(pcgamer) EA release first quarter financial results: how much did they make from PC?

[Final8ty]

Last night EA announced its financial results for the first quarter of this year, and the figures say some fascinating things about the state of the games industry. There’s number crunching below, along with some interesting insight into the workings of a major publisher.

First, the big news, the report breaks down earning by platform. PC delivered $276 million, the Xbox 360 $292 million and the PS3 $267 million. So the EA, one of the biggest publishers in the world, made more money from the PC than from the PS3.

The PC’s good showing was mostly due to increasing numbers of digital sales. EA made $342 million from those, rising from $232 million last year, while physical sales made $592, dropping from $647 last year. If these trends continue, digital could outpace physical in a year or two, and when that happens at a studio the size of EA, some very interesting things are going to happen to gaming retail.

So where has all that money come from? A lot of it is from Origin, which now has 21 million users. Battlefield Premium also stood out, selling a surprisingly high 1.3 million copies. Fifa Ultimate Team continues to sell like crazy, making $30 million already this year. Rich has something to do with that.

Not everyone can be a winner though, and last nights loser was undoubtedly The Old Republic. Not surprising considering EA just announced that SWTOR was going free to play. The call did shed a little light on why this happened however. VG247 are reporting that SWTORs subscriptions have dipped below a million. According to the results, 40% of players said they didn’t want to play a subscription and might return if the game was free.

So that’s the brave new world of 2012. PCs are making more money than Playstations, digital sales are catching up to physical ones, and subscription fees are going extinct. Hmm.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/08/01/ea-financial-results-revealed/

 

[waterjug]

subscrip. fees aren't going extinct. They did in one game. But otherwise, fascinating article. I was afraid clicking on this link that it'd say PC gaming made nothing...glad it outpaced at least one console .

 

[wuliheron]

The latest PC sales figures show tablets, laptops, smartphones, and all-in-one desktops are dominating the market and the latest Steam survey shows an increase in the number of people using integrated graphics. Rumors are Intel's Haswell chip which will be released next year has 2-5 times the graphics punch of their current offerings in one chip. It's great news for developers knowing they don't have to rely on console sales or even specific vendors and won't be limited to indie games.

 

[Wreckem]

PC vs Console when the console is nearing what 8 years old is really no contest. The PC should be slaughtering consoles right now but sadly they aren't.

Soon as next gen comes out PC will again, like always, be regulated to a more niche market.

 

[postmortemIA]

PC vs Console when the console is nearing what 8 years old is really no contest. The PC should be slaughtering consoles right now but sadly they aren't.

Soon as next gen comes out PC will again, like always, be regulated to a more niche market.

I have less than 10 xbox360 games, cheapest one I bought was $25. I have over hundred PC games, cheapest one I bought was about $2. See the difference? And hence the well-known laughed-at EA comment "that steam is destroying game IP"

 

[TechBoyJK]

PC vs Console when the console is nearing what 8 years old is really no contest. The PC should be slaughtering consoles right now but sadly they aren't.

Soon as next gen comes out PC will again, like always, be regulated to a more niche market.

The fact that current gen systems have lasted so long shows that many gamers, especially casual, are completely happy with the current state of graphics. With integrated graphics catching up to the power of these consoles, and being put in devices significantly smaller, cheaper, and more portable, I don't think next gen consoles will have quite the impact as expected. I don't think people are going to be trading in mobile devices so their angry birds have better shadows and AA.

 

[irishScott]

The fact that current gen systems have lasted so long shows that many gamers, especially casual, are completely happy with the current state of graphics. With integrated graphics catching up to the power of these consoles, and being put in devices significantly smaller, cheaper, and more portable, I don't think next gen consoles will have quite the impact as expected. I don't think people are going to be trading in mobile devices so their angry birds have better shadows and AA.

This. Until post-HD resolutions become common the "graphics wars" among consoles are largely winding down. 1080p will eventually be hit and things will stay there for a few years, as that's quickly becoming the current standard.

Much as the CPU wars have largely switched to core count, I imagine the console wars will switch to interfaces and maybe VR, which could actually be really cool. The current Kinect sucks ass, but the concept is sound. I'd love to see a Kinect 2.0 in a year or two with upgraded hardware/capabilities.

 

[Red Storm]

That's just EA sales. Factor in Steam and all the other digital markets and we're talking a serious amount of money.

 

[SMOGZINN]

So where has all that money come from? A lot of it is from Origin, which now has 21 million users.

Dangit! That means Origin is going to stick around.

 

[dpodblood]

Personally I have been using Origin since BF3 launched and have never had an issue with it. The service is very comparable to steam, and is very similar to what Valve did back in the day with steam. As much as I love Valve, and sometimes detest EA there is no denying it's bad for the industry as a whole to have a single publisher (Valve) have a monopoly on the entire digital download market.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Personally I have been using Origin since BF3 launched and have never had an issue with it. The service is very comparable to steam, and is very similar to what Valve did back in the day with steam. As much as I love Valve, and sometimes detest EA there is no denying it's bad for the industry as a whole to have a single publisher (Valve) have a monopoly on the entire digital download market.

I'm not so sure about that. Valve is a distributor more then a publisher in the case of Steam. Really you can think of it as a marketplace. Origin is not really competing with Steam, it is actually trying to get around having to compete with all the other products Steam sells. What we are going to quickly see is that Steam and Origin both work to get exclusive rights to sell specific software, and then they will compete by making their systems not play well with the other.

 

[diesbudt]

I'm not so sure about that. Valve is a distributor more then a publisher in the case of Steam. Really you can think of it as a marketplace. Origin is not really competing with Steam, it is actually trying to get around having to compete with all the other products Steam sells. What we are going to quickly see is that Steam and Origin both work to get exclusive rights to sell specific software, and then they will compete by making their systems not play well with the other.

Basically same thing consoles have been doing for years with IPs.

Soon half the digital d/l games on PC will be from Origin, half from steam and a mythlogical third half from Win. Live.

 

[Red Storm]

Personally I have been using Origin since BF3 launched and have never had an issue with it. The service is very comparable to steam, and is very similar to what Valve did back in the day with steam. As much as I love Valve, and sometimes detest EA there is no denying it's bad for the industry as a whole to have a single publisher (Valve) have a monopoly on the entire digital download market.

EA is more of a publisher than Valve is. And when it comes down to it, I'd MUCH rather Valve hold the keys to the digital marketplace than EA.

 

[dpodblood]

EA is more of a publisher than Valve is. And when it comes down to it, I'd MUCH rather Valve hold the keys to the digital marketplace than EA.

Personally I'd rather see everything go DRM free, but I think we are quite a ways off from that (Even though CD Projekt Red has proven it works).

 

[darkewaffle]

lol, "monopolies are ok if I like the company"

 

[Red Storm]

lol, "monopolies are ok if I like the company"

Being realistic is also okay.

I'd love to have a giant, DRM-free market where every dev sells their games. Never gonna happen, so what's the point in even mentioning it?

Fact is, Valve has done a much better job in their position than EA ever would.

 

[SMOGZINN]

EA is more of a publisher than Valve is. And when it comes down to it, I'd MUCH rather Valve hold the keys to the digital marketplace than EA.

Valve started out as mostly a publisher with Steam being a way to sell their games.

lol, "monopolies are ok if I like the company"

Reading comprehension fail. Better work on that, it will probably be on the SATs.

 

[Lonyo]

I'm not so sure about that. Valve is a distributor more then a publisher in the case of Steam. Really you can think of it as a marketplace. Origin is not really competing with Steam, it is actually trying to get around having to compete with all the other products Steam sells. What we are going to quickly see is that Steam and Origin both work to get exclusive rights to sell specific software, and then they will compete by making their systems not play well with the other.

Um, the right to sell specific software is irrelevant.
You can buy Origin games and Steam games from Gamersgate or Greenmangaming.
What does that mean? Absolutely nothing, since you still require Steam or Origin to actually play the things.

What exactly do you mean by "making their systems not play well with the other"?
Games which require Steam already don't "play well" with anything that isn't Steam by virtue of the fact that no matter where you buy it, it doesn't matter, you need Steam.
Unless you mean preventing the use of keys bought from elsewhere, I don't see how they can play less well with each other than they already do.

 

[darkewaffle]

I don't think there's really any arguing that Steam is in a monopolistic position in the digital distribution market, which itself is not illegal as they have not behaved particularly monopolistically thus far. Or if they have, it hasn't been publicized very much at any rate, which is admirable. However I don't think it's a much of a leap to go from "bundling Internet Explorer is monopolistic behavior" to "requiring Steam for Steamworks-secured titles is monopolistic behavior". I don't particularly agree with either sentiment, but the precedent is there. You could probably make a case that requiring Steam for Steamworks titles is unfairly funneling customers and that the services should be de-laced and Steamworks should be able to operate independently of Steam.

But I don't see how you can really advocate "for" the current state of affairs as a consumer, especially when Steam is at best an "ok" product. They do a good job satiating customers with their sales which keeps them pretty happy regardless, but I think it's hard to believe that such a mature product is still missing numerous basic, useful (and frankly obvious) features. You can't choose where to install games, you can't limit your download speed (or schedule downloads. or download while you play a game iirc.), you can barely customize how your library displays games, you can't setup any sort of sale/release alerts for games, Steam adds/requires (I'm not sure which) a service on booting your PC, and I'm sure there's plenty of other ideas as well.

Origin still has a ways to go, and I think Steam does too. What I don't see though is how Origin potentially becoming a compelling, competitive platform would be a bad thing. It would provide Origin users a better service altogether, and give Steam reason to be more aggressive in improving their platform as well.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Um, the right to sell specific software is irrelevant.
You can buy Origin games and Steam games from Gamersgate or Greenmangaming.

This will be the first thing we would lose. As competition starts up the different marketplaces will attempt to get 'exclusive' titles, see Origin and Battlefield 3. They will be able to do this with more force as B&M sales continue to plummet.

What exactly do you mean by "making their systems not play well with the other"?

Running Steam will crash Origin, and vise versa. Perhaps installing one will currupt the installation of the other. There is already precedent for this sort of shenanigans.
In the early days of IM, AIM and ICQ had a war of this sort. Every few weeks you would get an update to one service that disabled the other service.