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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 media day at the Gamescom video game fair in Cologne, western Germany on August 21 2024.
Ina Fassbender | AFP | Getty Images
Electronic arts On Wednesday it lowered its booking guidance for the whole year, blaming the lack of underwritten games, particularly its football 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, versus previous guidance of $2.4 billion to $2.55 billion.
Revenue in the December quarter will be about $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, to be between $7 billion and $7.15 billion, down from previous guidance of $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion. EA says net bookings include physical game sales as well as revenue from online games.
The warning reveals the weakness in the most prominent football video game franchise since 1993. It was under the FIFA brand, but in 2022 EA’s agreement with FIFA ended and the last two EA football 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 Q3, 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 underperformed 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 expected Global Football sales to decline year-on-year, and said bookings from online sales, or live services, would also decline in fiscal 2025. the lack of live services.
EA said FC 25 recently updated with new content, improved gameplay and an annual “Team of the Year” update, which it says has been well received by players.
The warning comes weeks before EA’s expected third-quarter earnings on February 4.
