During the company’s first-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson stated that single-player games are “really, really important” to the company’s future, despite making up just 30 percent of the publisher’s total business.
“Our players, on balance, they have these core motivations — inspiration, escape, social connection, competition, self-improvement, creation — these things that bring us together as players of games,” Wilson said in a transcript of the call via SeekingAlpha. “And as we think about single-player games, we think it’s a really, really important part of the overall portfolio that we deliver in the fulfillment of those core motivations.”
This sentiment, however, was swiftly undercut by a follow-up statement by CFO Chris Suh, saying, “If we think about the model impact and the financial impact of it, I think the first thing to always keep in mind is that live services still encompass, on a trailing 12-month basis, over 70 percent of our business, and that has been a proven, very reliable, highly reoccurring revenue stream, and that will still be the predominant driver in our P&L [profit and loss] long-term.” Suh elaborated further, stating, “Our long-term growth will continue to invest in the ongoing, stable performance of our live services business and there’ll be some puts and takes along the way.”
For a more succinct encapsulation of EA’s attitude towards single-player games, please direct your attention to the embedded tweet below, which was promptly ratio’d into oblivion shortly after it was published by EA’s Twitter account in late July:
