480 réponses à ce sujet

[Helios969]

Suck it, haters.

[JackPoint]

">http://

 

 

 A picture says a thousand words :

[Miggs]

OK, so the cash is rolling in...now go hire some decent programmers!

[Bayonet Hipshot]

*crosses fingers for a Wolf Hunt*

*crosses toes for a Wolf Hunt*

*sends mind waves toward Canada to try to will them to do a Wolf Hunt*

In all seriousness, I'm happy that EA is pleased with DA:I's performance. Aside from my enjoyment of the game, it's a nice feeling for employees when their studio gets called out by the larger company.

Sounds kind of sappy and Cole-ish, but I like picturing the Bioware team (or any team, really) feeling that feeling.

 

DLC name:- Dragon Age Inquisition: Age of Fen'Harel. 

 

"But now, I am free...There are no strings on me..."

[Monica21]

Having said that: please fix the Skyhold outfit, Bioware!

 

My Skyhold jammies look great!

 

Spoiler

[Fast Jimmy]

First of all, it is unlikely that a large and established publicly traded company like EA would try to drive up its stock price with hot air. There is no incentive to do that. Companies tend to paint their earnings in a slightly more positive light than they are in reality. But this is just a little bit of embellishment. Actual misleading and encouraging the share price up with fluffy statements would come back to bite them twice as hard. Especially when that particular "fluff" refers to the past (that is, already happened sales of DAI) instead of the future (for example, the potential of a new game).

If I lost 50 pounds and said my loss was enhanced by switching to two-ply toilet paper, which helped drive my weight loss goals, it wouldn't be a lie. It just wouldn't be at all accurate.

I'm not accusing EA of investor fraud here. But as part of my job, I regularly review 10Q and earnings statements and listen to earnings calls for my company's clients and competitors. The main part of my analysis is to break down business segments that aren't clearly defined and determine their revenue and costs by applicable division, even when there aren't clear numbers doing this for me. I'm far from a financial analyst, but I do have to regularly report my findings to an executive shark tank and I know when smoke is being blown up my posterior... especially since our company has to do similar back pedaling, numbers phrasing and non-factual truths when we don't make our numbers sometimes.

You are taking one phrase here, "most successful launch," and attributing meaning to it that just isn't there.

Successful by what metrics? The number of awards and acolades? I think DA:I is up there. The number of pre-orders or first week sales? Let's not forget that DA2 had more first week sales/pre-orders that any prior Bioware title too. Number of players using a third part web service? The DA Keep likely engaged many players to create, recreate and utilize an outside web service in order to carry their choices over.

The one thing they DIDN'T say was that DA:I SOLD more than expected. Full stop.

Also there's this in the earnings statement: "Outperformance versus our outlook was driven by the record-breaking Dragon Age: Inquisition performance."

The outperformance here refers to the gross margin of EA, which was 72,8%, more than their guidance of 70,5%. That is, EA did better than they expected during their Q3 mostly because DAI was more profitable than EA predicted. That is unambiguous way to say that DAI has not only been a brand-polishing success for EA, but also a financial success.

They are saying nothing of the sort. They are IMPLYING it, but they aren't saying it. And if you have a huge success on your hands that exceeded sales expectations, why would you tip toe around saying that? EA hasn't previously obscured the results of their breakout titles, either on digital, mobile or physical distribution.

You are quoting total profit of the company and attributing that to DA:I, but that doesn't make an ounce of sense either. Let's assume that DA:I sold better than any other Bioware game - that would put it around the 5M units range. Assuming $60 a pop (which seems a little unlikely given some of the 40-50% fire sales we saw for most of December and January... but let's keep going) that's $300M in revenue. I'm not sure what EA estimates there were for this game, but let's just assume they were around DA2 levels - right about what NPD and other sources seem to indicate the game wound up at - of 3.5M, which would put it at total revenue of $210M.

Its numerically impossible for the difference, $90M, to be the driver for over 2% gross profit margin over expectations for a company that does over $4B a year in annual revenue. So... even in the BEST CASE SCENARIO, EA is making highly obscured and veiled, misleading statements to make DA:I look better than it is.

Let's not factor in that EA had previously stated that both FIFA and Madden, franchises that average in the tens of millions per release, did better than expected with record breaking releases, while also gaining more revenue than anticipated in digital transactions for these games. So did that money just evaporate and become vapor? No - THEY are the driver for exceeding quarterly and annual earnings, NOT DA:I.

Lastly, if you look at their digital vs. physical revenue, it may be easy to deduce that the digital downloads are a huge number of "hidden" sales. But this 50:50 revenue split is across all divisions - mobile, digital microtransactions, subscriptions, DLC... based on some of the breakouts, it looks like about 20% of that 50% digital revenue is actual game downloads, meaning about 10% of revenue from full game sales came from digital downloads.

If 50% of revenue of DA:I came from physical copies sold and 10% came from digital downloads, that means the NPD numbers are quite accurate and that adding roughly an additional ~20% to those numbers will give you a rough snapshot of all sales... which has been the case for nearly every game that has a digital component for the past three to four years.



My take? With many places saying DA:I was the best game of the year, EA had to speak about it, even showcase it. So they went with all soft numbers (hours played, awards won, lumping it in with financials of other divisions) and did not give one solid number for its actual sales performance. EA has revealed such numbers for titles in past earnings calls with no problem and, yet, say nothing about how well DA:I has done, even ignoring and dancing around the question in the interview section when asked about DA:I's NPD numbers. They HAD the opportunity to clarify the numbers there, even if it wasn't in the presentation, AND THEY DIDN'T. Why hide and leave open to speculation for your investors when they are directly voicing concern about it? What benefit do you gain by hiding a huge success?

[SomberXIII]

VGchartz report said DAI sold 1.14M first week. Not updated since then.

Fun fact: The lowest sales platform was PC. 

[Massakkolia]

*snip*

Thumbing through financial statements is part of my job as well, so I'm not being entirely naive here. As I said, there's often embellishment to make the numbers look slightly better, but rarely outright misleading, especially when it comes to past figures, which are factual and will be reflected in the earnings statement. They didn't give precise sales numbers for FIFA or Madden titles either. It's just a typical way to operate (Although, yes, they'd be more likely to brag about sales figures for sports games because they are usually much higher than RPG sales.)

 

As for the quote from the earnings call comments in the gross margin section, it does state that DAI was a commercial success from EA's point of view. I don't understand how you can read it any differently. Just read it carefully:

 

"Outperformance versus our outlook was driven by the record-breaking Dragon Age: Inquisition performance." 

 

I never claimed that the whole two percentage points that exceeded the guidance was done by DAI's performance, but even EA blatantly states, that DAI had a significant role in driving up EA's earnings above their guidance.

 

I'm not claiming that DAI has already sold 10 million copies or even close to that level. I never even expected that. If somebody here thinks that not reaching Skyrim heights in sales means that a game is a flop, they had unrealistic expectations to begin with. Bioware can be a successful and profitable studio without doing blockbuster games. All I'm claiming here, based on the undeniable evidence of the earnings call and the statement, that DAI has exceeded the financial goals that EA set out for it. As for the brand-polishing goal (which is not insignificant, even from financial perspective), it was definitely a home run. 

[dsl08002]

Its not surprising considering the latest products from bioware were massive disapointments considering the big bad wolf EA were knocking on there door demanding a quick profit.

So people were happy for once to buy a game from bioware that really shine with good storytelling. Not perfect but good.

[ziloe]

How do they get the 113 million hour statistic. Do the servers track player play time?

... Yes? They also track what race/gender you play and who you romance, etc, to gauge interest in future content.

[Giantdeathrobot]

My take? With many places saying DA:I was the best game of the year, EA had to speak about it, even showcase it. So they went with all soft numbers (hours played, awards won, lumping it in with financials of other divisions) and did not give one solid number for its actual sales performance. EA has revealed such numbers for titles in past earnings calls with no problem and, yet, say nothing about how well DA:I has done, even ignoring and dancing around the question in the interview section when asked about DA:I's NPD numbers. They HAD the opportunity to clarify the numbers there, even if it wasn't in the presentation, AND THEY DIDN'T. Why hide and leave open to speculation for your investors when they are directly voicing concern about it? What benefit do you gain by hiding a huge success?

 

They gave numbers for none of the game, even for the EA Sports titles which always sell like hotcakes. I don't like the practice anymore than you do, but we just have to accept that it's an EA thing, not restricted to Inquisition at all. Unless you think every single one of EA's titles in Q3 was a financial disappointment, this is not indicative of anything. But if Q3 was so bad for EA, you'd think their stock would have reflected that a bit, and it is on the rise.

[Mummy22kids]

Am I the only person who doesn't mind the skyhold outfit?  Although I don't think it looks good on the male PC I like it on the female PC.

[Rizilliant]

Is it a bad thing? Yeah I am, of course. Should I do anything else? No wait, I got a better question, should I listen to you for any reason at all? So well, yeah, thanks for stating the obvious

I wouldnt bother replying to that one.. He literally goes from post to post, whining about anyone who has a negative opinion/experience with the game.. Nothing more.. 

[AlanC9]

Suck it, haters.

This may be the most efficient post I've ever seen on this board.

[Fast Jimmy]

They gave numbers for none of the game, even for the EA Sports titles which always sell like hotcakes. I don't like the practice anymore than you do, but we just have to accept that it's an EA thing, not restricted to Inquisition at all. Unless you think every single one of EA's titles in Q3 was a financial disappointment, this is not indicative of anything. But if Q3 was so bad for EA, you'd think their stock would have reflected that a bit, and it is on the rise.

It wasn't a bad quarter at all for them. EA's financials looked solid. That doesn't mean DA:I did well or is the reason for it.

The problem with giving sales of one title is that you then have to to give sales for all titles. Everyone knows Madden and FIFA sold very, very well, as EA had already confirmed it prior to the call.

If everyone knows some of your titles did really well and you want to hide that another of your titles is lackluster, then not revealing any sales numbers is the most obvious strategy I can think of. Again - EA hasn't shied from the practice in the past when they had all good numbers to report. It's only when there aren't major releases or underwhelming performances that they remain silent.

[Violetbliss]

The game is nice, it's just a shame there has to be a corporate aspect. Well, of this size, anyway. Though of course there's no gurantee the game's quality changes... just some decisions might be different.

[Lady Mutare]

As a seamstress and Cosplay designer I hate the metal on the Jammies. It looks wrong....  comfortable and I say COMFORTABLE jammies or house clothes seldom have princess cut seams, Mandarin collars and metal closures.

[jellobell]

VGchartz report said DAI sold 1.14M first week. Not updated since then.

Fun fact: The lowest sales platform was PC. 

VGchartz doesn't track digital sales. How many people with the PC version do you think actually bought Inquisition from a brick-and-mortar store?

[Fast Jimmy]

Thumbing through financial statements is part of my job as well, so I'm not being entirely naive here. As I said, there's often embellishment to make the numbers look slightly better, but rarely outright misleading, especially when it comes to past figures, which are factual and will be reflected in the earnings statement. They didn't give precise sales numbers for FIFA or Madden titles either. It's just a typical way to operate (Although, yes, they'd be more likely to brag about sales figures for sports games because they are usually much higher than RPG sales.)

As for the quote from the earnings call comments in the gross margin section, it does state that DAI was a commercial success from EA's point of view. I don't understand how you can read it any differently. Just read it carefully:

"Outperformance versus our outlook was driven by the record-breaking Dragon Age: Inquisition performance."

I never claimed that the whole two percentage points that exceeded the guidance was done by DAI's performance, but even EA blatantly states, that DAI had a significant role in driving up EA's earnings above their guidance.

I'm not claiming that DAI has already sold 10 million copies or even close to that level. I never even expected that. If somebody here thinks that not reaching Skyrim heights in sales means that a game is a flop, they had unrealistic expectations to begin with. Bioware can be a successful and profitable studio without doing blockbuster games. All I'm claiming here, based on the undeniable evidence of the earnings call and the statement, that DAI has exceeded the financial goals that EA set out for it. As for the brand-polishing goal (which is not insignificant, even from financial perspective), it was definitely a home run.

Undeniable evidence? Where?

I deny that the words "successful launch" and "drives" have only one possible meaning. There. Denied.


Nothing in this statement about DA:I has any concrete basis in reality. It literally has all the substance of the Bioware devs posting on Twitter about GOTY awards - there's fluff, but no substance. To be expected and taken for what it is on a Tweet. To be seen as corporate-speak obfuscation in an earnings call. There's zero evidence of anything, let alone undeniable levels of it, unless you just want to assume that corporate execs at EA don't have any interest or investment in spin or damage control.

[sch1986]

I think they already said no to an expansion.  My guess is by the time an expansion is ready to release the majority of the people that would buy it are done with the game, but with DLC they can offset the cost over multiple packages not risk as much of a loss.

Do you know where you saw this?

I think people being done with the game by the time they create a full expansion would be a typical problem for any "full expansion" and not just dlc. I think the beauty of it is that you usually don't have to play through the whole game again to make the expansion work and feel like an actual part of the game. Where as dlc done after the story ends is usually painfully obvious that it's "tacked on".

I will be pretty disappointed if this is true. Inquisition didn't feel anywhere near done to me. certainly not enough that could be resolved in $10 DLCs.

[Fast Jimmy]

VGchartz doesn't track digital sales. How many people with the PC version do you think actually bought Inquisition from a brick-and-mortar store?

About a quarter of a million. Maybe less. While around 500K to 1M downloaded it digitally.

That's not oodles and gobs of sales that can dig DA:I out of the "barely better than DA2" ditch.

[Hiemoth]

Undeniable evidence? Where?

I deny that the words "successful launch" and "drives" have only one possible meaning. There. Denied.


Nothing in this statement about DA:I has any concrete basis in reality. It literally has all the substance of the Bioware devs posting on Twitter about GOTY awards - there's fluff, but no substance. To be expected and taken for what it is on a Tweet. To be seen as corporate-speak obfuscation in an earnings call. There's zero evidence of anything, let alone undeniable levels of it, unless you just want to assume that corporate execs at EA don't have any interest or investment in spin or damage control.

 

EA has actually confirmed that their statement on the most successful launch was based on units sold, but did not give the exact number. Which, to repeat, almost no of the large publishers do.

 

http://www.pcgamer.c...ioware-history/

[Massakkolia]

Undeniable evidence? Where?

I deny that the words "successful launch" and "drives" have only one possible meaning. There. Denied.


Nothing in this statement about DA:I has any concrete basis in reality. It literally has all the substance of the Bioware devs posting on Twitter about GOTY awards - there's fluff, but no substance. To be expected and taken for what it is on a Tweet. To be seen as corporate-speak obfuscation in an earnings call. There's zero evidence of anything, let alone undeniable levels of it, unless you just want to assume that corporate execs at EA don't have any interest or investment in spin or damage control.

EA states that their outperformance in that quarter was driven by the performance of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which all in all gets disproportionate amount of gushing attention by EA considering it's an single-player RPG (a not so popular genre and not their flagship product). There's another quote from the revenue section in the earnings call notes:

 

"In particular, Dragon Age: Inquisition had by far the most successful launch in BioWare’s history, exceeding our expectations."

 

This is mentioned in the revenue section. It doesn't refer to the GOTY awards or the amount of dragons killed. But you're of course free to believe whatever you want. If you don't think that's undeniable evidence of exceeding financial expectations, we just have to agree to disagree. 

 

Personally, I'm just glad that DAI was a success, both commercially and critically. It wasn't perfect and didn't quite reach the heights of DAO for me, but this is my favourite fictional universe and I'd like to see much more content for it. With this earnings statement, the continuation of the franchise is fairly certain. 

[Lord Raijin]

">http://

 

 

 A picture says a thousand words :

Exactly.

 

Unless if you're a Critic your words are meaningless.