Electronic Arts has announced the preliminary financial results for its first fiscal quarter ended June 30th. And, according to the publisher, Q1 FY21 was a very strong quarter, with net bookings up 17% year-over-year mainly thanks to microtransactions.
What this ultimately means is that even if publisher increase the price for their next-gen games – like 2K Games did – MTX will remain in all games. Seriously, all big publishers are making a lot of money via micro-transactions.
Going into more details, Apex Legends launched Season 5 with engagement reaching its highest levels since Season 1. Moreover, player acquisition for FIFA was up more than 100% year-over-year and up nearly 140% year-over-year in Madden NFL. Additionally, The Sims 4 has more than 30 million players across all platforms. Not only that, but daily, weekly, and monthly active player totals reached record highs for a first quarter.
So yeah, these GaaS – The Sims 4, FIFA and Madden NFL – are the main income of EA. Also keep in mind that thanks to them, the publisher had a strong quarter. So yeah, you must be naive thinking that a $10 will “make” EA – or any other publisher – abandon micro-transactions.
Needless to say that DSOGaming is againts MTX. Hell, we are against paid DLCs, which is why we’re not covering them. However, MTX are here to stay. I’d say that the only way to remove them is by voting with your wallet, but it’s quite obvious that there are A LOT of gamers that spend money on these GaaS products. So yeah, MTX will be in pretty much all games for a long, long, long time. Don’t believe us? Here is what EA’s CEO and COO said.
EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson:
“This was an extraordinary quarter, and we’re deeply proud of everything our teams at Electronic Arts are doing for our players and communities. We launched new games, deeply engaged players in our live services, and welcomed tens of millions of new players to our network. It was an unprecedented first quarter of growth in our business. We will continue building on that strength with more innovative experiences, more groundbreaking content, and more ways to connect with friends and play great games throughout the year.”
EA’s COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen:
“Player engagement through the first quarter was exceptionally high, and well above our forecast. Our Stay Home, Play Together initiatives have been a strong tailwind for the business, as players look for safe and social entertainment in these difficult times. We are focused on delivering high quality titles for our players, combined with our incredible ongoing live services. We’ll be also increasing reach across platforms and geographies which should continue to expand our business over time.”
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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