Originally posted by hh33

[mod edit]

 

So... you just randomly post in threads without checking facts, or even reading the thread? Seems convenient.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Burntvet

And yet, you miss the last obvious step: EA revenue =/= TOR revenue and vice versa.

Which was the point: the money NOT going back into the TOR pot, maybe I'll use smaller words next time for clarity.

 

TOR revenue is EA Revenue.

TOR revenue is subject to the split with LA and other partners.

Origin revenue is not.

That simple enough for you?

If not, nm, there is no hope in trying to explain anything else to you.

 

 

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Originally posted by Burntvet

If not, nm, there is no hope in trying to explain anything else to you.

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It isn't clear to me either. What makes Origin so much special among all EA divisions and subsidiaries?

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Originally posted by Wayshuba

So all told, without the free month added that extended subs over quarter reporting, you probably have something that looks more like this:

2.4M box sales

1.7M initial subs

800k subs lost by end of Q1 (so 900k left)

Another 350k lost by end of Q2 (so down to 550k)

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You their accept the number of 700k subscribers for the end of Q2 as you did in your post but then your math won't fit or you won't and your math will have no back up...

Originally posted by Burntvet

 

TOR revenue is subject to the split with LA and other partners.

Origin revenue is not.

That simple enough for you?

If not, nm, there is no hope in trying to explain anything else to you.

 

 

TOR is all EA revenue.

Origin revenue is EA revenue.

Why are you so mad?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/revenue

an amount of money regularly coming in

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/profit

the return received on a return of investment once all charges have been made.

See it helps if you know what words mean when you use them.

2+2 /= 5 no matter how many times you say it.

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Burntvet

And yet, you miss the last obvious step: EA revenue =/= TOR revenue and vice versa.

Which was the point: the money NOT going back into the TOR pot, maybe I'll use smaller words next time for clarity.

 

TOR revenue is EA Revenue.

TOR revenue is subject to the split with LA and other partners.

Origin revenue is not.

That simple enough for you?

If not, nm, there is no hope in trying to explain anything else to you. 

I think what Burntvet is trying to suggest is that EA pay LA "so much per sub" but not "so much per box sold". There is no evidence of this - EA wouldn't comment on the agreement they have with LA.

Usually, however, the company, EA in this case, pay a sum of money for the rights to an IP; whether this is FIFA or NBA or whatever. The sum could be $1 for 1 day or $100M for 5 years, it could be paid in advance, per year or monthly. Bottonline EA pay LA a sum of money.

There will be inbuilt protections. LA wil have an obligation to promote and preotect the IP. Things under EA control though - how they advertise and sell the game, technical and design issues (as long as they stay within the IP guidelines) they won't feature - outside of LA control, La not interested, EA wouldn't have wanted LA meddling.

And the money will come out of the EA pot -irrespective of where it comes in.

It was reported, here in fact, on these forums of how much LA gets.  Looks like back in 09.  I've seen another link that goes to a business site as well with the same number only google didn't bring that 1 up.  May be old also.

http://www.morpg.com/mobile/forums.cfm?ismb=1&threadId=334547

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Originally posted by Esquire1980
It was reported, here in fact, on these forums of how much LA gets.  Looks like back in 09.  I've seen another link that goes to a business site as well with the same number only google didn't bring that 1 up.  May be old also.

http://www.morpg.com/mobile/forums.cfm?ismb=1&threadId=334547

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Not an official number...just another water based guesstimate...

Outside of EA, nobody knows what LA is getting paid.  My theory is that they had to pay LA a lump sum license fee when they initially started making the game.  In other words, when an "expert analyst" says SWTOR cost $800 Billion to develop, the licensing fee is included in that $800 Billion.  That would make the most sense for EA, fiscally.

Originally posted by Souldrainer

http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/21125-electronic-arts-q1-fy13-earnings-call

 

 

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2:14: Giving people choice along side subscriptions should give people plenty of options and drive players to the game. Mentioned break even point was 500,000, SWTOR is well above that but under 1 million total subscribers. Offering two-tiered pricing plan in November. For players who cancelled their subscriptions, feedback provided as they cancelled indicated that 40% were turned off by the monthly subscription fee

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As was previously stated in numerous threads, 500K is the price point the game needed to stay at to remain profitable, according to Bioware.

 

 

I don't think that's what the 500K sub issue is about.    It's almost certainly profitable right now and would almost certainly be profitable at 250K or even 125K.     What they're talking about is recoupment of the investment from a Return on Investment perspective.   They were talking 500K subs for a very, very, very long time to repay all that money they invested, plus the huge royalty burden, plus current operation costs. 

 

 

 

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Originally posted by AmbrosiaAmor

Yeah the sky is falling over at the official forums. E.A. knows how to put a + spin on things. POWERFUL Battlefield 3 you say?

Im curious what do you guys mean by the sky is falling.  As in, they are saying this news is good news or they're actually finally realizing the game is not the resounding success they thought it was?

I would go read it myself, but im at work and i dont need to ruin the rest of my day by going to the offiicial forums.

 

They're really upset.  Don't want to game with the "F2P Riff-Raff."

 

 

Originally posted by Souldrainer

http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/21125-electronic-arts-q1-fy13-earnings-call

 

 

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2:14: Giving people choice along side subscriptions should give people plenty of options and drive players to the game. Mentioned break even point was 500,000, SWTOR is well above that but under 1 million total subscribers. Offering two-tiered pricing plan in November. For players who cancelled their subscriptions, feedback provided as they cancelled indicated that 40% were turned off by the monthly subscription fee

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As was previously stated in numerous threads, 500K is the price point the game needed to stay at to remain profitable, according to Bioware.

 

 I can not beleve swtor has 500k subs.

I know many people who bought the game and non of those still playes. I dont think they would go f2p if they had 500k subscribers,with 15$ per month it would bring them 7,5 mill$ every month. No way they go f2p if they had 500k subscribers.

I think they dont have more than 25-50k paying players as for now.

I can believe that SWTOR has 500k+ subscribers, but I highly doubt they have 500k+ "active" players that actually log in to play. I think the  number of active subscribers will see a serious dip as canceled six month subscrptions expire later this month. SWTOR will bring in many players when it initially goes F2P, but the same problem of poor player retention will quickly rear its ugly head.

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by tiefighter25

They never announced SWTOR's sub numbers other then under one million. They did suggest that the FTP model was an attempt to "claw back" the "churn" of cancelled subscriptions. EA also said they expected revenue from subs and microtransactions to be comparable in dollars.

 

EA also stated that "We don't expect Star Wars free to play revenue to be incremental to the other things we've listed."

In other words, EA is distancing itself from SWTOR as much as it can and further lowering it as a priority for EA.

EA has also anounced they will buy back $500 million in EA stock. If you want to be a uber-hater, you could say thet EA has to buyback stock because SWTOR 's failure halved their stock value. So if you say that SWTOR cost $500 million in production and marketing, and the stock buyback is an additional $500 million; SWTOR is now a billion dollar mistake.

 

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It is EA conference call, not SWTOR conference call. Sub numbers are not an investor interest.

If SWTOR was such a failure and EA was doing so bad, they would not sink more money on stock reacquisition. They do it to pump stock price per share to revitalize their stock value and/or they expect bull on their shares in the future.

 

Sub numbers ARE an investor interest.  It is one of the metrics by which they can judge management.   Subs going up, things are good.   Subs dropping through the floor...   There are people with judgment problems and maybe it's time to get a new management team...

Originally posted by Kazara
I can believe that SWTOR has 500k+ subscribers, but I highly doubt they have 500k+ "active" players that actually log in to play. I think the  number of active subscribers will see a serious dip as canceled six month subscrptions expire later this month. SWTOR will bring in many players when it initially goes F2P, but the same problem of poor player retention will quickly rear its ugly head.

 Ok if there are active six months subs still then it might be cloce to 500k,but I guess that all those six months subs are canceled now and that might be the reason why they are going f2p.

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by Hopscotch73

The fact that thay did not give a number this time speaks volumes. 

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The fact that pretty much no one does speaks more volume...

What matters to investors are numbers - financial reports, not trash journalist aiming for shocking headlines and immature doom and gloom of forum armchair generals.

 

Wrong again.   Many game companies give sub numbers.   Turbine does.   Blizzard does.   CCP does.   EA did when it suited them with Warhammer and SWTOR ( and stopped when they failed).   Nexon tells us the number of accounts (about 82.5 million) and how many they get revenue from (paying accounts) 9 million.   NCSoft used to disclose everything in their financial statements and while they don't put it in their financials anymore, they still disclose that information in press releases.  Square Enix discloses subs. 

 

The people who make Runescape disclose their AAs.  Same with Second Life. 

 

And the list goes on and on and on with companies that voluntarily disclose numbers.  

 

 

But, beyond that.  As I pointed out in a previous post, those numbers are important.   Even if it isn't convienent for you to admit it...

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by Phry

 

They do .. if you've been paying any attention to the 'Euro' debt crisis and the stock markets, then i would say that investors really do base their multi million dollar etc decisions on rumours. Rumours, speculation, and very little actual facts.. which is why the markets fluctuate as wildly as they do.. and is also why  Investment Banking is referred to as 'casino style banking'.

 

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Erm no, they don't.

One fundamental error you make in your assertion is that investors know as much as you do. They do know a lot more and their understanding of context is also much broader.

Sure, many announcements may cause fluctuations in intraday trading, swings here and there followed by corrections but that is just little waves caused by speculation upon new fundamental. The long term trends though, are created by big money moving that are far beyond daily events.

 

What Phry wrote is taught in just about every college level finance course.   It's the subject of thousands of papers, articles, studies, webpages, etc.    Here, first up in a google search with 3+ million hits:

 

 https://www.tradeking.com/investing/stock-investment-news

 

Hell, there are COMPANIES that specialize in bringing market rumors to you.  And I don't mean just the WSJ (which brings market rumors to you), there are brokerage firms, websites, CNBC, etc. that have entire working groups dedicated to collecting, verifying and disseminating rumors.

 

 

 

 

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Hopscotch73

Oh come off it, of course sub numbers for an MMO that had hundreds of millions of investor's cash invested in it is of interest to investors. 

The fact that thay did not give a number this time speaks volumes. 

Buying back stock is an attempt to bring up the value of their shares which have tanked in the last 6 months. Not necessarily ONLY because of SWTOR but you can bet that it and the ME3 hoopla were contributing factors. 

Investors read headlines, look at the headlines for the past 6 months: Consumerist Worst Company in America, ME3 Day 1 DLC, ME3 ending, Tortanic ... much as I have enjoyed playing SWTOR (and still play a couple of times a week) , your argument is just naive.

The old adage of there being no such thing as bad press does not apply to corporations...and it's even worse when those corporations are selling to gamers who are perfectly at home on the internet and know how to make sure their dissatisfaction reaches as many eyeballs as possible. 

Here is the problem. You don't put those numbers in context. SWTOR seems like a big deal until you look at their product releases from the last year.

Madden 2012

FIFA Soccer 12

Mass Effect 3

Battlefield 3

Need for Speed the Run

Dead Space 2

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 : The Masters

I probably missed  a few titles and I didn't get into cellphone/iphone games.

SWTOR doesn't have as big an impact as you like to think and  EA is very healthy financially right now.

 

 

EA has lost over $3 billion the past six years and projects in their forward looking financial statements to lose between $250 million and $500 million for this fiscal year.   I don't what planet where a company that has been massively under-peforming and losing money for most of the past decade is 'very healthy financially,' but it isn't this one.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Burntvet

 

A few of the game devs/publishers on different sites have discussed the "split" on retail sales a few times.

In general, the RETAILER gets 65%-75% of the box price for physical copies, depending on the retailer. So for physical copies, the publisher is getting the small slice.

For digitial distribution, the retailer gets in the 25%-30% range, for a major release large title.

And even on the Origin sales (EA's distributor) I guarantee that they split out a similar amount even though it was an EA product being sold, because any such "sales commission" would be outside any revenue sharing deal with the IP holder, i.e. EA gets to keep that 25% off the top before paying anyone else, same as if another site sold the copies. So it would be profit for Origin. A technicality, but still money not going back into the TOR pot.

 

This $50-$60 a box crap going to EA that people throw around makes me laugh.

 

Your logic is so flawed I don't know what to say. When EA makes, publishes and distributes a game it makes all of that money. 

100%

When they make a digital sale through origin they make 100% of the money. 

 

So Target, BestBuy, Amazon, etc just do it for free then?     Have you NEVER HEARD OF WHOLESALE?

 

How about ROYALTIES?   That is money they have to pay to the people who own the copy protection, third-party-assets, intellectual property that they use to build their games?

 

Just because you're aggressive doesn't mean you're right.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Burntvet

And yet, you miss the last obvious step: EA revenue =/= TOR revenue and vice versa.

Which was the point: the money NOT going back into the TOR pot, maybe I'll use smaller words next time for clarity.

 

TOR revenue is EA Revenue.

 

Nope.   Some of it is LucasArts revenue.  You see, they're the publisher not EA.   One of the many things you've gotten (aggressively) wrong through this thread.