Amazon was a pioneer in e-commerce. Moving well beyond the books it started with, the company built a strong business around the efficient sale and delivery of most any kind of packaged goods. For its second act, the company now seems intent on achieving nothing less than similar success with the sale of digitally delivered merchandise.
The game industry as a sector has been riding out the recession with reasonable success but the performance of individual companies within the industry has been less consistent. Some companies are faring well while others are announcing subpar sales. Electronic Arts announced its Q3 Fiscal 2009 results today and fell in to the category of the latter. EA’s performance was dismal.
Based on GAAP standards, the net loss reported for the quarter was $641m, or $2.00 a share, in the red. That compares to a loss of $33m, or 10 cents a share, for the same period a year ago. Sales, including deferred revenue, would have totaled $1.74b.
Excluding the onetime charges, EA said they would have earned $179m , or 56 cents a share. Analysts had projected 88 cents on revenue of $1.9b; both targets EA failed to hit.
The news wasn’t entirely a surprise. EA reset expectations in early December after Thanksgiving period sales turned out worse than expected. Even so, the shortfall was worse than many anticipated.
They say one person’s trash is another’s treasure. Case in point: Robert Ludlum licensing rights. Not that it is fitting to call the gaming rights for the book catalog of a bestselling author trash, far from it, but when Activision Blizzard decided to cast the rights off, rival Electronic Arts was all too happy to pick them up instead.
EA announced today that they’ve reached a multi-year exclusive license for all of Ludlum’s written works, including the Jason Bourne series.
Vivendi Games previously held the rights. Activision Blizzard, the company that resulted from the merger of Vivendi Games and Activision, decided to orphan its license in July.
