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Visitors play the game ‘EA Sports FC 25’ in front of a poster featuring England midfielder Jude Bellingham at the Electronic Arts booth during the press day at the Gamescom video game fair in Cologne, western Germany, August 21 of 2024.
Ina Fassbender | AFP | fake images
Electronic Arts cut its full-year booking guidance on Wednesday, blaming the shortfall on underperforming games, particularly its soccer franchise, EA Sports FC. Shares fell 7% in extended trading.
For the fiscal third quarter, which ended Dec. 31, EA said it expects to report about $2.215 billion in net bookings, up from previous guidance of $2.4 billion to $2.55 billion.
Revenue in the December quarter will be approximately $1.88 billion, with $1.11 in diluted earnings per share, the company said in a statement.
EA said it expects net bookings for the full fiscal year, which ends March 31, of between $7.0 billion and $7.15 billion, down from previous guidance of $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion. EA says net bookings include sales of physical games as well as revenue from online games.
The warning reveals weakness in the most prominent soccer video game franchise since 1993. It used to fall under the FIFA brand, but in 2022 EA’s deal with FIFA ended and EA’s last two soccer games were sold as EA Sports FC.
The company also said that “Dragon Age,” a role-playing game for game consoles such as Sony PlayStation and microsoft Xbox had 1.5 million players during the quarter, which exceeded the company’s expectations by almost 50%.
“During the third quarter, we continued to deliver high-quality games and experiences across our portfolio,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in the statement. “However, Dragon Age and EA SPORTS FC 25 exceeded our net booking expectations.”
EA said that while its soccer franchise, which it calls Global Football, had seen two years of double-digit growth in net bookings, it began to see a slowdown during the December quarter. The company said it expects global soccer sales to decline year-over-year, and said bookings from online sales or live services would also decline in fiscal 2025. The company’s soccer franchise accounted for most of the deficit of live services.
EA said it recently updated FC 25 with new content, improved gameplay, and an annual “Team of the Year” update, which it says was well received by players.
The warning comes weeks before EA’s expected third-quarter earnings on February 4.
