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Visitors play the EA Sports FC 25 game in front of a poster featuring England midfielder Jude Bellingham at the Electronic Arts booth during a media day at the Gamescom video game fair in Cologne, west Germany, on August 21, 2024.
Ina Fassbender | AFP | Getty Images
Electronic Arts cut its booking guidance for the full year on Wednesday, blaming the shortfall on underperforming games, particularly its EA Sports FC soccer franchise. In extended trading, shares fell by 7%.
For the fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, EA said it expects to report net bookings of about $2.215 billion, down from a previous forecast of $2.4 billion to $2.55 billion.
Revenue in the December quarter will be about $1.88 billion, with $1.11 in diluted earnings per share, the company said in a statement.
EA said it expects net bookings for the full fiscal year ending March 31 to be between $7 billion and $7.15 billion, down from a previous forecast of $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion. EA says net bookings include sales of physical games as well as revenue from online games.
The warning shows the weakness of the most famous soccer video game franchise since 1993. It used to be under the FIFA brand, but EA’s contract with FIFA expired in 2022 and EA’s last two soccer games were sold under the name EA Sports FC.
The company also said that “Dragon Age”, a role-playing game for game consoles such as Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox had 1.5 million players during the quarter, below the company’s expectations by nearly 50%.
“During Q3, we continued to deliver high-quality games and experiences across our portfolio,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a statement. “However, Dragon Age and EA SPORTS FC 25 fell short of our net booking expectations.”
EA said that while its soccer franchise, which it calls Global Football, has seen double-digit net booking growth over two years, it began to see a slowdown in the December quarter. The company said it expects Global Football sales to fall year-on-year and said bookings through online sales or live services will also decline in the 2025 financial year. The company’s soccer franchise accounted for most of the deficit in live services.
EA said it recently updated FC 25 with new content, improved gameplay and the annual Team of the Year update, which it said was well received by players.
The warning comes weeks before EA’s scheduled third-quarter earnings on Feb. 4.
