EA to Release Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2012 Results on May 7, 2012

You fail. The subscription numbers are actually as of February 2, 2012. The subscription numbers were released as part of the press release announcing 4Q2011 financial statements, which have to be filed with the SEC. The press release, dated as of Februray 2, 2012, was duly filed on EDGAR (sec.gov) and is subject to Sarbanes-Oxley, meaning all statements contained therein must not contain any material misstatement or omission of material fact.

Also, there are literally thousands upon thousands of analysts. Thousands. Why cherry-pick which one you listen to? The good ones don't offer their analysis for free, they charge clients huge amounts for them.

Why, what was the prediction? Was it better or worse than 1.7 million?

And to add further, posting false numbers in an attempt to short the stock of a company is a federal crime.

No, it's not.

I would like to see you try and get someone posting a random subs number here to stick as a "federal crime" though, admittedly the USA would probably just extradite them and try to get them to plea bargin.

Just to get technical:

Actually you don't know that. It depends all on how accounting handles the information. And how that information is treated by the independent auditors of the company. The CEO/CFO of EA and its board of directors, and the reputations of accountants (Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young, etc.) are on the line here.

Remember, EA is a LISTED PUBLIC US COMPANY subject to ROBUST Sarbanes-Oxley/SEC disclosure regimes and stringent internal audit controls. They are also required to be audited by an indenedent accounting firm, who will sign an opinion (risking their reputation) that the numbers are all accurate.

So, with that said, do you count a cancelled sub as an active subscriber? Screw marketing/business side guys, they don't decide this. It's the management and accountants that do. And from their perspective, what is the point of defining a "subscriber?" Simple. Each subscriber represents an "account receivable." E.g., a promise of a future cash flow. A cancelled account means that there is no future cash flow. There is no need to put that on your books. No way to account for it actually. I spend all day looking at financial statements and don't know where to "acccount" for a "no longer an account receivable", which is what a cancelled account technically amounts to.

Now, the business/IR team could probably pull up the list of how many people have the "privilege" to logon and play the game at any given moment (e.g., including subscribers who have cancelled). However, from a management perspective, there is no point in knowing this number. As someone who has advised some of the largest companies across 4 different continents, I can assure you we always recommend conservativism and caution when disclosing anything to the government or to investors, and guess what, they usually listen.

/End thread.

EA will count any account with game time left or like active in the last month as an active sub, like most MMORPGs do.

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jan...iness/fi-16199

I remember this from when I was still in school. But yes, it happens, and people get busted all the time.

I'm sure the report will read something like this:

"As of the end of April we have over 2 million active accounts."

Of course they will strategically use the word "active accounts" instead of subs so they can count all the players who had their accounts forced back open for a week even if they canceled.

And also coincided with the free month all active accounts have been given so that it is impossible for them to see any drop off or reduction in "active" accounts.

If they report actual sub numbers, they still get to count all the free month people, but I don't think they can count the 7 days of forced activation accounts. Then I predict probably about 1 million subs total.

Our guild alone has added over 50 people who have started over from dead servers this past month, yet our overall server population has remained relatively stagnant, which says to me that people are leaving pretty steadily even while the players do their own manual server merges.

What is the context of that? Who made that statement? Was it an accountant? Was it a financial officer? Is this a US public company they are talking about? Not many game companies are listed on the NYSE, which are subject to Sarbanes-Oxley and MUCH MORE STRINGENT ACCOUNTING STANDARDS than some privately held software company, a point which you ignore.

Yes, purposely posting a false rumour on over 500 different message boards might, but saying you think SWTOR has XXXXXXX subs here isn't the same thing at all.


Although it seems I was spot on with the plea bargain.