EA Loses $3.1B in Stock Value in wake of Star Wars Battlefront 2 Loot Box catastrophe

[ItsMitch]

The story is coming in from The Rolling Stone and it has published a report that EA has lost 3.1 billion dollars or 8.5% of their stock value from the Star Wars Battlefront 2 loot box catastrophy, but remember, it's just about pride and acomplishment

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Electronic Arts stock is down 8 .5 percent to date, shedding $3.1 billion in value, in the wake of the Star Wars: Battlefront II microtransaction shake-up, CNBC reports. And at least one analyst is adding his voice to the call for industry self-regulation surrounding the issue. CNBC notes that this slide in value started shortly after EA released its December quarter sales on October 31st when the company said its sales might be lower than suspects. Some believe that was due to Battlefront II. Shares for EA fell four percent the following day.

 

 

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This went from a Reddit response into the most downrated comment in Reddit history than to consumers threatening a boycott on Reddit, EA responding again with a "sorry we'll do better" then removal of microtransactions as a whole than to this. I wonder if EA will learn from this very expensive fuck up, I wonder how long until Disney respond to the backlash again and cut the license for good. EA has offered no official statement on the matter as of writing this. 

This fucker hit EA right where it counts, the cold-hearted money. Thank the world for Jim Sterling for keeping me on this topic. @Zando Bob thoughts on this? 

Sources: YongYeah | CNBC | Rolling Stone 

[AHaskin14]

When you become a subject for governmental legislation around the world, it looks bad. Who knew?

[Avve1000]

I think they should just let Dice do their game and not made fucking lootcreates and pay-to-win games. EA is the definition of pay-to-win. Fifa? NHL? and now battlefront 2, its not worth its title... Battlefront 2 (original) was one of the most influenceing games on my childhood. And Ill love that game till I die, but EAs bs games? No, its just like battlefield 1, was fun in the openbeta but when it got released it was trash. 

[Vantage9]

Its a big deal, yes, but I wouldn't expect the long term fallout you're thinking.  Not unless this happens with EA's next big release, too.

 

“We’re not giving up on the notion of MTX,” Jorgensen said. “We’re learning and listening to the community in terms of how best to roll that out in the future, and there’s more to come as we learn more. But I would say we’re certainly not changing our strategy.”

https://idealgamer.net/news/ea-says-cosmetic-microtransactions-wont-work-for-battlefront-2/

 

If you look at the 3 month graph of EA's stock price, you realize that this downward trend was kind of already happening.  There's not really any hard evidence that this wouldn't have happened with or without BF2.  

https://www.google.com/search?q=ea+stock+price&oq=ea+stock+price&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l4.1591j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

Bad press matters, but if EA's next big game launches without problems and sells even decently, then Wall Street will forget all about this entirely.  They have a drastically short memory.

[The Benjamins]

1 minute ago, AHaskin14 said:

When you become a subject for governmental legislation around the world, it looks bad. Who knew?

its not just that, EA business model has moved from selling games to relying on micro transaction to make money. their profit on game sales is down 33% from 3 billion to 2 billion but their micro transaction sales is up from .7 billion to 2 billion. more then half of their sales is from this vs making and selling games.

 

 

[Nicnac]

I like this.

[Nup]

While its nice to see, and i hope they feel the sting, its a pretty small dent.

[ItsMitch]

Just now, Nup said:

While its nice to see, and i hope they feel the sting, its a pretty small dent.

Small dent but it still going give them a bad headache for the next few days. Let alone the amount of governments investigating them for it.

[Nup]

Just now, SC2Mitch said:

Small dent but it still going give them a bad headache for the next few days. Let alone the amount of governments investigating them for it.

For sure, once governments look into things, things take longer. It'll have spoiled their reputation some too,

[mr moose]

12 minutes ago, AHaskin14 said:

When you become a subject for governmental legislation around the world, it looks bad. Who knew?

Not only that, but when you draw the ire of disney (the copyright Kings and legal elitists) investors get cold feet.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Small dent but it still going give them a bad headache for the next few days. Let alone the amount of governments investigating them for it.

 

Absolutely, though even a small dent is a thorn in the side for some companies.  It's enough of a result to get someone fired so it should at least have the directors thinking more about how they treat their customers.

[ItsMitch]

Just now, mr moose said:

 

Absolutely, though even a small dent is a thorn in the side for some companies.  It's enough of a result to get someone fired so it should at least have the directors thinking more about how they treat their customers.

I'm waiting patiently for an article about EA getting another call from Disney 

[TVwazhere]

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EA has lost 3.1 billion dollars or 8.5% of their stock value

I have but two words for this:

Spoiler

Oh shit

Or:

Spoiler

Well deserved

 

[WMGroomAK]

31 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

I wonder if EA will learn from this very expensive fuck up, I wonder how long until Disney respond to the backlash again and cut the license for good. EA has offered no official statement on the matter as of writing this. 

Yeah, they're not really learning from this if the statements from their CFO reflect the companies direction...  

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/ea-on-cosmetic-game-items-you-probably-dont-want-darth-vader-in-pink/

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Elsewhere in his talk, Jorgensen admitted that the limited microtransaction testing developers conducted during the game's beta test was "not enough to really understand some of the reactions that we ultimately got." That said, he sees the current controversy over microtransactions as "a learning experience" in an effort to get to a place where people can enjoy playing "if you grind in the game, if you pay in the game, or both."

 

"We want people to play those games as we add content and events around them for years to come," he said. "If we're not making some mistakes along the way, that's when you should worry about it."

Basically sounds like they are going to continue with the microtransaction route no matter what and since 'cosmetic items' would not be canon for the Star Wars games, that means microtransactions that affect game play.  Basically sounds like 'We don't understand why people are mad at us but our next iteration of microtransactions will make you want to spend even more money.'

 

Also love how WCCF quotes him concerning the Pink Vader.  Seriously sounds like the only thing he looks at as a 'cosmetic item' is a color palette swap on a character model.

https://wccftech.com/ea-microtransactions-star-wars-battlefront-2/

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If you did a bunch of cosmetic things, you might start to violate the canon. Darth Vader in white probably doesn’t make sense, versus in black. Not to mention you probably don’t want Darth Vader in pink. No offense to pink, but I don’t think that’s right in the canon.

 

[mr moose]

18 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

I'm waiting patiently for an article about EA getting another call from Disney 

If EA are smart they will level the value (true market leveling not some non-gaap) of loot boxes and ensure they are not tied to game advancement.   This will win back some investors, avoid the government scrutiny and get Disney off their back.

 

 

[HarryNyquist]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

If EA are smart they will level the value (true market leveling not some non-gaap) of loot boxes and ensure they are not tied to game advancement.   This will win back some investors, avoid the government scrutiny and get Disney off their back.

If they're smarter, they'll do that for a while, then when everyone forgets they'll go right back to doing lootbox city again.

[Matu20]

The people have spoken and have been heard. Who knew that fucking customers over might cause damage.

[Subtle Corruption]

 

[ItsMitch]

1 minute ago, Subtle Corruption said:

 

the amount of ads is fucking disgusting

2 minutes ago, Matu20 said:

The people have spoken and have been heard. Who knew that fucking customers over might cause damage.

who would of knew EA would fuck everyone over like this

[Misanthrope]

40 minutes ago, Nup said:

While its nice to see, and i hope they feel the sting, its a pretty small dent.

Losing Disney is probably next so they can forget about them lucrative franchises.

 

But back on topic: This might be the beginning of a videogame crash: EA did this because they have lost all confidence in the market's ability to sustain AAA development and such a great reversal probably means they'll either try something even worst and alienate players even further, spiraling into a rapid cycle of tremendous loses and eventually making all major names default.

 

I'm going to call it now: next round of AAA games will do things like force always-online DRM even for single player and if it's multiplayer title to begin with they'll move it to a subscription based model or something very similar to loot boxes in a full pay-to-play scheme but for AAA releases. This will actually get far worst now.

[suicidalfranco]

hopefully they get a backslash as huge as this one when Anthem comes

[Bananasplit_00]

and im here, boycoting them since 2013 lol. EA have basically always been dicks, stopped touching their shit after NFS HP, HP was pretty OK actiually but the constant re-releaseing of Fifa and NHL and whatever that my friends were constantly buying seemed fucking scummy to me, and since then its just gone down the drain lol

[jagdtigger]

7 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I'm going to call it now: next round of AAA games will do things like force always-online DRM even for single player and if it's multiplayer title to begin with they'll move it to a subscription based model or something very similar to loot boxes in a full pay-to-play scheme but for AAA releases. This will actually get far worst now.

On another news in the future piracy is even bigger thorn on their sides and games pirated on a bigger scale zhan ever....

 

Lets hope there will be studios/devs who dont pock up this cancer

[ItsMitch]

44 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

next round of AAA games will do things like force always-online DRM even for single player

hey cdproject plz dont be bad developers, we need more trust worthy mother fuckers out there. 

[Clanscorpia]

This really isnt going to hurt them much, especially considering how they were at an all time high before this.