EA Shows Off Q4 Financials, SimCity Sells 1.6 Million Units
Looking at SimCity's disastrous launch, one wouldn't expect EA to be having a great year. But according to EA's fourth fiscal quarter financial reports, the publisher is doing just fine. SimCity managed to pull off a respectable 1.6 million in sales, despite negative reviews and poor reception to the game's online-always gameplay. Battlefield 3 Premium generated over $120 million in revenue in March alone, and has raked in 3.5 million subscriptions. FIFA '13 was also a great success, as it sold over 14.5 million units, a 30% increase over FIFA '12.
EA's non-GAAP total revenue for Q4 was $1.04 billion, up from last fiscal year's $977 million. EA's GAAP total revenue was $1.209 billion, down from FY 2012's $1.368 billion.
EA's financial figures also reveal how much more reliant on digital sales the company's becoming. GAAP Digital Net Revenue was $453 million, up from last fiscal year's $412 million.
All in all, EA's fiscal year 2013 marked a drop in revenue compared to last year. GAAP Net Revenue was $3.797 billion, compared to last year's $4.143 billion.
EA's financials show that the company's on pretty solid footing. The company didn't neglect to mention its Disney deal to create Star Wars games, although no fruit will come of it until after March 2014, the end of EA's next fiscal year.

A lot of people don't think this is that big a deal. These sales support that. The next XBOX, if it IS always online, will probably let a lot of you here down and sell like hotcakes. This is the future - get used to it.
A lot of people don't think this is that big a deal. These sales support that. The next XBOX, if it IS always online, will probably let a lot of you here down and sell like hotcakes. This is the future - get used to it.
While this may not be the popular opinion on internet forums, the simple fact is that most people do not care about always on connections (myself included).
Most of my games are on Steam... which requires internet. The biggest game I play is an MMO which I play mostly solo at the moment, but it requires internet. The Adobe software I use likes to call home periodically, which requires internet. My work requires that I have an internet connection to respond to important emails quickly, and most of my non-work communication is done via the internet as well. As I do not have cable, satellite, or a digital antenna box, all of my entertainment comes through the internet. Life (or at least mine) already requires an always on internet connection. The internet connection is not the problem, and I simply do not care if someone wants to run their DRM through it.
The problem is making a game that:
1) Is unbalanced and broken at basic fundamental gameplay levels
2) Does not have the network support in place to play the game properly
3) Does not have the social network in place to easily find the people I want to play with
4) Strips the fun sandbox feel of the originals out, and forces players to play on much smaller scales to force specific game-play rather than letting me run a SIMULATOR where I have control of more of the variables.
If they make a Sim City like that, then I would buy it, internet connection or not. But as they managed to create Sim City-states or Sim Hamlet rather than Sim City, I am not buying it... which is disappointing because I was waiting a very long time for it from the initial announcement to final release, and I really like a lot of the new management aspects of the game... but such is life.
They sold 1.6 Million Units (to stores... not people), and they could have sold a lot more units if they had gotten a few fundamentals right.
Maybe in 20 years, when everybody can have a constant internet service and when game servers will stay open and online 24/7, then maybe we won't complain about this always online requirement. The seat belt thing is more of a need from drivers? I'm sure we don't want more deaths and injures from simple car collisions, anyways there are some places that allow no seat-belts while riding in a vehicle.
You are a conformist assclown will probably stand in line if they came out with the mark of the beast tomorrow.
But we will see.