EA Suffers a Loss of $3 Billion After Battlefront II Fiasco

The debate on microtransactions and how they’ve ruined games so far still goes on. Most of you are familiar with EA’s disastrous condition after gamers rebelled against the microtransaction model for their latest Star Wars instalment – Battlefront II. The cyber-war against the American Video-Game Giant started with a Reddit post where the user ranted about paying $80 and yet having Vader locked, to which EA’s reply was awfully criticised. (for all the good reasons)

Read: How Microtransactions Are Ruining Video Games to know the whole story.

Recent reports suggest that EA’s stock has fallen by 8.5% after the drama, resulting in a loss of around $3 Billion to the company. If we talk about the forecast for EA’s December quarter sales, it was fairly optimistic. Colin Sebastian, a Baird (a Capital Marketing Company) analyst, rated EA’s stock with an outperforming rating and $130 price target per share. However, the company is now trading at $109.47 a share after hitting a low today of $106.91.

Battlefront II was the fourth best-selling game during this Black Friday. However, as of now, sales are drastically down and near to never-meeting expectations. But as many online readers are suggesting, this is EA dropping a penny on the street. Its pocket lint, a very temporary and minor blip on the stock ticker. It is surely just a scratch for such an industrial giant, and they will recover the damage in no time.

EA is also considered one of the worst companies in America and they are well-known for being so on the internet. Google “EA Worst Company” and you are sure to find thousands of articles on the same. Last year, EA made $800 Million out of microtransactions as players spent impulsively on the FIFA 17 Ultimate Team mode. That’s a huge amount.

After all the hate that EA received, they’ve pulled off all the in-game microtransactions from Battlefront II.  It is the first step EA has took against microtransactions and we’re curious to know EA’s future intentions with this revenue model. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Also, make sure to subscribe to our email newsletter and allow our site to send you push-in notifications. This way, you’ll stay up-to-date with all that’s going around in the gaming industry. Until next time, Happy Gaming!