didn’t pay (specifically) for them. No, I’m not technically playing Battlefield 4 for free, but as part of the bundle there isn’t a specific value to attach and say “I spent $x for this?”

4. Sales

I put this one low on the list because it targets a smaller, but growing audience if you read sales numbers: If you buy multiple EA games at launch every year and don’t mind buying digital, EA Access is a bargain. 10% off of digital orders means you’re paying off your annual subscription after five games, not considering any expansions or microtransactions you buy in between, and also not factoring in the free games added to the vault.

In Plain English: Bassett V. Electronic Arts


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Here at MMO Fallout we take strides to keep you up to date on ongoing litigation, because generally the news only covers the start and the end, but not the years in between or the actual arguments being made. The case of Bassett V. Electronic Arts involves the termination of online services and accusations of misleading advertising. While it wouldn’t normally make it to MMO Fallout, I see the case being poorly referenced enough in MMO discussions to warrant some clarification.

All of the information is directly sourced from the court docket, which I have access to.

The basics of the case are as such: The plaintiff, Justin T. Bassett (on behalf of himself and others) is suing Electronic Arts claiming that the company misled customers about its online services, particularly that they eventually shut down in contradiction with online play still being advertised on the box. Electronic Arts attempted to bring the case into arbitration by citing its EULA, which the plaintiff is challenging as unenforceable because the arbitration clause was not present when he bought the game and was instead added later on as part of a newly modified agreement.

The case has been going for nearly two years, during which the two parties have done a lot of orders, objections, responses to objections, and responses to responses. The plaintiff wants his case to carry out in court, while EA is attempting to bring it to arbitration.

That’s it. I see this case brought up quite a bit in conversation about services shutting down, eventually someone will say “well EA got sued for it” and cite this case. Since very few websites cover lawsuits past their initiation, and since you need access to the court records and some knowledge of legalese, not to mention money, to look it up yourself, it can be very difficult to find coverage later than 2013 when it all started. Because of this lack of coverage, people have no problem citing the lawsuit as though EA has already lost.

So here is where the lawsuit stands presently: The court needs to decide whether to push the case towards arbitration or allow it to go to trial. As far as the original complaints about misleading advertising and services rendered, those aren’t even being addressed yet. If the case goes to arbitration, odds are that’s the last we’ll hear about it. If it goes to trial, it could be a long time before it comes to a conclusion.

There you have it.

(Source: Bassett V. Electronic Arts Inc Court Dockets)

Something Big Coming From Origin Today


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Something big is coming to Origin today, at least that’s what Electronic Arts would like us to think. The message above was posted on Origin’s Twitter account yesterday, at 5pm. What could it be? If it’s explosive, we’re going to guess something related to Battlefield and On the House. Just saying.

(Source: Origin)

Less Massive: Dungeon Keeper Ad Deemed Misleading


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A rather notable blow has been struck against the free to play industry, with the removal of a Dungeon Keeper ad on the grounds that it was misleading. The Advertising Standards Agency in the UK looked into a consumer complaint that Electronic Arts was misleadingly advertising Dungeon Keeper as a free to play game while omitting important information about the game’s cash shop. The ASA upheld the complaint, based on what it regards to be excessive, frequent, and unreasonable time-gates on content.

As posted on the ASA website:

While we understood that the average consumer would appreciate that free-to-play games were likely to contain monetisation functions, we considered that they would also expect the play experience of a game described as ‘free’ to not be excessively restricted. Similarly, although we acknowledged that a timer mechanism could be a legitimate part of gameplay experience, the nature of the timer frequency and length in Dungeon Keeper, in combination with the way it was monetised, was likely to create a game experience for non-spenders that did not reflect their reasonable expectations from the content of the ad. Because the game had the potential to restrict gameplay beyond that which would be expected by consumers and the ad did not make this aspect of the role of in-app purchasing clear, we concluded that it was misleading.

EA’s CEO recently called Dungeon Keeper a “shame,” after the game was met with overwhelming backlash and quickly dropped off of the app charts, followed by the closure of Mythic Entertainment.

(Source: Pocket Gamer)

Less Massive: Origin Sale Up To 70% Off


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Electronic Arts has announced a giant sale on Origin with prices up to 70% off. The sale runs until June 16th and covers a wide variety of games and DLC packs, including both Titanfall and Battlefield 4 for 50% off their regular price. You can even get The Secret World for 50% off, so what are you waiting for?

Check it out.

Wrath of Heroes To Shut Down, Mythic Denies Refunds


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Eventually someone will realize that despite the success of games like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and Valve’s DOTA 2, the MOBA genre is not the next line of games where companies can put out any product and simply sit back and watch the money print itself. Originally announced in 2011, Wrath of Heroes was supposed to be a slimmed down version of Warhammer Online. All the fun of Warhammer’s scenarios without the countless hours of boring crap that is required by an MMO. Regardless, the game never caught on as well as hoped, and as a result Mythic has announced that the servers will come down on March 29th.

Wrath of Heroes is perhaps another example on why spending money in a game that is still in beta is a bad idea. Wrath of Heroes will shut down having never left beta status, and Mythic has revealed that none of the gem purchases made by players will be refunded. While we have seen other companies perform partial or full refunds when a game is shut down mid-beta, Mythic has decided to not go down that route. Instead, any player who played after January 1st, 2013, or those who have an outstanding balance of gems, will receive one free month of Warhammer Online as well as a treasure chest with items for the MMO.

Undoubtedly this announcement will fuel discussion as to why a game still in beta was required to hit financial goals.

(Source: Wrath of Heroes)

The Old Republic Grandfathers In Character Locks


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Bioware has launched patch 1.6.2, bringing with it all sorts of bug fixes, balance changes, and miscellaneous changes. Chief amongst the updates in the patch notes is the revelation that Bioware will now be enforcing character slot restrictions. Why now, after all this time? That’s not important. What is important is that free players are restricted to two characters per server, with preferred status players capped at six and subscribers capped at twelve. In a completely unrelated move to the newly enforced cap on character slots, players are now able to purchase character slots from the cartel market for 600 coins.

Here is where the situation becomes confusing. For subscribers and preferred status players who already had more than the default amount, you still have access to your characters, but you still have to buy that character slot if you want to extend your limit on that server. Still doesn’t make sense? Let me explain: Say you are a preferred status player with seven characters on a server prior to today’s update. Your seventh character isn’t locked, but if you want to create an eighth character you are going to have to purchase two character slots, the first to cover your seventh and the second to cover the eighth.

(Source: The Old Republic)

EA Employees Gear Up For Class Action Lawsuit


Electronic Arts has had its fair share of bad news just here at MMO Fallout. Warhammer Online and All Points Bulletin launched and subsequently took a jackhammer to the publisher’s relationship with its investors and partners, and the recent release of The Old Republic was met with major initial sales and just as much controversy over broken content, bannings, and more.

To top things off, Electronic Arts’ employees may be setting up for a class action lawsuit. According to an employee spouse on Gamespot, Electronic Arts currently mandates shifts of 9am to 10pm, seven days a week with occasional Saturdays off. In return, employees are given no overtime or vacation days for this work.

Unlike EAlouse, this isn’t just the ranting of some alleged employee. Gamespot contacted Schubert & Reed, a San Francisco law firm, who confirmed that preparations are in place for a class action suit.

“We are seeking unpaid overtime for a good number of EA employees who weren’t [properly] paid, EA contends they were exempt,” and Schubert added that “we contend otherwise.”‘

No doubt more to come.

(Source: Gather Your Party)