No Innovation? Blame Yourselves: Risk-Taking EA Loses $641 Million
February 4th, 2009 | Written by Andrew Giese | Topic: Industry News, Play, Social Commentary
Yesterday it was all over the news that publisher Electronic Arts had lost a staggering $641 million in their fiscal third quarter. Our reaction? Well, Penny Arcade said it best. But, this was a result of mainly 2 things: EA’s purchase of mobile games platform Jamdat, which cost them $368 million. The second, my friends, was you.
With the economy tightening up, consumers will obviously tighten up their expenses as well. Under this notion, they’ll only go after titles they’re sure they will enjoy. It’s no surprise then that FIFA Soccer 2009 sold nearly 8 million copies worldwide last year, but awesome and innovative games like Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space barely sold 1 million.
What a contradiction. Gaming forums are always alight with rabble about how EA doesn’t take on risky projects and just pushes the same sports titles out each year with an updated roster. Then, when they finally decide they’re going to be more like the “old EA” and start making more unique, creative games, nobody buys them despite the fact that Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge both received fanatical reviews.
So what do these losses spell out for us? Well, it seems we had our chance and blew it. Undoubtedly EA will make the (logical) business decision and publish more projects guaranteed to sell well, and much fewer ones that may not appeal to everyone. Additionally, they’re closing 12 facilities and laying off over a thousand employees.
Blame the recession all you want, but you and I both know that videogames are recession proof, aren’t they? Yeah right.
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Comment by Brian on the February 4th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
I just want to say that innovation does not give you a free pass, companies can innovate all they want but if they are not quality titles they will not sell.
Comment by jimbone on the August 12th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
what are you talking about, Dead Space and Mirror's edge are of the highest quality. Dead Space is one of the best games to come out last year. I can't stand commits like this, he just doesn't know what he's talking about.