Re: EA Abandoning BF 2042

It's true, not a single mention of Battlefield in EA's 2023 Q1 earnings call transcript.

https://ir.ea.com/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx

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@OskooI_007 wrote:

It's true, not a single mention of Battlefield in EA's 2023 Q1 earnings call transcript.

https://ir.ea.com/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx

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That's got to be a first, it doesn't bode well for the future of the franchise does it.!

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@OskooI_007 wrote:

It's true, not a single mention of Battlefield in EA's 2023 Q1 earnings call transcript.

https://ir.ea.com/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx

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Because EA Execs are trying to swipe the BF2042 disaster in under the carpet!

At our last quarterly investor call, when we questioned the disastrous BF2042 launch and meltdown of the player population that evaporated faster than anything we have ever seen in the AAA-game world, then the EA Execs tried to downplay the Battlefield franchise importance by claiming it represented less than 10% of total revenue.

Well that is absolutely true that BF is currently less than 10%, but exactly because of the total failure and disaster of the BF2042 game!

We should have seen BF represent up to 30% of total revenue as a minimum, definitely here in a new BF version launch year and ideally also in the subsequent year with all the planned 4 seasonal updates also being released with additional player fees to be recuperated from these!  (from the vast majority of players who just bought the std version and not GOLD or ULTIMATE).  And next to this all the microtransactional revenues on top.

But all this is totally obsolete now as the game is dead as the vast majority of players have all moved on to something else and no new players arriving.

There are no meaningful business relevant numbers to present coming from BF2042 in any positive way...

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@CyberDyme wrote:

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@OskooI_007 wrote:

It's true, not a single mention of Battlefield in EA's 2023 Q1 earnings call transcript.

https://ir.ea.com/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx

---

Because EA Execs are trying to swipe the BF2042 disaster in under the carpet!

At our last quarterly investor call, when we questioned the disastrous BF2042 launch and meltdown of the player population that evaporated faster than anything we have ever seen in the AAA-game world, then the EA Execs tried to downplay the Battlefield franchise importance by claiming it represented less than 10% of total revenue.

Well that is absolutely true that BF is currently less than 10%, but exactly because of the total failure and disaster of the BF2042 game!

We should have seen BF represent up to 30% of total revenue as a minimum, definitely here in a new BF version launch year and ideally also in the subsequent year with all the planned 4 seasonal updates also being released with additional player fees to be recuperated from these!  (from the vast majority of players who just bought the std version and not GOLD or ULTIMATE).  And next to this all the microtransactional revenues on top.

But all this is totally obsolete now as the game is dead as the vast majority of players have all moved on to something else and no new players arriving.

There are no meaningful business relevant numbers to present coming from BF2042 in any positive way...

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i think this is the end for dice.  maybe not battlefield but i can see dice getting the westwood treatment.  this is 100% on management and the leads who decide the direction of the game

They are already hiring for the next BF game and have put adverts out for programmers with single player campaign experience

That report was pretty insightful. Especially the points of Sports showing increased collaborative and competitive play. 

shame BF2042 is geared for lone players over there “legacy” clans platoons and Esport market.

christ, sims even got a mention. 

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@OskooI_007 wrote:

It's true, not a single mention of Battlefield in EA's 2023 Q1 earnings call transcript.

https://ir.ea.com/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx

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@OskooI_007 when I saw Flakfires's recent vid mentioning this after living through Battlefield V...

While not the most positive comparison given the quality of support...SWTOR hasn't been mentioned on earnings calls for years but still gets updates. They've slowed to a crawl now with an underwhelming and mixed "expansion" (it was super small, more lots of systems/UI updates) early this year and another update coming soon.

So just worth noting for folks that don't listen to earnings calls/follow industry business news, not being mentioned on an earnings call is definitely not a GOOD thing, but it's also not a "abandoning the game" thing.

Folks really need to stop listening to their first earnings call ever and thinking they're Michael Pachter, though the hot-takes are about as good as Pachter's paid "analysis" so I guess it's fitting. But real, I've seen few content creators who even understand and regularly follow earnings calls outside of when they're looking to dunk on a game like BF2042 or something.

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@Albake21z wrote:
"We have Respawn, who is just best in class in the business for shooters."

I feel like this line has been overlooked here and really says a lot about how EA is viewing Dice. I really wouldn't be surprised if EA was abandoning Dice...

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They're not, stop panicking. They're talking to investors, which means exaggerating how good things are whenever they can and ignoring negative things at the same time.

Gamers need to stop thinking they're the audience EA executive are speaking to with quarterly reports. We're not. They're speaking to their actual audience for those calls: Big-stake investors and analysts.

And arguably, right now Respawn is at least one of the best in the business when it comes to shooters (and clearly more with the success of their Star Wars game). But that doesn't mean DICE is gonna be killed by any stretch. Stop reading too much into stuff.

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@edgecrusherO0 wrote:

While not the most positive comparison given the quality of support...SWTOR hasn't been mentioned on earnings calls for years but still gets updates. They've slowed to a crawl now with an underwhelming and mixed "expansion" (it was super small, more lots of systems/UI updates) early this year and another update coming soon.

So just worth noting for folks that don't listen to earnings calls/follow industry business news, not being mentioned on an earnings call is definitely not a GOOD thing, but it's also not a "abandoning the game" thing.

Folks really need to stop listening to their first earnings call ever and thinking they're Michael Pachter, though the hot-takes are about as good as Pachter's paid "analysis" so I guess it's fitting. But real, I've seen few content creators who even understand and regularly follow earnings calls outside of when they're looking to dunk on a game like BF2042 or something.

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@edgecrusherO0 as a former 7 year SWTOR progression raider SWTOR has been in dire straights since 2019 with similar conflicts of vision that Battlefield now has ramrodding nonsensical deisgn decisions that the end game community doesn't want driving players away like DICE been doing recently. So if both are not being mentioned in earnings calls I'm not sure that's a particularly reassuring comparison given the recent Bioware and DICE developer exoduses.

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@edgecrusherO0 wrote:
@ragnarok013 I'm not saying it's GOOD support...it's definitely dwindled over time. Just pointing out that it's at least still getting SOME support, even if it's still underwhelming. I haven't played SWTOR in a while (not since KotFE/ET) and I know it's been increasingly rough, just trying to counter the "no mention = dead game" stuff from some folks.

Are DICE/BW still seeing a ton of folks leaving? I haven't kept up but I thought the "mass exoduses" already happened and the studios were starting to stabilize with a lot more new folks being brought on board.

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@edgecrusherO0 we could make the same comparison with 2042 right now, one map per quarter isn't good support (especially compared with the Premium system) but it's still support but it really shows the game is dead and DICE is just phoning in the support so they can tell investors it's a live game. We all expect content to be drip fed under a live service but this is Chinese Water Torture levels of dripping.

Recent Bioware departures have been in the news both recently and over the past year affecting SWTOR, Dragon Age, and even Mass Effect. It's concerning to say the lease given Anthem and ME:A's reception a few years ago.

Why don’t they understand by now that good game = many players it’s litterly that simple. Devs working on something they can be proud of helps towards loyal developers with passion and making a good game that with a crew like that will be more efficient and that way much cheaper and succesful. Ironically the reason they can push this garbage is because this was once true.

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@ragnarok013 wrote:

@edgecrusherO0we could make the same comparison with 2042 right now, one map per quarter isn't good support (especially compared with the Premium system) but it's still support but it really shows the game is dead and DICE is just phoning in the support so they can tell investors it's a live game. We all expect content to be drip fed under a live service but this is Chinese Water Torture levels of dripping.

Recent Bioware departures have been in the news both recently and over the past year affecting SWTOR, Dragon Age, and even Mass Effect. It's concerning to say the lease given Anthem and ME:A's reception a few years ago.

'''New content drip fed at Chinese water torture levels of dripping...''''  

Epic phrasing @ragnarok013 !!!  😂👍

And yes true also regarding the staff turnover at DICE has been very substantial.  Both in the years during the development of BF2042, as it started already at onset of BFV dev.  And then further picked up from there.  As BF2042 launched, there was both the deliberate wash of responsible folks that were let go but also a very substantial number of DICE staff across many disciplines that did not feel encouraged to stay on for more.  A high number of open roles currently being posted...

Regarding specifically the BF2042 dev and run support, then I do not see the open roles targeted for this.

There are however many that appear to be to support dev of application/infrastructure for mobile BF gaming.  But that will then be for future versions in the franchise.