Huh? How do you know when there are major problems in your publishing company? Well, here are some sure signs. You claim that you are the top publisher on five of your most important platforms, and then lose gobs of cash. EA, who shed over 1500 people last year in an effort to save money, is still bleeding cash. They reported a Q3 loss of $322 million which was almost four times more than the same quarter or 2009. Apparently, they either didn’t fire enough people or they simply did fire the right people, like say, the President with his, most likely, massive salary and bonuses.
Now sales were also down to $1.053 billion from $1.243 billion so that could explain some of it. Digital account for about 20% of sales ($211M) while packaged retail was $1.1B and distribution was down almost $100M.
Maybe EA needs to look at CEO John Riccitiello, who is still confident in the company’s performance as they authorized a $600M stock repurchase program.
Now many of us would wonder how, when they have Dead Space 2 which doubled sales of its predecessor and Medal of Honor and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, both selling over 5 million sales during the period.
EA said it was the number one publisher on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the App Store and Microsoft Windows Phone 7.
Sales highlights also included FIFA 11, Madden NFL 11 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 also selling over five million units each total. So that’s now five titles selling over 5 million each and they are still losing money.
So where has all the money gone?
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