Electronic Arts Tries (Once More) To End Its Football Addiction (ft.com) 47
Electronic Arts faces a familiar challenge as it prepares to launch Battlefield 6 on October 10: breaking its dependence on the FIFA franchise, now called EA Sports FC, which drives roughly 70% of company profits despite disappointing sales this year.
The company has poured unprecedented resources into Battlefield 6, treating it as a platform built for user-generated content rather than a traditional game release. Early signs appear promising -- the trailer hit nearly 5 million YouTube views in a week and shares climbed 5% after beta testing began -- but analysts remain cautious after last year's Dragon Age flop gutted subsidiary BioWare.
The company has poured unprecedented resources into Battlefield 6, treating it as a platform built for user-generated content rather than a traditional game release. Early signs appear promising -- the trailer hit nearly 5 million YouTube views in a week and shares climbed 5% after beta testing began -- but analysts remain cautious after last year's Dragon Age flop gutted subsidiary BioWare.
Re:Oh....it's about... (Score:4, Funny)
No, it is about football, you know, the sport that's played worldwide with your feet and a ball.
Re: Oh....it's about... (Score:3, Informative)
Association football
Re: (Score:3)
Dunno what that is. I'm talking about the sport. This one:
https://www.bbc.com/sport/foot... [bbc.com]
TYL (Score:2)
Manchester United F.C. is an Association football club established in 1878.
Re: (Score:1)
Again, we're discussing a popular sport here, not the business structures that spring around it.
It is called "football" because when you play, you mostly kick a ball with your feet (as opposed to using your hands, a stick, or whatever) and it is the most widely practiced sport in the world.
I'm aware there are some parts in the world where the same word is used by some to refer to a boring rugby derivative, but it isn't really a wide or important use.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but that means squat in the US, and slashdot IS a US centric site....so....
Re: (Score:2)
*shrug*
Who gives a flying fuck about Trumpistan and its delusions?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It's going to be difficult for you to ignore Americans, the Internet is lousy with them.
Not the hill either of us should want to die on (Score:2)
I'm discussing association football. I like to think we're talking about the same thing, but there seems to be some disagreement.
It would be like saying "it's 36 degrees out" and not specifying Celsius or Fahrenheit, then getting tied up into knots if someone asked for clarification. Nice to know if I need to wear more layers or fewer.
Plenty of feet in the American game ... (Score:2)
No, it is about football, you know, the sport that's played worldwide with your feet and a ball.
Both of those are also used on every play in American football. Sometimes, occasionally, even to kick the ball.
But we also measure the distance the ball travels in feet, none of that silly metric stuff. So there's that "foot" too.
But that hands on the ball is necessary for all the good physical contact that is at the heart of the American game. Moving the ball is kind of secondary, it really does little more than identify the target to hit.
And JFC, can it really be called a sport if the only protec
Re: (Score:1)
FTFY
Really? You've never heard of FIFA? (Score:2)
Yes, FIFA. One of the biggest video game franchises in the world (prior to being recently renamed by EA) based on the largest international sports association in the world (it has more member nations then the Olympics). I don't even follow pro sports and I'm familiar.
Re: (Score:2)
FIFA ... I don't even follow pro sports and I'm familiar.
Well it is in the news a lot due to corruption and other criminal activity. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
What's soccer? Is that where you put socks on cars? We're talking about a sport played with a ball and feet. The fact you weirdos confuse it with handegg is your own problem.
Re: (Score:3)
What's soccer? Is that where you put socks on cars? We're talking about a sport played with a ball and feet. The fact you weirdos confuse it with handegg is your own problem.
There are at least half a dozen different games called "football," none of which are the One True Football(TM). Soccer is a shortening of Association Football (itself named to differentiate it from Rugby Football which was codified earlier), and was, in fact, used as slang shortly after the codification of Assocation Football around 150 years ago.
You can identify the condescending assholes that already know that because they use terms like "handegg" to feign ignorance of this when they demand you stop usin
Re: (Score:1)
Can hackey-sack be football too?
Re: Oh....it's about... (Score:2)
"You can identify the condescending assholes that already know that because they use terms like "handegg" to feign ignorance"
You're awfully butthurt about a game.
Re: (Score:2)
It is funny how many people aren't aware of the fact that the word "soccer" is originally from the UK https://time.com/5335799/socce... [time.com] and can still be seen in use in some places there. "Football" is certainly the more popular name for it but Americans didn't invent the practice of calling the game soccer.
I know I only found out about this fact a few weeks ago while watching a YouTube show that usually isn't about sports. Before that I had always thought it was an Americanism, mostly due to the condescendi
Re: Oh....it's about... (Score:2)
Flop (Score:2)
They released a Dragon Age game last year?
Wonder why it flopped...
Re: (Score:2)
They released a Dragon Age game last year?
Wonder why it flopped...
That one upset me and made me nervous.
A huge issue with the DragonAge game was that they spent a massive amount of development time trying to turn it into a 'live service' game, then pivoted to a classical single-player experience. Putting the sociopolitical messaging aside (and whether it was 'real' or 'perceived'), a development cycle that completely pivots that sort of underlying, fundamental paradigm shift is going to undo a massive amount of development work...and EA still found it necessary to have th
Re: (Score:2)
I really enjoyed Dragon Age back in 2009, but every single iteration thereafter has been a disappointment. Seems like any success to come out of EA is entirely by accident.
Re: (Score:2)
Too bad they never made a sequel.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Not to detract from your point, which I still think is valid, but of those 3 games, only Cyberpunk 2077 is strictly single-player. Baldur's Gate 3 despite being very much a single-player style game does indeed support full storyline co-op for both local and networked multiplayer, and Elden Ring allows both PvP style dueling and ad-hoc co-op matchups for boss battles over the network while otherwise being exclusively single-player for story content and smaller fights.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if DragonAge had been a MASSIVE hit, the bean counters would still have looked and said "yes this game did well but we need to focus on games that deliver ongoing revenue streams because that's where the REAL profit is"
Baldur's Gate 3 (Score:1)
And they crazy long tail of modern RPGs means they couldn't let it cook for a few months and wait for the BG players to move on. Lots of them are STILL playing it as their main game today.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And that extremely long tail means it's tough for other RPGs to get in and make a foothold in the market.
The same thing happened with Skyrim. You can measure the effect it had on the entire game industry is tons of people just played Skyrim instead of buying new games
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect there is something flawed with my approach.
Who keeps buying FIFA? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Why do people keep buying this? Is the rotation of real-life soccer players enough reason?
All kinds of sports games have been tried in the past where they didn't license the professional teams and player names to save money and they usually flop. Having the latest players is a big deal for a lot of these folks as part of the fun is playing the teams and players they watch on TV.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a mystery to me too. I don't understand why people play sports games in general. Is it about basking in the reflected glory of a simulated team? Or is the gameplay actually fun on its own?
It can't compete against live ... (Score:2)
then I stopped playing because the gameplay became stale.
Well, nothing compares to a rousing 0-0 match live at the stadium. :-)
trends (Score:4, Insightful)
AI generated ... (Score:2)
I am not sure what the ambitious do but whatever it is impresses management.
They tell management about the high percentage of their code that is AI generated. Meanwhile the competent are too busy to fixing the bugs of the ambitious to make it to the management/worker get together. :-)
Adventure Construction Set: "Pele's Black Pearl" (Score:3)
You know FIFA (Score:1)