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

EA did come up with SWTOR's cost late last year: 80 million US dollars spent in development, 20 million US dollars earmarked for marketing.

I tend to form my view of what is happening within a game based on what is actually happening within a game.

The shareholders could be as happy as a lark and 90% of american servers would still be underpopulated.

The shareholders could be throwing a party right now pouring champagne over naked ******s and basic features would still be missing.

They could be dancing under a film-set sky that is currently raining 100 dollar bills, and my account would still be lapsing as soon as my free month runs dry.

When the impacts of all of these "positive" changes start to show themselves, I may, or may not, come back for a while, but to tell people that everything is looking up and to just hold out hope based on the assumptions you have made while reading the shareholders materials is no more credible than anyone else screaming that the sky is falling.

That is all real positive and I really hope you are right and they keep a steady dev cycle going to improve and grow the game. However my mind keeps snapping back to WAR. This feels exactly like how they did WAR. Yeah I played it and it got better over time albeit at a slow snails pace. But it was just a slow death and it felt like one.

I think the Reid thing makes me the most worried. Yeah his job will be replaced, but that is the scary part. I remember in WAR the went through many downsizes of their community relations manager and team. Towards the end I remember getting an email from the CRM, a housewife from Wisconsin I believe, talking about getting a few interns in and wanted to know what I might like to see in the game.....

Anyways I am trying to stay positive, but honestly it is real hard right now.

Actually, companies tend to do that when the stock itself is undervalued. There are many things you can do to boost the short-term value of stock without engaging in a buyback program, such as paying a dividend. Buyback programs tend to be limited to times when the stock gets undervalued because it's a relative non-starter when it comes to increasing shareholder value (compared to expanding production, acquiring other assets, purchasing stock in another company, paying a stock dividend, paying off current debts to increase shareholders' equity compared to liabilities, etc). It CAN be used as smoke & mirrors, but there are other much easier methods they can use if they wished to do so. They certainly aren't hurting for retained earnings with which to do so.

Considering that you seem to think EA's stock price turns on SWtOR's publicity, that SWtOR is itself in trouble regardless of the shareholders materials and other info, and that a company doesn't face any trade-off for repurchasing its own stock, I doubt your status as a serious investor.

I guess you missed the discussion in your business finance class that involves investor money changing how company management works. Come on man ... don't bring up microeconomics in business and conveniently leave out what happens when investor money is involved.

We're seeing downsize. Yes. We know they're increasing their work force by about 500 people. I get that. I'm just not confident that the increase of Engineers is going to be used on continuing the investment into SWTOR the way that it has been since 2008.

When they let Mr. Reid go, I'm going to say that they're pulling some plugs on the SWTOR team and either letting them go, or moving them to other projects. I'm willing to bet that they're not happy with the outcome of SWTOR and feel that they've spent enough resources on it. They're moving on (but going to keep the game going, but with less focus and resources). This is pure speculation on my part, and I understand that, but at the end of the day, EA is showing signs of weakening and their hopes of SWTOR being the revenue juggernaut that WoW currently is, have been squashed.

If you could give me a source for that, I would love you forever. :-P

Seriously, trying to get info on this stuff has been a PITA.

Doubt all you would like. But when you're talking about 100's of millions of dollars invested into a product, publicity sometimes can have an effect on share value. Guess you missed that part of class too.

It's okay young one, I've been on this earth for 80+ years ... I'm sure that you've got this world figured out 100 times more than I ever will. At the end of the day, it's all speculation until more information is released. I'm no expert, but neither are you. So lets just agree to disagree my friend.

That all depends on the circumstances, but primarily has to do with when they're selecting which capital expenditures to engage in or avoid. There's no situation where a sunk cost (which is SPENT, UNRECOVERABLE, AND THUS IRRELEVANT) is considered in the development of a current product. The factory cost $50,000 to build, but that doesn't factor into whether or not you continue to use it. What factors in is how much the product sells for and how much it costs to manufacture each unit with the factory including operating costs. So long as the product is yielding more money than it costs to make, production continues.

Yeah, because a development team is ALWAYS maintained after development is finished, kind of like how NIKE will continue to pay the construction company after a factory has been completed. That's also why Bioware Austin and the SWtOR team aren't hiring any new people AT ALL.

Yeah, that's why they emphasized SWtOR's long-term profitability and their plans to focus on SWtOR development to increase its potential to generate revenue over the long-term in their shareholders' reports.

Consider the possibility that your speculation is being blinded by your personal preferences for the game. You've overemphasized SWtOR, overemphasized negative data over positive, and have apparently ignored all other shareholder information. Frankly, you're coming off more as either a clueless investor or a disgruntled unsub posing as an investor.

Actually, this is my major.

Yes it can, but you're also talking about one among a myriad of products. I highly doubt that EA's currently low stock price is based on less-than-positive (let's face it, SWtOR is still in second place among MMORPGs. At worst, the media indicates it's underperforming compared to its full potential. Really negative publicity would be like if it wiped your hard drive, damaged video cards, lost all but 300k subscribers, or caused your computer to grow arms & strangle you.) publicity about ONE product among dozens. EA's not the only big game publisher to be suffering from lackluster stock growth at this time. IIRC, all but Blizzard are chugging along at the bottom. You may not have heard, but there's something of a slump in the general economy right now. :-P

The person making an argument is irrelevant to the argument itself. The statements made stand & fall based on their own merits. It doesn't matter if you're Gandalf & I'm Smeagol or vice versa.

I'd say there's plenty of information out there. When taken as a whole, though, it doesn't paint the picture of a failing product. Only when you pick & choose does that picture emerge, and that seems to be the prevailing interpretation on these forums.

I guess that I would be included in that 1.3 million subscribers figure however, I am not a 'paying' subscriber I am an 'already paid' subscriber. I am on a 6 month recurring payment plan that has been cancelled as of 2 months or so ago. I do not for one moment think that my situation makes me a unique snowflake, quite the opposite in fact I would estimate that a not inconsiderable amount of that 1.3 million people are like myself, i.e. sub cancelled but still have game time (therefore forum access) until August some time (including the free 30 day thingy) in a game that we do not/can not play to our satisfaction due to its current state.