EA stock takes it on the chin, to the tune of $3billion

EA is reeling a bit this month, after the semi-disaster that was the launch of Star Wars Battlefront II.

Stock Wars

The industry is rising. Nintendo is back in a big way and leading a Holiday season that should see some nice profits. Stocks are up too, both overall and for video gaming companies in-particular. That’s a good thing. Not benefiting from that upswing? EA.

MCV is reporting that the company has seen its stock fall 8.5% as of late. That equates to it losing some $3billion USD since the launch of Star Wars Battlefront II. And again, that’s as the rest of the industry does quite well for itself.

It’s easy to see why this has happened of course, as all sorts of bad press has befallen the publisher. All of that has been related to the aforementioned Battlefront sequel. Need for Speed has run into similar issues, being attended to post-launch, but it’s made nary a blip in the news. Star Wars though, now that’s an issue.

The game hit with a loot box controversy that saw pretty important in-game stuff effectively hidden behind a pay wall. Sure you could unlock all of it by playing, but you’d have to play a long time to do so.

For their part, EA quickly took away the loot boxes… but left in the borderline impossible (for most players) grinding to get the good stuff. Apparently, that hasn’t gone over all that well with the gaming populace, or people investing in the company.

EA is still very much a monster company however. And I wouldn’t suspect they’ll be closing their doors any time soon, or losing properties (like Star Wars) for that matter. But I think this kind of drop might be just the thing to get those in charge to take note. And I hope that it might mean a change towards certain practices in the future.

“Hope” being the operative word there. Cross your fingers.

Source: MCV