Electronic Arts (EA) stock plummeted over 18% in intraday trading on Thursday, following the video game giant's decision to slash its fiscal year 2025 bookings guidance due to underperformance in its major franchises.
The primary culprit was EA's Global Football segment, which includes the EA Sports FC soccer games. After two years of strong double-digit bookings growth, the soccer franchise "experienced a slowdown" in the third quarter as early momentum failed to sustain through the end of the period. Analysts pointed to a lack of innovation and criticism from players regarding gameplay issues as potential reasons for the slowdown.
Additionally, EA's newly released role-playing game "Dragon Age: The Veilguard" engaged only around 1.5 million players in Q3, nearly 50% lower than the company's expectations. As a result, EA now projects a mid-single-digit decline in live services net bookings for fiscal 2025, a significant downgrade from its prior forecast of mid-single-digit growth.
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