EA: "Dragon Age" and "EA FC" disappoint
EA prepares investors for disappointing business figures. Both "EA FC" and the new role-playing game "Dragon Age" have failed to meet expectations.
(Image: EA)
US publisher Electronic Arts is preparing investors for disappointment ahead of the announcement of its business figures in February: In a preliminary annual report, EA is revising its forecast for the financial year downwards. The reason for this is the disappointing performance of recent game releases – The soccer division with “EA FC 25” and the role-playing game “Dragon Age: The Veilguard” are mentioned by name.
According to the preliminary report, “Dragon Age” was only played by 1.5 million people in the past quarter. EA had originally expected twice as many players internally. “Dragon Age: The Veilguard” came onto the market in the fall to decent reviews; the role-playing game has a good rating of 82 percent on Metacritic. The opinions of fans, who do not seem to recognize the “Dragon Age” series in the new one, are much more mixed – They only give it 3.9 out of a possible 10 points on Metacritic. Frequent points of criticism are the dialog and the story of the role-playing game.
“In the third quarter, we continued to deliver high-quality games and experiences across our portfolio,” writes EA boss Andrew Wilson in the preliminary report. “However, 'Dragon Age' and 'EA Sports FC 25' did not meet our expectations for net bookings.”
“EA FC” does not live up to high expectations
EA's soccer series “EA FC” is the successor to the FIFA series – EA and FIFA were unable to agree on a new partnership after 30 years of cooperation. As EA's soccer game remains virtually unrivaled, this has had little visible impact on the business to date. With “EA FC 25”, there are now apparently the first signs of weakening performance. EA therefore only expects net bookings of 2.215 billion US dollars for the past quarter.
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“EA FC 25” should therefore not be branded a flop: In Germany, the soccer game was (as always) the most successful game of the year according to the industry association game, and it also sold very well in the rest of Europe. However, analysts recorded slight declines at a high level.
EA's shares slumped by 11 percent after the announcement.
(dahe)
