Electronic Arts, otherwise known as EA, is considered one of the largest video game companies in the world. Its products are diverse, publishing divisions bold, and the impact its had on the gaming industry speaks for itself. Without even considering EA Sports, the California-based company created titles such as Need for Speed, Apex Legends, The Sims, and much more. Those are just a few of the reasons why EA was able to walk away from Q3 satisfied.
After each financial quarter, public companies publish a report with financial information that is disseminated into segments for investors to look at and discuss how the company can improve moving forward. In EA's case, the latter-part of 2020 held many positives. EA Sports released FIFA 2021 and Madden 21 in that time period, and even created next-gen versions for each title. By looking at the numbers of EA Sports alone, it goes to show how successful of a quarter it was.
EA's Q3 financial report was released Tuesday, showing off strong numbers in a record-breaking period. An 8-percent year-over-year increase was produced by accumulating over 5 billion USD in net bookings. Figuring in the sports titles that launched in Q3, EA Sports had over 230 million people engage with its products. FIFA's Ultimate Team mode recorded nearly 6 million concurrent players in the month of December.
Looking outside of the sports franchises paints a better picture of EA' s ability to make an impact in the gaming space. Even the battle royale title Apex Legends saw a 30% growth in new players from 2019 to 2020.
The success of EA doesn't come without critiques from the community, which mainly stem from EA's use of microtransactions in games such as Apex Legends, FIFA, NHL, and Madden's Ultimate Team modes. For the sports games, the objective is to earn players through playing the game, but also to buy packs. Those packs cost real money, which then produces points that can be used to buy those packs. Playing the game mode can earn the competitor coins to buy packs, but EA is not shy about advertising its in-game store.
EA's reign of dominance is unlikely to be stifled. A new Battlefield was announced Tuesday that is reportedly set to release in the Holiday of 2021. On top of that, EA Sports is bringing back the NCAA Football franchise. It's safe to assume the latter will contain microtransactions in some capacity. As long as another Star Wars Battlefront 2 situation isn't repeated, EA is on the way to another strong financial quarter.