It is the end of the year...the whole stock market is always down. Never buy in October, that is the historical start of stock drops. People that do not understand the market should not report on it. The market is at an over inflated high at it is and is going to readjust sometime soon.
Came for these entertaining posts trying to swing it like ATVI and EA aren't horrible, lol. It's not the norm for a stock to fall 30% in a month at the end of the year like ATVI has in the last month. It's not normal for 'the end of the year' for a stock to be down 25% from a year ago (and pretty much the same for YTD).
Now i'll give it to you, video games were over valued and are suffering the blues like everyone else, but when you look at TakeTwo you see them down 10% in the past year and only 3.4% YTD. UBI Soft is up 4.74% YTD.
ATVI and EA are far outside the movement of the whole market right now. ATVI is down over 40% from it's recent high while EA is down 45% from it's mid-summer high. To put that in laymen terms...EA is worth about HALF what it was a mere 6 months ago. And relatively speaking, it's not trading at crazy high multiples. I know 26 P/E is nuts in the grand scheme, but in this market and in it's sector, it's really not that over valued. ATVI is 66 P/E which is ridiculous but if they are going to drop to EA's multiple then that bottom is REALLY going to hurt and there is no way to spin that. And if you suggest EA still will adjust soon (referring to the future) then that's reiterating just how bad these two companies are. After almost getting cut in half in 5 months they are still likely to adjust much lower.... Uhoh. Smells like GE and SNAP.
BUT the good part (IMO). Someone above said how stock prices don't matter to gamers. FALSE! Massive drops lead to change in leadership which often leads to new culture at publishers which radically effects games. Drop in revenue and more specifically MAU, which is sparking a lot of the price movement leads to reviewing monetization methods. I think the video game industry is going to start to see that microtransactions aren't sustainable. You bleed the spenders who aren't your dedicated fan base. They move on, sometimes from the entire genre. Parents get pissed too and sales drop. MTX was doomed from the start. It game the publishers this idea that they don't need to make complete games and can sell you everything later including advancement and balance. But as they are discovery, people get pissed. Games fail without proper balance and expected included release features.
I think this is the result of people seeing through the horrendous MTX practices by the two big giants.
If I want a world in which people can purchase success and power with cash, I'll play Real Life. Keep Virtual Worlds Virtual!
Too be fair this article is a little misleading. ALL Tech companies have taken a beating over the last couple months. Not just these two big name video game companies.
So to put this all on you dont like their direction is misleading. There is a lot more to their stock price then a few bad game releases.
I don't think EA and Activision are considered Tech Companies, so not sure if you can look at the falling prices as part of a market trend. With both companies failure to understand their market it's no surprise investors are losing confidence in them.
Honestly i am only concerned about people's careers and livelihoods at this point.
I cannot waste my time anymore on the minutiae of these stories; whether something was right or wrong; -all i care about are the people behind these details.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013 Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005 Fishing in RL since 1992 Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Honestly, I'm glad. It took long enough. Hope it falls even further. I'll never buy another EA/Activision product because they are so out of touch it's not even funny anymore. Their "game journalists" like to blame it on "entitled gamers" but these companies have been running fans through the ringer for so long they thought they were unstoppable, guess you reap what you sow.
I want to play a game made for gamers by gamers, not for executives/investors.
Look at all of the gamer economists! Is it really hard to believe this could be because they keep putting out the same old re-hashed, half-baked shit games? Stocks performing poorly because businesses are sucking....what a hard to fathom concept!
"dont like it, dont buy it!" guy get fired, and you think, wow they care. But after that EA released Battlefield V with three different access dates (you even cant play your 60$ game at release day).
They just don't give F about game community at all since 2014 (Game Spy shutdown).
And Blizzard... well after core devs left it in past few years, i dont expect some bright games.
"dont like it, dont buy it!" guy get fired, and you think, wow they care. But after that EA released Battlefield V with three different access dates (you even cant play your 60$ game at release day).
They just don't give F about game community at all since 2014 (Game Spy shutdown).
And Blizzard... well after core devs left it in past few years, i dont expect some bright games.
Welcome to the boards!
When you go from an ethos of making something so good that people want to buy it, to first making sure that it has enough GAAS elements to keep the directors happy you loose something fundamental to the making of good games.
"dont like it, dont buy it!" guy get fired, and you think, wow they care. But after that EA released Battlefield V with three different access dates (you even cant play your 60$ game at release day).
They just don't give F about game community at all since 2014 (Game Spy shutdown).
And Blizzard... well after core devs left it in past few years, i dont expect some bright games.
Welcome to the boards!
When you go from an ethos of making something so good that people want to buy it, to first making sure that it has enough GAAS elements to keep the directors happy you loose something fundamental to the making of good games.
I thought there were only 2 release dates and the main reason for the PS4 delay was to do with EA Access on the PS4?
No matter. Got a PS4 and have to wait a few days - so what. I remember when games would launch in the states and people in Europe had to wait 6 months! Tales of day 1 meltdowns were common. Calls to customer support always spike on release days.
So what would "you" do? I need to know so I can complain about your choice you understand! Release everything at once resulting in delays to get through to CS - blah blah "you" don't care; ; hire extra CS staff and sack them a week later - blah blah "you" don't care; do a staggered release to try and find a balance?
EA (with whom I have no connection or interest in) have made huge strides and should be applauded - otherwise company's will decide its pointless to improve. Bitching about a non-issue nah.
I feel it is a VERY important statement that Blizzard had a failed Blizzcon.Why you ask,well when you consider that anyone would spend time and money to simply go to an advertising event where the developer hypes THEIR own products in a biased fashion,you KNOW those people are die hard fanbois.
So when you hear from your most staunch followers that your are NOT doing things right,it SHOULD send a message to the leads at Blizzard.
I simply look at the most successful online TCG ever,Hearthstone,the game is slowly dying but recently dropped off very quickly.The game was ALWAYS top 5 in twitch viewing,recently it can't even make the top two rows,actually dropping out of the top 18 into around 20 or so.Game que ues are longer and many top streamers have jumped over to MTG and Artifact.
D3 basically fell off the radar after Blizzard managed to ruin that game as well.I am not a Diablo fan by any means but i bet most Diablo fanbois will say that D3 was not as good as D1/2.
Imo what is wrong at Blizzard?Well a few things,TOO FAST,they are making more games that are low budget fast to market.I feel that is definitely on purpose,the longer it takes the less money is made,so they are rushing out games like hotcakes.Instead of spending a lot of time on pre development,they really seem to be fast forwarding ideas spending barely a year on the entire games of present.
So they are disrespecting their fans and their own products,it has come to a point i feel that Blizzard feels they can just sell anything it makes.With soooo many developers/games out there now,people are finally saying ENOUGH Blizzard,do it right or your supporters will stop supporting you.The investors,share holders see the books or have a very good idea and see this massive ship starting to sink a bit even if only slowly.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
My long winded point is that investors,stock holders like to see a business on the rise,it makes their investments more profitable.Even a stagnant business is not good for investors,they want to see improvements.
Sure Blizzard is TRYING to make more money but not by means we as gamer's want to see>>>better games.Nope instead they have purposely been targeting marketing gimmicks either through cash shops or cross gaming promotions.My feeling is make your games better then you won't NEED the gimmicks.
I know that if i see a really good game,i am all in,i don't need any more prodding or marketing or any con jobs,i am simply playing and that is it.
So here is my solution to Blizzard,make better games and then everything looks great.LISTEN to your testers and fans,do NOT allow your team leads to undermine the value of feedback and testers,FORCE your leads to LISTEN to everyone.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
"dont like it, dont buy it!" guy get fired, and you think, wow they care. But after that EA released Battlefield V with three different access dates (you even cant play your 60$ game at release day).
They just don't give F about game community at all since 2014 (Game Spy shutdown).
And Blizzard... well after core devs left it in past few years, i dont expect some bright games.
Welcome to the boards!
When you go from an ethos of making something so good that people want to buy it, to first making sure that it has enough GAAS elements to keep the directors happy you loose something fundamental to the making of good games.
I thought there were only 2 release dates and the main reason for the PS4 delay was to do with EA Access on the PS4?
No matter. Got a PS4 and have to wait a few days - so what. I remember when games would launch in the states and people in Europe had to wait 6 months! Tales of day 1 meltdowns were common. Calls to customer support always spike on release days.
So what would "you" do? I need to know so I can complain about your choice you understand! Release everything at once resulting in delays to get through to CS - blah blah "you" don't care; ; hire extra CS staff and sack them a week later - blah blah "you" don't care; do a staggered release to try and find a balance?
EA (with whom I have no connection or interest in) have made huge strides and should be applauded - otherwise company's will decide its pointless to improve. Bitching about a non-issue nah.
I don't tend to be too critical or investigative in a welcome to the boards post, you have the honour of being the first person to want to nail one of mine down.
But I will answer, this is not just about a single issue, it is an approach to making games that has led to loot boxes and deciding not to make a game unless it has enough gass elements. I don't see multiple release dates as being that important in the scheme of things.
Too be fair this article is a little misleading. ALL Tech companies have taken a beating over the last couple months. Not just these two big name video game companies.
So to put this all on you dont like their direction is misleading. There is a lot more to their stock price then a few bad game releases.
This is an underrated comment.
Both EA and ActiBlizz are higher than they were approximately two years ago (that point is slightly less than two years for ActiBlizz, slightly more than two years for EA), or at any point in the past 5 years before that.
Comments
Came for these entertaining posts trying to swing it like ATVI and EA aren't horrible, lol. It's not the norm for a stock to fall 30% in a month at the end of the year like ATVI has in the last month. It's not normal for 'the end of the year' for a stock to be down 25% from a year ago (and pretty much the same for YTD).
Now i'll give it to you, video games were over valued and are suffering the blues like everyone else, but when you look at TakeTwo you see them down 10% in the past year and only 3.4% YTD. UBI Soft is up 4.74% YTD.
ATVI and EA are far outside the movement of the whole market right now. ATVI is down over 40% from it's recent high while EA is down 45% from it's mid-summer high. To put that in laymen terms...EA is worth about HALF what it was a mere 6 months ago. And relatively speaking, it's not trading at crazy high multiples. I know 26 P/E is nuts in the grand scheme, but in this market and in it's sector, it's really not that over valued. ATVI is 66 P/E which is ridiculous but if they are going to drop to EA's multiple then that bottom is REALLY going to hurt and there is no way to spin that. And if you suggest EA still will adjust soon (referring to the future) then that's reiterating just how bad these two companies are. After almost getting cut in half in 5 months they are still likely to adjust much lower.... Uhoh. Smells like GE and SNAP.
BUT the good part (IMO). Someone above said how stock prices don't matter to gamers. FALSE! Massive drops lead to change in leadership which often leads to new culture at publishers which radically effects games. Drop in revenue and more specifically MAU, which is sparking a lot of the price movement leads to reviewing monetization methods. I think the video game industry is going to start to see that microtransactions aren't sustainable. You bleed the spenders who aren't your dedicated fan base. They move on, sometimes from the entire genre. Parents get pissed too and sales drop. MTX was doomed from the start. It game the publishers this idea that they don't need to make complete games and can sell you everything later including advancement and balance. But as they are discovery, people get pissed. Games fail without proper balance and expected included release features.
I think this is the result of people seeing through the horrendous MTX practices by the two big giants.
If I want a world in which people can purchase success and power with cash, I'll play Real Life. Keep Virtual Worlds Virtual!
I cannot waste my time anymore on the minutiae of these stories; whether something was right or wrong; -all i care about are the people behind these details.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
I want to play a game made for gamers by gamers, not for executives/investors.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/19/tech-stocks-like-facebook-and-apple-got-crushed-once-again.html
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
They just don't give F about game community at all since 2014 (Game Spy shutdown).
And Blizzard... well after core devs left it in past few years, i dont expect some bright games.
When you go from an ethos of making something so good that people want to buy it, to first making sure that it has enough GAAS elements to keep the directors happy you loose something fundamental to the making of good games.
No matter. Got a PS4 and have to wait a few days - so what. I remember when games would launch in the states and people in Europe had to wait 6 months! Tales of day 1 meltdowns were common. Calls to customer support always spike on release days.
So what would "you" do? I need to know so I can complain about your choice you understand! Release everything at once resulting in delays to get through to CS - blah blah "you" don't care; ; hire extra CS staff and sack them a week later - blah blah "you" don't care; do a staggered release to try and find a balance?
EA (with whom I have no connection or interest in) have made huge strides and should be applauded - otherwise company's will decide its pointless to improve. Bitching about a non-issue nah.
So when you hear from your most staunch followers that your are NOT doing things right,it SHOULD send a message to the leads at Blizzard.
I simply look at the most successful online TCG ever,Hearthstone,the game is slowly dying but recently dropped off very quickly.The game was ALWAYS top 5 in twitch viewing,recently it can't even make the top two rows,actually dropping out of the top 18 into around 20 or so.Game que ues are longer and many top streamers have jumped over to MTG and Artifact.
D3 basically fell off the radar after Blizzard managed to ruin that game as well.I am not a Diablo fan by any means but i bet most Diablo fanbois will say that D3 was not as good as D1/2.
Imo what is wrong at Blizzard?Well a few things,TOO FAST,they are making more games that are low budget fast to market.I feel that is definitely on purpose,the longer it takes the less money is made,so they are rushing out games like hotcakes.Instead of spending a lot of time on pre development,they really seem to be fast forwarding ideas spending barely a year on the entire games of present.
So they are disrespecting their fans and their own products,it has come to a point i feel that Blizzard feels they can just sell anything it makes.With soooo many developers/games out there now,people are finally saying ENOUGH Blizzard,do it right or your supporters will stop supporting you.The investors,share holders see the books or have a very good idea and see this massive ship starting to sink a bit even if only slowly.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Sure Blizzard is TRYING to make more money but not by means we as gamer's want to see>>>better games.Nope instead they have purposely been targeting marketing gimmicks either through cash shops or cross gaming promotions.My feeling is make your games better then you won't NEED the gimmicks.
I know that if i see a really good game,i am all in,i don't need any more prodding or marketing or any con jobs,i am simply playing and that is it.
So here is my solution to Blizzard,make better games and then everything looks great.LISTEN to your testers and fans,do NOT allow your team leads to undermine the value of feedback and testers,FORCE your leads to LISTEN to everyone.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
But I will answer, this is not just about a single issue, it is an approach to making games that has led to loot boxes and deciding not to make a game unless it has enough gass elements. I don't see multiple release dates as being that important in the scheme of things.
This is an underrated comment.
Both EA and ActiBlizz are higher than they were approximately two years ago (that point is slightly less than two years for ActiBlizz, slightly more than two years for EA), or at any point in the past 5 years before that.
Sources: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-ab&q=ea+stock+price
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-ab&q=Activision+blizzard+stock+price