EA stocks has fallen by almost 50% since E3 debacle and aren't stopping

[Iron Golem]

Whats the issue here? Dont you people have phones???


I gotta agree, the D3 fan crowd probably has not as much impact as it thinks it has but Blizzard could ve handled this better....MUCH better in fact. Instead they were confrontational and they are getting the bill for it. The internet and YT specifically were full of torches-and-pitchforks pieces for days afterwards painting a very negative image. I am sure a lot of people not much vested in Diablo were kinda triggered by this biased reporting.

The stock market simply reacts to insecurities when it comes to the cash cows (gamers) which are currently up in arms.

Personally I have given up on Blizzard a loooong time ago. I fell for their "we are gamers too" crap when I was younger and didnt know much but they are a full blown corporate company by now and they just produce the tools to make what they really are after. Add the fact that it has been decades since Blizzard has had an original idea of their own....yeah, the company I was a fan of 20 years ago is dead.

D3 was a good experience, but eventully very short-lived. I still dont regret purchasing it, it has been a few hundred hours of fun (and grind....) but the way Blizzard games have gone I dont put much hope into Diablo: Immortal, its going to be a typical F2P game and those bore me to tears after minutes. In the end...gamers are the lifeblood of video game companies. All the profit is based on gamers good-will and pockets. Might not be the best idea to flip em the bird or outright tell folks "we dont care what you think, we do what we want and you ll like it". The possible fall-out is something I follow with interest, mostly to see how the companies involved handle this.

Its almost like the game company meta strategy is to aspire to some great games and experiences. Garner trust and loyalty from your consumers. And ram it into the god damn ground as hard as you can and as long as you can till money stops coming out.

Good games sell. Do a good job and be consistent and make quality product and reap the rewards. Its like they flick a greed switch at some point. I dare say you would make bigger profit longer term. You might even be able to live with yourself when its all over.

 

[duffbeeeer]

Yep, the worst thing is how the media love to hype it up because they know its going to be pure clickbait to anyone of either persuasion.

Tina Fey's character in her current show 'Great News' kind of sums it up for me, with how she justifies changing the traditional news shows she's producing into a more modern one with 'experts' screaming at each other across the table

"With America on the verge of eating itself alive, people are finally watching cable news again."



I'm going to start by saying that Toumal was looking for something with larger areas for you to fight over, where you can use terrain to your advantage.

Secondly, I'm going to just highlight that the reason Squad is like that (and different from the ones I suggested) is that the whole focus of Squad is on the Team Leader, whereas with those others I listed as suggestions to Toumal, while they can help give you the edge, they're not as heavily reliant on them.

Thirdly, as someone who's real life job involves actually having rounds being lobbed back at me uprange, please don't try to argue that somehow e-NCOing in a computer game is somehow 'stressful' or any such nonsense. It cheapens the discussion.

Well it may not be stressful for you but for the majority of people it just might be or how else do you explain the niche status of those titles? Not everyone served in the military in their lives.

 

[Stigbob]

Well it may not be stressful for you but for the majority of people it just might be or how else do you explain the niche status of those titles? Not everyone served in the military in their lives.

Video games are for fun, if you feel stressed by them you are doing it wrong.

 

[duffbeeeer]

Video games are for fun, if you feel stressed by them you are doing it wrong.

I agree, but how does this statement add anything to the topic at hand? Furthermore the definition of fun is subjective to everyone. I had fun collecting feathers and making arrows in Ultima Online. Most people I know would describe this activity as boring and pointless.

 

[Fishy]

Well it may not be stressful for you but for the majority of people it just might be or how else do you explain the niche status of those titles? Not everyone served in the military in their lives.

Because it's not entertaining to the majority? Not entertaining != stressful. World of Subways is pretty niche too, and it has nothing to do with it being stressful. It seems obvious Squad or ArmA will be utterly boring to the average 360 noscope crowd. Different people find entertainment differently.

 

[duffbeeeer]

Because it's not entertaining to the majority? Not entertaining != stressful. World of Subways is pretty niche too, and it has nothing to do with it being stressful. It seems obvious Squad or ArmA will be utterly boring to the average 360 noscope crowd. Different people find entertainment differently.

Tbh it was just an assumption of mine because personally I think SQUAD has everything it needs to convince the FPS crowd in buying it. Modern GFX, proper sounds, a good mix between realism and gameplay. You just need someone in the crowd to step up and take over the SL position.

But what about were we talking again? The downfall of big companies due to falling stock prices and the hope of some posters here, that it might be correlated to them being punished for not delivering quality products for quality prices? In my POV theyre not getting punished for that. shareholders dont care for the quality of games, they only care about revenue. The AAA industry is healthier than ever with increasing budgets and sales numbers. It doesnt even matter if you or me like their titles, we have millions of uninformed buyers that frankly are not even as half invested in the hobby as we are here. They make the majority of sales and theyre perfectly fine with this years Battlefield and RDR 2. Dont let me even get started on FIFA. Same goes for ActiBlizz, fans are mad over BlizzCon and understandbly so. But the harsh truth is, that Diablo Mobile will most likely make even more money then Diablo 3 itself. Why should ActiBlizz even care about what their hardcore fans think about this?

 

[Stigbob]

I agree, but how does this statement add anything to the topic at hand? Furthermore the definition of fun is subjective to everyone. I had fun collecting feathers and making arrows in Ultima Online. Most people I know would describe this activity as boring and pointless.

Don't take the conversation in a certain direction them moan about the replies to what you said being offtopic.

 

[Chris Simon]

Another interesting take on the matter with some excellent points.
"Target your target audience" and especially "Don't be sassy and don't poke the bear" really stand out.

[video=youtube;UA5DSjEdNJc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA5DSjEdNJc[/video]

 

[duffbeeeer]

Don't take the conversation in a certain direction them moan about the replies to what you said being offtopic.

You literally said water is wet. Thats not even offtopic, thats a fact not worth talking about.

 

[Stigbob]

You literally said water is wet. Thats not even offtopic, thats a fact not worth talking about.

I said it was wet after you griped about having such damp trousers.

 

[Chris Simon]

You literally said water is wet. Thats not even offtopic, thats a fact not worth talking about.

I said it was wet after you griped about having such damp trousers.

Guys, please... :|

 

[Demascus]

I like cookies!

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Well SQUAD has been in early access since a few years and is doing exactly, what you guys seem to be looking for. Guess what? SQUAD is a niche game, which requires some degree in commanding real troops to have fun. Everyone is talking about how cool it would be to be in a real battle but while playing SQUAD you ll quickly realize how stessful this is and keep switching back to fun games like CoD or BF. The irony.

Nah, it's not about "stressful", it's likely more about the non-committal way to fire up a game and have casually fun without pulling out the calendar and making appointments for the gaming session.

 

[Faybs]

Sigh. I remember when EA used to be called Electronic Arts. They were at the forefront of the games industry at the time. How the mighty have fallen.

Spoiler

 

[LeoBartlet]

https://ycharts.com/companies/EA/market_cap

Yeah it's not just Activision who is in a kind of a pickle.
It seems that "If you don't like our games, don't buy them and preorder them" isn't the best marketing strategy. Who knew.

I know it's not about consumer happiness. That's not how stock market and shareholders work. But it is kind of... nice to see.
The big part of this landslide might be the fact that the "anti-lootbox" laws in various countries are probably really going to be a thing. Can you imagine how the shareholders might look at a prospect of "their" company losing almost half of its income over night?

I really wish game-developing companies would start fighting over the customers by quality of their games, once more.

I hear the Battlefield 5 is actually quite good. But will anybody be buying it after all that's been going on for the last 4 months?

Good.

Like facebook its a company that simply needs to die.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

So can someone give me a simplified run-down? Stocks and shares confuse me. :|

 

[Chris Simon]

So can someone give me a simplified run-down? Stocks and shares confuse me. :|

It confuses me, too. I didn't study economy and I have no idea how and why the numbers are moving. but the way I understand it is that the number represents how much the shareholders and the market think the company is worth. Kind of like reputation.
Now I'm going to get burned for oversimplifying.

 

[LeoBartlet]

It confuses me, too. I didn't study economy and I have no idea how and why the numbers are moving. but the way I understand it is that the number represents how much the shareholders and the market think the company is worth. Kind of like reputation.
Now I'm going to get burned for oversimplifying.

So can someone give me a simplified run-down? Stocks and shares confuse me. :|

You'll have to pay for the Stock explanation expansion.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

You'll have to pay for the Stock explanation expansion.

Oh snap!

 

[Toumal]

BF1 had maps with a lot of funneling tons of players into small alleys. In BFV the maps are very open, you can get flanked from pretty much anywhere. Gunplay has been derandomized and the crosshair now moves with the recoil correctly. Gone are days of endless autoheal too. Vehicles need to rearm at base and cant just spam their cannons. Everyone can now fortify positions with sandbags and supply stations must be built by the teams. Add no more 3d spotting. But hey you could have known all of this, if you were really interested in it.

Regarding your 255 players count: MAG tried it on ps3 some years, more players just doesnt equate more fun. You ll need to balance all the gadgets and tools around zerging with 255. Most of the other players wont be noticed by you.

All good points.

Problem is:

1) Games had this figured out way before BFV. The fact that BF1 was way more terrible doesn't make BFV "good". You think fixing recoil was a great invention? Yeah? And making the spawning less broken is revolutionary? It's not.

2) Oh I knew about it. I choose to play better games.

3) If all you know is MAG, then I'm sorry to hear that you have never experienced Joint Ops or Planetside during their heyday. Google "International Conflict", it's been the longest running JO tournament with massive servers. The game was glitchy and the engine wasn't very good, but you simply have no idea what a boundless map can bring to gameplay. Suddenly troop transportation and logistics become important. Medics become vital. You can respawn immediately but 10km away, or you have to wait and respawn further up... or you organize transportation and do a paradrop as a group, or roll up as a tank column with 30 pieces of heavy armor and 5 APCs. I'd bring in Arma as another reference but frankly I never got into that game due to it's cumbersome controls. But it's there and it's simply a completely different experience that gets scale, distance, and tactics right. There's hardly any of that in Battlefield.

BFV does not hold a candle to such experiences. You can't have 30 tanks on one side fighting 30 other tanks. The maps just aren't big enough. We loaded up APCs in chinooks and airdropped them onto enemies, together with 10 troops per helo. A single airdrop with 4 chinooks was 40 people all dropping in at the same time while your tanks roll up and engage enemy armor. If the game is designed for it, lots of players equates situations you will never get to experience in a fishbowl shooter that maxes out at 32 vs 32 players.

Because at the end of the day, that's what these games are. Fishbowl shooters are easier to develop. There's a reason why only very few companies put out games with higher player count.


But hey it's not your fault that you never played massive FPS games, to end this on an equally condescending note as your post. Next time be a little nicer.