Topic: Analyst calls the EA Brand Name "Tarnished"

[MysterD]

Analyst says the EA Brand Name has been "tarnished...."

Analyst: EA brand tarnished
[UPDATE] Pacific Crest Securities' Evan Wilson takes publisher to task for "poor game quality," missed opportunities; EA responds.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted Nov 30, 2006 12:43 pm PT

Electronic Arts' game adaptation of the hit summer movie Superman Returns was originally expected to release alongside the movie in June. However, in May EA told investors that it was "prioritizing game quality higher than making that date," and so had delayed the game to coincide with the movie's release on DVD.

EA's Superman Returns finally arrived in stores last week and was met with unkind reviews. Now one industry analyst is calling the situation "a microcosm of EA's continuing woes," and pointing to it as one part of a larger downward trend for the publisher.

"Poor reviews and quality are beginning to tarnish the EA brand," Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson told investors in a note distributed this morning. "According to our ongoing survey of GameRankings.com aggregated review data, Electronic Arts' overall game quality continues to fall."

A sister site to GameSpot, GameRankings.com compiles and averages review scores from hundreds of press outlets to allow readers access to a variety of opinions on any given game.

"Reviews of all of EA's annualized titles, its primary source of profit, have declined over the past two years," Wilson noted. "Although market share has not declined dramatically to date, in years such as 2007, which promises to have tremendous competition, it seems likely if quality does not improve. EA's aggregate review has also declined significantly in the past two years."

Wilson listed 20 of EA's recent annualized franchises, with averaged GameRankings scores by year across all platforms. For more direct comparisons, he also included scores for just the PlayStation 2 versions of the games. In nearly every case, the most recent version of an EA game scored lower than the version released in 2004. The company's NHL franchise maintained its 75.1 percent average across all platforms, while its MVP Baseball franchise notched up its multiplatform average from 86.3 percent to 86.7 percent.

As for which series were falling short, Wilson singled out "dramatic swings" in the average PS2 review scores of some of the company's top franchises. The analyst's numbers show that Need for Speed's averaged score has dropped 5.8 points, and NBA Live shed 13.1 points over the last two years. He noted that reviews don't always correlate to sales, but they tend to mirror a game's quality, which can affect its retail fortunes.

"The widespread industry belief is that one or two bad iterations can ruin the long-term value of a license, and we agree," Wilson said.

According to Wilson, EA has also missed some opportunities with its attempts to establish new franchises. He noted poor reviews of Superman Returns, Batman Begins, Marvel Nemesis, NFL Head Coach, and Arena Football in particular. And while The Godfather fared better with the critics than that batch, Wilson said the game's development and marketing costs kept it from meeting EA's profit expectations.

Wilson couldn't point to any one thing within EA that would cause a decline in game quality, but he said the company failed an attempt to standardize its studios on the RenderWare engine, was enduring "excessive employee turnover" that lowered the average experience level at the company, and that it has perhaps focused too much on quantity and not enough on quality.

Despite the down tone of the note, Wilson remained positive on investing in EA as a long-term opportunity, calling it "the marquee developer and publisher of video games."

"However, higher-than-expected development expenses, a ballooning number of developers and poor game quality have hurt EA's operating structure, in our view. Electronic Arts' growth rate and earnings power, we believe, will lag its top competitors in the near term."

[UPDATE] An EA representative has responded to Wilson's note, saying, "The EA brand is strong with great games from franchises that continue to break sales records. Across the portfolio, EA always strives to drive innovation and quality into its titles. EA continues to invest in next-generation development and technology which will translate into high quality gaming throughout the next console cycle."

[Quemaqua]

I could only hope that there will be some good competition that would drive them out of business.  But I don't see it happening.  Still... if only.  I'd be thrilled to watch them suffer.  I hate those people more than probably anyone else in gaming right now, even Microsoft.

[MysterD]

I could only hope that there will be some good competition that would drive them out of business.  But I don't see it happening.  Still... if only.  I'd be thrilled to watch them suffer. 

Though, I'm sure EA will make a ton of $$$ off Crysis, once that drops....

Though, they already pumped $27 mill into that game!

I hate those people more than probably anyone else in gaming right now, even Microsoft.

Ouch!

[Pugnate]

$27 million? Nice.

[Jedi]

I don't view MS as badly as EA. When I see an EA game I tend to think right away it'll be buggy and that I'd rather not touch it. But with MS, I tend to think that testing and quality are REAL atributes that they hold to be very important, not at all like EA.
Yeah MS is out to make a ton of money but what company isn't?

[Pugnate]

Yea MS have done basically everything for the industry, and if it weren't for them would home PCs be as popular today? I guess if not them, then it would have been someone else. But yea EA are just wrong.

[Quemaqua]

My main misgivings with MS are the shady shit they've done with opsys stuff, the whole philosophy that they can just buy whatever developer they please, and a few of their less great publishing practices.  But you're right, they do at least put quality up front at least 80% of the time, and most of the titles they're associated with end up being pieces of software worth buying.  Hence why though I often disagree with them ideologically and wish that I could kill Peter Moore with a rusty pipe, EA comes off as much, much worse overall, and I have less issue spending money on an MS product than an EA product.  I'm really, really sad that I want Hellgate: London so much, because there are few EA games I'll actually touch these days and I have to make an exception in order to support the Flagship guys.

[Pugnate]

On the subject of the article above, I call bullshit. He is basing his observations purely on game ranking drops. The people who buy EA games purely because of brand recognition aren't the ones that go online looking at review scores or whatever. The biggest reason why EA   games are getting less favorable reviews every year is because of the lack of innovation. They release the same sports titles with little changes aside from graphical improvements and statistical updates.

But that doesn't mean the games are getting worse, because they aren't. The thing is that EA are market leaders when it comes to sports games, and are just happy sitting on their asses and not raising the bar year. Are they to blame for this? Sure, but I think the average gamer is as much to blame.

Look at Battlefield. Thousands of people flock to those games on debut despite the issues... so do you really blame EA or the consumers? Why should they change their business model when the gamers themselves are dolts?

So yea aside from Battlefield, EA's bread and butter comes from FIFA, NFL, Madden and the NBA titles. The people who buy these games are mostly casual console gamers who come home from work and expect to have a few hours of stress relieving fun each night. When a new title comes out like clock work next year, they buy it, because their expectations aren't being met.

So no I don't think the brand name is tarnished at least when it comes to the sports titles and the Need for Speed games. These games appeal to the sort of consumers who aren't too bothered by the lack of innovation.

[MysterD]

On the subject of the article above, I call bullshit. He is basing his observations purely on game ranking drops. The people who buy EA games purely because of brand recognition aren't the ones that go online looking at review scores or whatever. The biggest reason why EA   games are getting less favorable reviews every year is because of the lack of innovation.

And b/c of the lack of good technical performance, too -- just look at BF games; you know what I mean.

Sims games never ran that great upon release, either. Especially w/ the laggy cam issues.

What about SimCity 4? And oh -- what about C&C Gen??? All were buggy messes, upon release.

Lack of innovation is one thing, but releasing games before they are actually ready is another. Combine those two together, and then you get EA. A while back, it wasn't like that w/ EA -- you'd expect at least the technical issues to not exist right out the box.

They release the same sports titles with little changes aside from graphical improvements and statistical updates.

...

So yea aside from Battlefield, EA's bread and butter comes from FIFA, NFL, Madden and the NBA titles. The people who buy these games are mostly casual console gamers who come home from work and expect to have a few hours of stress relieving fun each night. When a new title comes out like clock work next year, they buy it, because their expectations aren't being met.

Yet, they have the audacity to charge full price for this. 

But that doesn't mean the games are getting worse, because they aren't. The thing is that EA are market leaders when it comes to sports games, and are just happy sitting on their asses and not raising the bar year. Are they to blame for this? Sure, but I think the average gamer is as much to blame.

EA makes/publishes the games, so they are at blame for not making anything particularly "new" and "innovative." So, who is starting the problem there? Well, EA, of course.
 
What was the last innovative thing to come from EA that they published?
Probably these: Freedom Force (by Irrational), System Shock 2 (by Looking Glass) and The Sims (original, by Maxis), would be my guesses.

Look at Battlefield. Thousands of people flock to those games on debut despite the issues... so do you really blame EA or the consumers? Why should they change their business model when the gamers themselves are dolts?

I blame EA. They make/publish the games and being in charge and all, they just shouldn't ship games in such a crappy state. PERIOD.

That's just not good business, any way you actually look at it -- whether the game is actually innovative or not.

It's one thing to not be innovative, it's another to let your game be riddled w/ technical performance issues -- such as bugs and bad in-game performance b/c it gets released too damn early.

Anyone remember the Madden bug in one of the Madden games a few years ago that if you punched audible on offense enough, the defense actually just fell over?!?!? LOL. I know console gamers "loved" that bug.

So no I don't think the brand name is tarnished at least when it comes to the sports titles and the Need for Speed games. These games appeal to the sort of consumers who aren't too bothered by the lack of innovation.

I think the brand is tarnished, myself -- especially in the sports section. It has been for years.

All they do is tweak the gameplay, update the graphics, change the rosters, and well -- that is about it. No real new features to really warrant purchase a new sports game every year at $50. That's why I feel, if you're a sports gamer, you should wait for EA to have their sports games get a price drop when the next year game is about to drop or you go buy a EA sports game @ $50 every 3-5 years.

The best thing EA really has going for them is these next two games they'll publish -- Hellgate: London by Flagship Studios and Crysis from Crytek.

I don't view MS as badly as EA. When I see an EA game I tend to think right away it'll be buggy and that I'd rather not touch it. But with MS, I tend to think that testing and quality are REAL atributes that they hold to be very important, not at all like EA.

Yeah MS is out to make a ton of money but what company isn't?

I agree w/ you on M$ -- at least on the games, I can't say the same for their OS's.

I think the really only buggy M$-published game-product I can think of for the PC was indeed Halo -- I'm sure some of y'all could come up w/ more M$ buggy game products, but that's fresh in my mind.

M$-published PC games like Freelancer and Fable were both great. Both Dungeon Siege games ran technically sweet on PC's, even though they weren't great games. They both were decent, but nothing great.

[Jedi]

Well D I can say the same about their OS's.. well ok maybe 50% of them ME was pretty shocking when I think back.

Anyway back to what Pug said:

Look at Battlefield. Thousands of people flock to those games on debut despite the issues... so do you really blame EA or the consumers? Why should they change their business model when the gamers themselves are dolts?

That's an interesting way of looking at it, I think its up to EA to provide a qaulity product, something that'll work out of the box with very little effort etc. just because EA knows people will buy their buggy unstable game at release doesn't mean they should aim to provide such a product.
Yeah people are idiots for buying a game that most people know will be buggy etc, buts that's just saying something about the general image that the consumers have of EA. Its in EA's own interest to release better QA'ed games.
While I don't think the name EA is tarnished I do believe EA is building a name for themselves for producing poorly coded sub standard games, which isn't the type of image any company would want.

[MysterD]

Well D I can say the same about their OS's.. well ok maybe 50% of them ME was pretty shocking when I think back.

That's what I was picking on M$ for. Their games were always technically decent escept Halo, yet some of their OS's, like Win ME and Win 95, in their first iteration needed help.

Most M$ products w/ OS's, you might want to wait until they get some of the kinks out.

Anyway back to what Pug said:

That's an interesting way of looking at it, I think its up to EA to provide a qaulity product, something that'll work out of the box with very little effort etc. just because EA knows people will buy their buggy unstable game at release doesn't mean they should aim to provide such a product.

100% agreed.

Yeah people are idiots for buying a game that most people know will be buggy etc, buts that's just saying something about the general image that the consumers have of EA. Its in EA's own interest to release better QA'ed games.

Agreed.

While I don't think the name EA is tarnished....

I think it is, since their games are not as technically sound as they once were, back in the older EA days.

I do believe EA is building a name for themselves for producing poorly coded sub standard games, which isn't the type of image any company would want.

LOL. Ain't that the truth.

[Xessive]

If EA were a character in a roleplaying game they'd be the hero who became corrupted by evil and turned on the very people they were sworn to protect. As their influence grows they assimilate others into the darkness that consumes them, turning them into twisted, perverted versions of their former selves.

[Ghandi]

Morbid, X. I'd expect no less from you. 

As for EA, I bought a used copy of Tiger Woods '06 recently, and it is great fun. Their whole menu system and overall organization, however, is horrible. Not to mention, I would never pick up '07 or above, just because I would expect the exact same game.

[Cobra951]

If EA were a character in a roleplaying game they'd be the hero who became corrupted by evil and turned on the very people they were sworn to protect. As their influence grows they assimilate others into the darkness that consumes them, turning them into twisted, perverted versions of their former selves.

EA = Darth Vader.  I like that.  They were the shining light of innovation once upon a time, too long ago for you, but not me.  So was Activision, even further back.

I don't know for sure, but it seems to me the article is a reflection of the bad rep EA has earned in the gaming community, and it's not necessarily tied to any specific products.  The hatred some of us have developed against EA has to figure in there somehow, even if they're trying to be analytical and objective.

[MysterD]

EA = Darth Vader.  I like that.  They were the shining light of innovation once upon a time, too long ago for you, but not me.  So was Activision, even further back.

I don't know for sure, but it seems to me the article is a reflection of the bad rep EA has earned in the gaming community, and it's not necessarily tied to any specific products.  The hatred some of us have developed against EA has to figure in there somehow, even if they're trying to be analytical and objective.

Only one problem I see w/ that, Cobra:
Darth Vader's still cool as hell, despite being on the darkside.
Can't say the same for EA.

Hehe!

[Quemaqua]

Darth Vader isn't cool.  I don't think anything from Star Wars can really be classified as "cool". 

[MysterD]

Darth Vader isn't cool.  I don't think anything from Star Wars can really be classified as "cool". 

Wait a minute.....

What about Darth Quemaqua....?

[Quemaqua]

Darth Quemaqua?  I think you've been hittin' the crack a little hard there, bud.  You're getting confused.

[Ghandi]

Awww, I sense a little 




 

[Quemaqua]

I'm not drunk enough for this.

[Pugnate]

Wait a minute.....

What about Darth Quemaqua....?

I think certain games should stay in the bedroom.

[Quemaqua]

And stay the hell out of mine.