Riccitiello Says Investors Don't Care About Quality

[baumy300]

Quote: Originally Posted by nstod

You sure about that? Last week alone, NCAA 09 sold 290,627 copies on the 360 and 124,663 copies on the PS3. Combined, that's 415,290 copies. This is after a "horrible" NCAA 08 game. The other 3 games in the top 5 were all Wii games (Wii Sports 159,292; Mario Kart Wii 84,951; Wii Play 77,134). I would say that the general public still likes EA games pretty well.

That's just an opinion. I for one believe that 08 was a very, very solid game.

Don't undermine the consumers. People will eventually quit buying games if they are "horrible."

Even 09 is shaping up to be not only good, but epic. Once a patch fixes the robo QB issue and the the pass rush, 09 will easily be one of the best sports game I've ever played.

[Matt Diesel]

Quote: Originally Posted by baumy300

Well the investors can't be too smart then. If the quality of the games isn't good, do they really expect to keep selling them and therefore bring in a profit? Come on now.

Except all us keep buying it not matter what cause its the only show it town. So maybe its our fault, not EAs.

[baumy300]

Quote: Originally Posted by mddst34

Except all us keep buying it not matter what cause its the only show it town. So maybe its our fault, not EAs.

Yeah, if people don't like the game but continue to buy, it is their fault.

However, I personally have been enjoying the hell out of 09. I understand the bugs are bad, but I have taken my time and looked past them. 09 is a very solid game of football and it will only get better after the patch.

I say fight on EA. I started this gaming season out disappointed and pissed off, but now the game is growing on me.

[trayeight]

Quote: Originally Posted by fistofrage

They could put out stick figures with an NCAA football logo on it and 1/2 the people on OS would get it 4 days before the street release posting pictures and saying how "Sick" it is.

Hahahahaha, that would be sick!

[Cebby]

Quote: Originally Posted by baumy300

Don't undermine the consumers. People will eventually quit buying games if they are "horrible."

No we won't. 05 was abysmal, 07 was as stripped down as you can be, 08 was unplayable, and 09 has been a combination of broken and buggy.

They tricked us from 08 to 09 with a variety of community stooges and developers who assured us that the game was great and that any problems were easily fixable by release. They'll convince us all to do the same thing with 10. Maybe there will be more stooges. Maybe they won't let anyone play it.

But fact is, 4 of the last 5 games have been mediocre-horrible, yet we keep buying them. We as a fan base are stupid. There is only one way to ensure that they stop putting out bad games, and nobody here is man/crazy enough to make it happen.

[billysims]

Quote: Originally Posted by baumy300

Well the investors can't be too smart then. If the quality of the games isn't good, do they really expect to keep selling them and therefore bring in a profit? Come on now.

To a point. Good marketing drives alot of sales. Even community boards such as this serve as advertising for their product. No one wants to invest in a company that makes poor performing product, but EA has alot of assets that help drive sales/profit, and stock price. And that is the bottom line for an investor.

Alot of EA stock is likely not just bought by individual investors but instituitonal investors, who buy the stock for 401k plans, etc. It's not nearly as emotional of a tie as the consumer tie. Not even close.

[FORMULA316]

Quote: Originally Posted by billysims

To a point. Good marketing drives alot of sales. Even community boards such as this serve as advertising for their product. No one wants to invest in a company that makes poor performing product, but EA has alot of assets that help drive sales/profit, and stock price. And that is the bottom line for an investor. Alot of EA stock is likely not just bought by individual investors but instituitonal investors, who buy the stock for 401k plans, etc. It's not nearly as emotional of a tie as the consumer tie. Not even close.

Correct. Emotion & investments can be detrimental actually.

Having said that:

http://blogs.idc.com/ie/?p=124

CEOs’ Agenda for 2008: ‘Selling’ Joins ‘Innovation’ and ‘Customer Care’ at the Top

Posted by fgens on February 23rd, 2008



Not surprisingly, business IT spending is typically driven by CEOs’ priorities. Accordingly, to understand the drivers of business IT spending for 2008, IDC surveyed business executives about their CEOs’ top agenda items for the coming year.

In both our 2006 and 2007 surveys, Customer Care and Product/Service Innovation ranked #1 and #2, respectively. This year, given widening economic concerns, it is not surprising that Sales Productivity (which ranked #4 last year) has jumped to #1, just marginally ahead of Customer Care, and nudging Product/Service Innovation to #3.




These findings confirm strategic business priorities we’ve identified in prior posts, priorities magnified by the opportunities and pressures of globalization. Globalization offers greatly expanded global sales opportunities, but also expanded global competition, making improved sales productivity a vital priority. Accordingly, optimizing direct and indirect sales capabilities has been among the top four CEO strategic priorities for the past two years. The surge of Sales Productivity to the number one agenda item in 2008 is almost certainly due to CEO concerns about the challenging economic climate this year.

Globalization is also continuing to intensify the importance of both strengthening customer relationships and improving (and accelerating) new product and service development, so we’re not surprised to see these two continuing to be among the big three of CEOs’ priorities.

The other continuing trend we see in the CEO agenda list for 2008 is the strategic importance of developing and maintaining excellent IT capabilities. As we’ve discussed before, a growing number of CEOs understand that the ability to execute their other strategic initiatives depends more than ever on IT, as a critical part of the operational infrastructure. Failure to maintain excellence in IT can hamstring virtually all the CEO’s other initiatives.

[Unr34l_JT]

The CEO might want to watch out for what he says to his consumers, but I don't think that he any bit wrong. Investors invest to make money. They don't care how the company makes them money as long as its legal.

You the customer does have a say in the quality. Stop buying the game! Then EA has two choices: Make a better game that sells or shut down. That's not happening though. They are the only legitimate producer in the NCAA and NFL gaming markets so people aren't going to stop buying it. So why change what they are doing? Why spend tons of time and money just to please the customers that are still buying the product? It's all about the MONEY! Take that away and then you'll find change.

[DLaren]

Quote: Originally Posted by GoVols1985

What are the first week sales figures for the 5 previous games in the series? Is NCAA 09 selling more, less, or the same?

According to vgchartz.com, NCAA'09 sold less in it's opening week than NCAA'08 did.

[PlayaHataSupreme]

Quote: Originally Posted by DLaren

According to vgchartz.com, NCAA'09 sold less in it's opening week than NCAA'08 did.

360 08: 300K
360 09: 291K

PS3 08: 101K
PS3 09: 125K

So for the systems that matter, the overall sales actually went up. Many people migrated to PS3 for this installment.