Electronic Arts saw revenue fall to $1.88 billion in its third quarter, compared to a year-earlier $1.94 billion, due in part to weakness in sales for its football game EA Sports FC and Dragon Age game franchises.
Net income for the quarter was $293 million, just up from $290 million in the third quarter of 2023. But net bookings for the quarter totaled $2.215 billion, down 6 percent from an earlier projected range of $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion for third quarter net bookings.
“Q3 was not the financial performance we wanted, or expected,” Andrew Wilson, CEO of EA, told analysts during a post-market conference call, as he cited the “underperformance” for EA Sports FC. He added Dragon Age “did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market.”
EA on Tuesday reiterated its net bookings for fiscal 2025 will be around $7 billion to $7.15 billion. That too followed a downwards guidance revision from an earlier forecast of $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion when EA released its preliminary financial results on Jan. 22.
In that preliminary report, EA said the global football franchise “experienced a slowdown as early momentum in the fiscal third quarter did not sustain through to the end.” And the games maker reported Dragon Age engaged around 1.5 million players during the quarter, down nearly 50 percent from the company’s expectations.
The guidance drops have stirred concerns among investors that EA can continue to squeeze growth from its tentpole FC soccer franchise in particular, which accounts for a big slice of its operating revenues.
“We consider this to be a temporary moment, not structural,” Wilson told analysts about the EA Sports FC franchise. He added the global football franchise had come off two years of record sales, and EA had to work harder to get existing fans playing past iterations of EA Sports FC to take up newer versions.