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Tag: Origin
Falling Out #2: The Ghost of Christmas Obvious
Given the history of Electronic Arts, the only thing I’m worried about is the date on the gravestone being too far into the future.
Scenery © 2012-2013 Julien Jorge <julien.jorge@stuff-o-matic.com>
Gravestones: Carlo Enrico Victoria (Nemisys) & Tuomo Untinen, Casper Nilsson, Barbara Rivera
(Via Open Game Art)
EA’s Stock Is Crashing, Down Over 40% Since July
Electronic Arts just can’t catch a break.
It’s been a rough year for Electronic Arts and it appears that the company’s investors are taking notice. In the last year that brought us the PR nightmare, consumer backlash, and subsequently underwhelming sales of Battlefront 2, the PR nightmare, consumer backlash, and subsequently underwhelming pre orders of Battlefield V, a criminal investigation in Belgium over refusal to comply with gambling laws, among other incidences, it looked like the backlash online was pretty much irrelevant as EA’s stock continued to climb.
All of this came to a head in July when EA announced that Battlefield V would be delayed, and EA’s stock began to tumble. From a peak of around $148, the stock now sits at $85.84 just five months later and continues to gradually fall. EA’s stock stood at $112 on November 14, 2017.
So what’s the deal? Oddly enough, EA isn’t facing much in the way of a financial shortfall. While the total revenue for the fiscal year 2019 is supposed to be lower, we’re talking $5.2 billion instead of $5.5 billion projected. The second quarter brought in $1.286 billion in revenue, $16 million above forecast, with a net income of $255 million, far above the prediction of $150 million.
It seems to stand that the downturn in market price has its hands in the negative sentiment surrounding EA that is finally turning into poor market performance. Their titles may still bring in millions of dollars, but EA burned Star Wars fans twice with Battlefront and the sequel subsequently underperformed. Similarly with Battlefield V, the company’s outward statement that players who didn’t like the art style of Battlefield 5 can “accept it, or don’t buy it” has simply led to players not buying it, despite EA’s recent backpedaling on the game’s cosmetic designs.
There is also the fact that more governments are beginning to take a closer look at microtransactions, a large source of income for Electronic Arts thanks to Fifa Ultimate Team.
[Column] EA Origin Premier Is A Value Proposition
Back when Origin/EA Access debuted on PC and Xbox, I said that it was one of the most gutsy things that Electronic Arts has done in their history next to the Origin Guarantee (refund policy) and my reasoning was pretty simple: By showing off their games in 10 hour trials before launch, EA is taking two major risks that players could A.) burn out of the game within that ten hour window and B.) If the game isn’t good, it can tank day one sales.
And you don’t have to look far for evidence of this, because Battlefront II is a prime example of a game that most assuredly lost a lot of day one sales because of the reception to the early access demo. Yes, the service costs money and for many the $30 per year is worth it to cover the included vault games as well as the ability to personally preview new releases and see if they are worth it. Even if you are not an Origin subscriber, you still see a benefit in that other people are playing the games early and able to report on their quality.
This weekend, EA announced a new tier of membership to Origin: Origin Access Premier. This is no doubt a response to Microsoft’s Game Pass on the Xbox One and functions very similarly. For $14.99 per month or $100 per year, you get full access to new games without the ten hour time limited demo version that standard Origin Access members receive. This seems to include all of EA’s first party lineup as well as potentially some third party titles, since the promo page teases Anthem, Battlefield V, A Way Out, and EA’s 2019 sports games. Incidentally, this is also marks the first Madden game on PC in a decade.
I’ve seen some varied response to this service and, as I said with Origin Access when that first launched, this is a value proposition that is entirely subjective to your wants and needs as a customer. If you are hardline militant on owning your games or refuse to go digital except when necessary and don’t care about the five day head start, well this service doesn’t offer much to you. If you’re the kind of person who burns through several Electronic Arts games per year from day one, then dumps the games like a bad habit, there might be a value proposition in $100 versus whatever you’re currently spending. If you’re the casual player who only buys games once they are extensively marked down, it might not be a bad value to subscribe for one or two months out of the year to check out the current library without restrictions.
Ultimately I still stand by my belief that Origin Access and Premier are a net positive for gamers, even if you only consider it to be the canary in the mine for EA publishing low quality releases. If Anthem is bad on launch, trust me when I say the internet will let you know with plenty of time to cancel that pre-order.
EA Is Working To Restore Access To Myanmar
Electronic Arts has responded to complaints that the Origin service is unavailable in Myanmar, with Community Manager EA_Tom announcing that the company is working on restoring access to affected customers.
The whole ordeal started with players in Myanmar finding out that their access to legitimately purchased Origin games had been blocked. According to ‘Champions,’ EA’s volunteer moderators, the block was due to complying with economic sanctions not allowing Electronic Arts to do business in specific countries. Players have no ability to access their games and, as it appears, EA had no intention of offering any sort of compensation for those who were locked out of their games or had bought newer titles (Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, etc) only to find that their purchases are useless.
For those who pay attention to political games, the ban makes no sense. According to users on the forums, the bans only went into place last month despite Myanmar being under economic sanctions by the US for years now with EA doing nothing to prevent purchases from the country. Furthermore, the economic sanctions were lifted by President Obama on October 7th, meaning that Electronic Arts is continuing to enforce economic sanctions that haven’t existed in close to a month.
Many are also doubting EA’s handling of the situation as other digital services in Burma/Myanmar (Steam, Good Old Games, etc) have been functioning in the country just fine. MMO Fallout will update as soon as we have more information.
EA Origin Fraud Protection May Incur Delays
If you’re looking to make a purchase in the Origin store, you may find your order delayed by up to three days. In a post released today on the Dark Age of Camelot website, Broadsword Entertainment warns that new fraud detection tools may flag purchases depending on several variables including number of codes purchased, resulting in the buyer not receiving their code until the next day.
This timeframe is dependant on the number of codes purchased at once as well as other variables. Most players should still receive their codes within 24 hours, however, it would be a good idea to order any new game time codes 72 hours prior to your account subscription ending if you wish to guarantee no subscription downtime.
Any user whose code isn’t delivered after three days is asked to contact EA’s customer support with the phrase “I did not receive my code after making a purchase on the Origin store. My order# is #####.” The news post warns that any other message could cause the email to be diverted to the DAoC crew, who can’t help with such problems.
(Source: Dark Age of Camelot)
EA Denies Origin Breach, Change Your Password Anyway
Electronic Arts has denied that the Origin service was the victim of a security breach, in a statement to PC Gamer. The statement comes in response to an article published earlier from a surge in users reporting unauthorized games being purchased on their accounts.
“We found no indication at this point of a breach of our Origin account database.”
Account thieves appear to be mostly using compromised accounts to purchase Fifa 2015 and using the accounts to farm coins. Users have reported little trouble in getting EA to reverse the charges, and are encouraged to not have credit card details stored on the account, and to implement the client’s two factor authentication.
Derp Trolling, a hacker group, claimed to have 1.7 million Origin accounts. Whether or not this apparent surge in compromised accounts is related is unknown.
(Source: PC Gamer)
Something Big Coming From Origin Today
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)
Not Massive: Dragon Age Origins Free On Origin
Dragon Age: Inquisition comes out soon, and what better way to get integrated into the series than to play the game that started it all? Dragon Age: Origins has enough content to keep you situated until long past Inquisition’s release next month, and you can grab it for free on Origin right now. The free version is the standard edition.
(Source: Origin)
Less Massive: Origin Sale Up To 70% Off
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.
MMO Fallout 