The layoffs have me confused more then anything else. Help?

The economy has been bad for some time, yet in November EA shares were around $26.00 each. Today they're at $14.00 or so. Do you remember what happened in November? I guess when the game launched and all the "good" publicity associated with the launch, this somehow had nothing to do with the shares increasing in value?

The bad publicity is now rolling in, the value has dropped by almost half, yet you have the audacity to sit here and say that SWTOR didn't have anything to do with any of it?

Come on now ... lets be reasonable here.

I'm Gandalf. I called it.

Server population is painting a well enough picture for me to make a pretty good guess on the status of the game's health. It's just a guess, yes, but it is what it is.

You seem to be doing the same thing in picking and choosing here. Lets not be hypocritical my friend. We both do not have all the information to formulate a definitive answer here. It's all speculation on both counts. However, the trend is leaning more towards the game not doing as well as we had hoped ... the drop in subs is proof of this, the layoffs is proof of this, and the drop in share value is proof of this.

Again, we can agree to disagree here. But I'm Gandalf, whether you like it or not. Then again, being labeled a troll just for disagreeing with you is somewhat uncalled for.

I would LOVE to have this put into a separate forum or something. Not banned or censored, just moved so that it doesn't interfere with the normal functioning of the forums.

Negative feedback serves an important purpose, and Bioware needs to hear it. It's just when it interferes with trying to get anything else done on the forum (as it has now) that it becomes problematic. I wouldn't normally suggest this sort of thing, but it's gotten out of hand. Maybe they can re-integrate the forums after more feature updates get released and the complaints (hopefully) die down. However, judging from WoW's forum, negative feedback like this may just be par for the course.

Most MMORPG count "active accounts" as all trial accounts, all accounts with any active time left, accounts with free time, accounts that were active (i.e. had game time etc.) within the last month.

So basically 1.3m is total "active" accounts, but that's no likely to be the same thing as the number of actively played accounts.

all i am going to say if they whip out something ******, i am just going to sit in the corner, and go HAHAHAHAA

point and laugh at everyone and say okay whose up for the new ****!

@ grevlin

Ok I am going to bite. I will not bother quoting you as you know what you have said and quite frankly most of it is not worth repeating.

You wish to crate a two tier forum system, one for paying customers that are on active rolling subscriptions (lets call these A) and one for people that are on active cancelled subscriptions (lets call these B). I am not entirely certain where you think people on game cards should fit but lets leave that by the by.

The people in the A category have their own forum where they can talk about sugar and spice and all things nice

The people in the B category have their own forum where they can speak about rats and snails and puppy dogs tails but due to their ongoing loyalty to BW the A category guys can sprinkle some sugar etc in the B forum also should they so choose to.

You also stated that the main reason for BW not implementing my immediate refund and termination for unsubbers to be 'it would be too difficult' rather than it would adversely effect their 1.3 million subscriber number.

At the same time you are attempting to present yourself as a credible analyst of investor metrics and a general free market kind of guy.


ARE YOU FREAKING SH****G ME?

My apologies that was the conference call transcription.

I mentioned this on another thread. With 550k subscriptions, Swtor would be "profitable." That number was pulled somewhere off the webs of what analysts and EA were speculating. Obviously they want more than that. If they currently have 1.3M subscribers, then they can legally say they are "very profitable" at the time of statement. When they said that their data showed they loss a lot of "casual" players, that's very subjective. If they were using play time as a metric, it is likely to be fallible, but still legally and technically correct in their statement.

I'm not flaunting about it. i care about this game which is why I still post. I'm just showing you that their statement with 1.3M is skewed. I'm counted in the 1.3M subscribers despite having unsubscribed. I suppose if you take it as flaunting, then I hope it makes you angry and annoyed.

They failed to meet their financial goals with ME3 and TOR, but profits must be maintained. EA has to answer to it's stock holders. If profits keep dropping, look for more layoffs, and and longer gaps in between new content etc.. I figure right now they see TOR as a revenue stream and will use it to fund other projects.

I am a pre-cu vet and loved WAR but watched both get destroyed by people with no business sense. You are right, this feels very familiar.

Yeah, because I'm aware that many things affect a company's stock price and that one product among dozens will not determine the stock price unless said product leads to liability suits. Now, let's take a look at some other electronic entertainment companies, shall we?

Electronic Arts

Activision-Blizzard

Sony

Capcom

Nintendo

The only one that didn't experience a significant spike and subsequent drop in stock price in or around the month of November was Nintendo, which still experienced a steady decline over the last year. Out of the four observed here, the only one that has a higher stock price than EA is Capcom (and Capcom's value seems to be all over the place, though averaging at $16). A look at Activision-Blizzard's stock price looks like a view of EA's last half-year in high-speed, and its November high point is equal to EA's low point. In general, it looks to be a tough year for those in electronic entertainment industries.

By the way, I was aware of this before I started posting. Why, as an apparently experienced investor, weren't you?

You're certainly not Bruce Wayne...

Drop in subs was due to free trials cycling out rather than a drop in paying subscribers (and its still within predicted levels from when development began), the layoffs are part of a restructuring effort that will result in a larger workforce than before, and the share value is actually doing pretty well compared to other similar companies in this industry (as well as the drop coinciding with an almost market-wide drop in share price for electronic entertainment companies).

You see, for the stuff you cite as signs as ill health, I can point out how they're either taken out of context or rely on limited information. I've yet to see you do much more than re-iterate the same broken arguments.

Drop in subs was due to drop in paying subscribers rather than free trials cycling out (and its still within predicted levels from when development began), the layoffs are part of a restructuring effort that will result in a smaller workforce than before, and the share value is actually doing pretty well compared to other similar companies in this industry (as well as the drop coinciding with an almost market-wide drop in share price for electronic entertainment companies).

You see, for the stuff you cite as signs as good health, I can point out how they're either taken out of context or rely on limited information. I've yet to see you do much more than re-iterate the same broken arguments.