Darth Hater

Star Wars: The Old Republic News, Interviews, Media & Podcast

EA Q3 2011 Earnings Conference Call Liveblog

The EA Q3 2011 Earnings Conference Call is today! As always you can expect Darth Hater to cover the event and bring it to you live with notes on topics covered during the call. Our Liveblog of the Conference Call will start at 2PM PST / 5PM EST and last the entirety of the call. We would like to remind our readers that EA/BioWare/Lucasarts will not announce a release date on this call as EA CEO John Riccitiello stated last year, "Any announcement about TOR's release date would be a very public announcement and would not come during a shareholder call." However, if past Conference Calls are any judge, we should hear news SWTOR's slated Spring Release Window and other tidbits related to the game.

Make sure to keep your browsers locked on target here at Darth Hater. Conference Call Wrap-up continues after the jump.

UPDATE: SWTOR will ship Calendar 2011. Fiscal 12 guidance when Q4 results are announced. Fiscal 12 release for SWTOR. (For reference: FY11 ends in March)
Conference Call Wrap-up


  • [15:15] "EA is incurring significant development costs for the Star Wars MMO which is expected to ship in calendar 2011, but after the close of fiscal 11." - Eric Brown

  • [16:12] "We are expecting to ship Star Wars: The Old Republic in fiscal 12" - Eric Brown

  • [33:30] "So, a couple things, and I know I'm not going to satisfy you with this answer because a fair amount of what you're asking about is either subject to NDA with our partnership with Lucas, or alternatively, you know we don't generally put out head count for individual titles. I will say the following things though, one is we previously described to folks that half a million subscribers or so the game is substantially profitable but its not the kind of thing that we would write home about it, anything north of a million subscribers, it's a very profitable business. Essentially it turns on a dime from being most likely quite sharply negative in terms of its EPS impact to positive the day the product ships so its an important inflection point for it. I will add a little bit more color on a few things, one is there's been a fair amount of talk on various blogs describing spends that are vastly higher than anything we've ever put in place so don't read sort of gamer blogs as having any substance, some of them bring a chuckle but they also bring a frustration for those that are being responsible with the management of EA's R&D dollars when they read sort of falsehoods out of the press." - John Riccitiello

  • [34:40] "The second thing that I would tell you is that the game is looking very good, a number of you will have seen it in a variety of our consumer shows, it's only gotten stronger, we feel very good about the title. We're currently testing it with a wide-scale consumer type thing but not sort of at the beta scale level-wise over the coming months. One of the reasons that we have pushed our guidance to May, which is where it's historically been over most of the life of Electronic Arts, is so that we have a better insight on just this title and things like the NFL situation so we can provide more precise guidance." - John Riccitiello

  • [52:13] "Western markets, you know we estimate that the leading competitor has six-ish million subscribers, paying subscribers, and that they've got approximately half of the market that seems to be growing in the five percent per annum based on the number of subscribers. So call it 12 million people paying for subscription based gaming in the way that we review as competition. We've previously indicated that sort of a million subscribers or more rings our bell, that's very well for us economically. So it's our view that we can be very successful without fundamentally challenging the market leader, cause we think we'll probably hit the smaller competitors harder when we get out there. Of course we have no particular ambition to be a distant number two, our ambitions are higher than that, but we've throttled back a little bit relative to our financial projections." - John Riccitiello

  • [54:52] "I think what you're pointing to is it might be getting tired after so many years. I don't know that to be the case. I have not seen them announce that their western market numbers are coming down. But I do think that the market would be absolutely receptive to something fresh and new and differentiated. If you will, lightsabers vs. swords. I think there's a marketplace for us here and we're going at it aggressively." - John Riccitiello

  • Call Ended

Comments

Page 1 of 5
  • supersean420's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #64 supersean420 Posted 2/3/2011 3:06:34 AM
    those guys saying 4th be with you Idk if anyone else mentioned it but the only 4th being on a Tuesday, which is the traditional day of the week that entertainment products come out, is in October. maybe thats when it will be released. Here come the microtransactions and stand-alone Expansions/DLC!
  • Zanthos's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 173
    #63 Zanthos Posted 2/2/2011 5:08:32 PM
    Guidance (finance) from investordictionary.com:

    In financial reporting, guidance is a publicly traded corporation's official prediction of its own near-future profit or loss, stated as an amount of money per share. Guidance is usually given in a quarterly report to forecast the corporation's performance in the next quarter. Guidance is an aid to financial analysts and the stock market in valuing the corporation, and helps prevent overvaluation.

    In the NFL's case, I think it is the lockout they are talking about effecting possible profits. In the case of TOR, I think it's pretty much up in the air when the game is going to come out so in that regard, they are affecting their own guidance and need a better idea when precisely it is going to release to gauge numbers.

    A late quarter release in any of the Fiscal quarters would obviously give a late financial spike and then leading into the next quarter, the beginning would obviously be very good as well if box sales continued in the aftermath of release. Vice versa if it was to release at the very beginning of a Fiscal quarter.

    Note: Please take this as personal speculation. I'm certainly not an investor and am only giving a "educated" guess of what I think they mean.
  • TheCanuc's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #62 TheCanuc Posted 2/2/2011 4:08:25 PM
    From my understanding of how guidance works, I would take a hint from EA's talk about their NFL franchise, they state they they will be able to give more guidance on sales numbers of Madden AFTER they have learned whether there will be a lock-out or not. So I take that to mean that EA will be able to give more guidance on sales numbers of SW:TOR AFTER the game has been released. My first time posting on Darth Hater, just my two cents.
  • emlaeh's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 987
    #65 emlaeh Posted 2/3/2011 3:13:04 PM
    I read/heard that slightly different... that they would give guidance after the release date is announced publicly.

    They don't market this game the same way others do.
    They don't test this game the same way others do.
    They aren't going to release the game the same way others do.

    Or my crystal ball is broken again... probably from throwing it against the wall too much in the past two years.
  • TheCanuc's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #66 TheCanuc Posted 2/3/2011 4:51:46 PM
    Ya I definitely agree with you on that, I was going to edit my post to say that they would at least need new information to give more guidance. I kind of jumped to conclusions assuming that new information would be post-release sales, but open beta testing numbers and/or a release date (which I assume would have pre-order sales number that come with it) would also be new information that they could give guidance based on.
  • TeufelHunden's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #61 TeufelHunden Posted 2/2/2011 2:30:48 PM
    "SWTOR to ship Calendar 2011, Fiscal 12 guidance when Q4 results are announced. Fiscal 12 release for SWTOR

    What does "guidance" for a game release mean? I am really confused by this statement. Please help the guy who doesn't have much experience with this type of thing (because I have never cared so much about a game release!)
  • Danthis's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 138
    #56 Danthis Posted 2/2/2011 4:16:47 AM
    54:52] "I think what you're pointing to is it might be getting tired after so many years. I don't know that to be the case. I have not seem them announce that their western market numbers are coming down. But I do think that the market would be absolutely receptive to something fresh and new and differentiated. If you will, lightsabers vs. swords. I think there's a marketplace for us here and we're going at it aggressively." - John Riccitiello

    I hope that's not the extent of suit knowledge concerning the MMO space. :/
  • VenWolf's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 17
    #55 VenWolf Posted 2/2/2011 4:11:12 AM
    I would be really happy if it was released May 4th lol. That's my Birthday heh.
  • JuspicTesino's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #53 JuspicTesino Posted 2/2/2011 2:19:07 AM
    wow... they couldnt even say the name of their "leading competitor"...

    interesting interview though haha
  • Shriven's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 134
    #49 Shriven Posted 2/2/2011 1:02:07 AM
    May the 4th be with you?
  • Ghost's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 118
    #52 Ghost Posted 2/2/2011 2:17:57 AM
    I don't understand why people think it's May 4th. Yeah, it's catchy, but why would they release on the same day that Celebration VI begins?
  • DarthCynos's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #60 DarthCynos Posted 2/2/2011 12:12:28 PM
    Just echoing Klipto.. Celebration VI? in 2011? and on May 4th? Nope. Not happening this year, so what do you mean when you say, "..the same day that Celebration VI begins"?
    Fandays is in the fall, but that's hardly May 4th.
  • Zanthos's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 173
    #59 Zanthos Posted 2/2/2011 9:58:39 AM
    Celebration VI? Who, what, when, where, how?

    Only thing I've seen is rumors of CVI in possibly 2012. What did I miss?
  • Anvil's avatar
    Gamorrean Thug
    • Posts: 45
    #54 Anvil Posted 2/2/2011 3:46:05 AM
    Why Not? What part of "Hey here is the largest gathering of SW nerds and fanboys on the planet,. Lets set up a both were they could buy and/or play the game and then on top of that have it sign by whatever SW persona they wish."

    How could that be a bad that? If I could get Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew or Carrie Fisher (or ANY one else for that matter) I would do it! That in its self would sell at least a couple hundred boxes...I would hope
  • chronium's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 1583
    #57 chronium Posted 2/2/2011 4:26:33 AM
    That would be a better date to announce the release date then it is to release the game. If they released it on the same day they would be loosing attendees because people would be playing the game instead.
  • To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Page 1 of 5

Most Commented Articles

Go to Articles

Tag Cloud

More