TechReport summarizing EA on PC Gaming

[geoffry]

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14743

Not dead by a longshot, growing.

 

[BladeVenom]

EA scored big with the Sims franchise.

EA's 2007 results in millions:
Playstation 2: $886
PC: $498
360: $480
Playstation 3: $94
Wii $65

 

[geoffry]

True that, The Sims is a cash cow for them.

 

[Chosonman]

I refuse to waste any more money on EA games when I can't even play BF2 in 720 on my HDTV

 

[Bateluer]

Check out the screens for The Sims 3. I don't intend to buy it, however, the screen shots look really impressive. And since its a Sims game, you can be assured it will have about a dozen expansion packs

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: Chosonman
I refuse to waste any more money on EA games when I can't even play BF2 in 720 on my HDTV

you know widescreen fixer v 1.30 is punkbuster approved and allows widescreen resolutions with POV adjustment?

 

[skace]

Remember one thing, this thread won't get nearly as much chatter as the "PC gaming is doomed!!" threads and will be replaced by one of those within a week.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
EA scored big with the Sims franchise.

EA's 2007 results in millions:
Playstation 2: $886
PC: $498
360: $480
Playstation 3: $94
Wii $65

Where are those numbers from?

I find it interesting that Arstechnica here show PC gaming being a $0.9bn market, which I think means $900mn, and EA claiming $500mn in PC sales.
That would mean EA account for over 50% of total PC game sales, which to me sounds like NPD's figures are total bullshit. And by total I really really mean total.

 

[Chosonman]

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: Chosonman
I refuse to waste any more money on EA games when I can't even play BF2 in 720 on my HDTV

you know widescreen fixer v 1.30 is punkbuster approved and allows widescreen resolutions with POV adjustment?

Got anything on MoH, Madden 2007, Nba Live, NHL Hockey, and Nascar? none of them are wide screen either.

 

[Maximilian]

Thats all from EA though, EA dont know how to make decent games, they didnt score big with the sims franchise, they bought maxis and got lucky with the sims.

A little off topic but WOW they totally ripped off team fortress 2 with that battlefield cartoony game. Holy crap... That just shows EA's creativity is at an all time how....

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Originally posted by: Soviet
A little off topic but WOW they totally ripped off team fortress 2 with that battlefield cartoony game. Holy crap... That just shows EA's creativity is at an all time how....

It's going to be a free (I think ad-supported) download (I believe it is to lure gamers to the real product, Battlefield: Bad Company) so I have no problem with that.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: Soviet
A little off topic but WOW they totally ripped off team fortress 2 with that battlefield cartoony game.

There was a long thread involving me and another poster about the "TF2 knockoff." Dice did not knock off TF2.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I find it interesting that Arstechnica here show PC gaming being a $0.9bn market, which I think means $900mn, and EA claiming $500mn in PC sales.
That would mean EA account for over 50% of total PC game sales, which to me sounds like NPD's figures are total bullshit. And by total I really really mean total.

NPD tracks retail sales from US and some Canadian stores but does not track certain very, very large sellers of EA games. As an example- what is the largest EA game franchise for the PC? Where would everyone expect that game to sell the best? NPD does not track WalMart sales. EA has some shady business operations in this other odd place that NPD does not track called Europe too. While it isn't a large portion, they also do business in Asia.

NPDs numbers are very useful if you understand what they are for, to give a general overview of the gaming market combined with something like an extremely high sampling poll. They are not the be all, in fact during one of WalMart's black friday sales a few years back WalMart sold more of one of the types of GameBoys in one day then NPD has listed as selling nationwide for the entire month(this was noted in their report btw).

EA is the largest 3rd party publisher in gaming based on revenue as of now, so the fact that they would have a relatively large portion of the PC gaming market should be expected. That said, by the looks of their numbers versus NPDs they are probably only in the 20%-25% marketshare range which is a bit smaller then I would have expected given they own one of the two truly mass market properties in PC gaming as of now.

 

[PsharkJF]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Check out the screens for The Sims 3. I don't intend to buy it, however, the screen shots look really impressive. And since its a Sims game, you can be assured it will have about a dozen expansion packs

Intriguing, yes. But those SS's look pre-alpha, almost. There's no polish on it at all.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Does NPD track Steam or other digital distribution channels? Steam has most of the big developers that aren't EA, so if Steam is selling a lot of games and NPD doesn't track it, it's going to skew the numbers in EA's favor.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
EA scored big with the Sims franchise.

EA's 2007 results in millions:
Playstation 2: $886
PC: $498
360: $480
Playstation 3: $94
Wii $65

Where are those numbers from?

I did a little digging around a while back, posted it in this thread.

Most of the time people combine the revenue generated by the Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo gaming platforms into a single category to pit against the PC. Today, I take a look at the revenue generated by several popular impartial companies (impartial defined as not producing a gaming console). Only revenue from the current generation competing platforms will be listed.

Sources:

• Activision 2007 Annual Report, page 29
• EA 2007 Annual Report (retrieved from EA's website under investor relations), page 112
• THQ 2007 Annual Report, page 33

2007 Annual Reports (all in US dollars)

PC

• Activision: 78,886,000
• Electronic Arts: 498,000,000
• THQ: 149,000,000

Xbox 360

• Activision: 200,394,000
• Electronic Arts: 480,000,000
• THQ: 134,908,000

Wii

• Activision: 54,636,000
• Electronic Arts: 65,000,000
• THQ: 30,025,000

Playstation 3

• Activision: 53,842,000
• Electronic Arts: 94,000,000
• THQ: Not Found / Listed

Total Revenue of THQ, Activision, and EA

• 1. Xbox 360: 815,302,000
• 2. PC: 725,886,000
• 3. Wii: 149,661,000
• 4. PS3: 147,842,000

Notes

• The 2007 annual reports were for march 2006 - march 2007, this is a bit unfair to the PS3 and Wii
• Vivendi (owners of Blizzard), did not list their games division's revenue based on individual platform. But, Blizzard did bring in 1.2 billion in revenue and produced the vast majority of the revenue of Vivendi's game division. It is pretty obvious where the bulk of that revenue is coming from.
• Ubisoft (being a European company) listed theirs in Euros, if someone wants to convert their annual report by platform to the value of the USD in march 2007, feel free to do so and I will post it in the OP.
• I was unable to locate a breakdown per platform of Take-Two interactive's 2007 annual report

Please help expand this by posting revenue on a per platform basis from the 2007 annual reports of other companies and I will add them to the OP and totals. I do not have all the time in the world to dig through all of them and notify me of any mistakes in my figures so that I may correct them

I hope that this might prove interesting and again, please post some figures from other companies.

 

[geoffry]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Does NPD track Steam or other digital distribution channels? Steam has most of the big developers that aren't EA, so if Steam is selling a lot of games and NPD doesn't track it, it's going to skew the numbers in EA's favor.

No, NPD doesn't track steam, D2D or EA link...or any other digital distribution method if it exists.

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: GundamSonicZeroX

Originally posted by: Soviet
A little off topic but WOW they totally ripped off team fortress 2 with that battlefield cartoony game.

There was a long thread involving me and another poster about the "TF2 knockoff." Dice did not knock off TF2.

I wish Dice would fucking fix the BF games.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: Canai

Originally posted by: GundamSonicZeroX

Originally posted by: Soviet
A little off topic but WOW they totally ripped off team fortress 2 with that battlefield cartoony game.

There was a long thread involving me and another poster about the "TF2 knockoff." Dice did not knock off TF2.

I wish Dice would fucking fix the BF games.

Amen.

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
EA scored big with the Sims franchise.

EA's 2007 results in millions:
Playstation 2: $886
PC: $498
360: $480
Playstation 3: $94
Wii $65

Where are those numbers from?

I find it interesting that Arstechnica here show PC gaming being a $0.9bn market, which I think means $900mn, and EA claiming $500mn in PC sales.
That would mean EA account for over 50% of total PC game sales, which to me sounds like NPD's figures are total bullshit. And by total I really really mean total.

Yep, NPD numbers are total BS. They even had to admit that their numbers didn't represent a decline in PC game sales, just a switch to online purchases and subscriptions.

Blizzard alone made $1.2 Billion last year, mostly from WoW. Valve says things are going great and Steam is doing better than ever. Neither are counted by NPD.

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
EA scored big with the Sims franchise.

EA's 2007 results in millions:
Playstation 2: $886
PC: $498
360: $480
Playstation 3: $94
Wii $65

Where are those numbers from?

I find it interesting that Arstechnica here show PC gaming being a $0.9bn market, which I think means $900mn, and EA claiming $500mn in PC sales.
That would mean EA account for over 50% of total PC game sales, which to me sounds like NPD's figures are total bullshit. And by total I really really mean total.

EA's numbers are worldwide, NPD's aren't.

For example, the vast majority of Crysis sales happened in Europe, not the US

 

[EarthwormJim]

Originally posted by: Nightmare225

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
EA scored big with the Sims franchise.

EA's 2007 results in millions:
Playstation 2: $886
PC: $498
360: $480
Playstation 3: $94
Wii $65

Where are those numbers from?

I find it interesting that Arstechnica here show PC gaming being a $0.9bn market, which I think means $900mn, and EA claiming $500mn in PC sales.
That would mean EA account for over 50% of total PC game sales, which to me sounds like NPD's figures are total bullshit. And by total I really really mean total.

EA's numbers are worldwide, NPD's aren't.

For example, the vast majority of Crysis sales happened in Europe, not the US

With digital distribution becoming prevalent, it's time these studies shifted to look at the worldwide market.

 

[BFG10K]

With digital distribution becoming prevalent, it's time these studies shifted to look at the worldwide market.

Yep, I for one am tired of the "PC gaming is dying" posts when in actual fact it's growing.