EA reported its Q1 FY2012 earnings today with GAAP total net revenue at $999 million, up 22% from last year’s $815 million reported in the same quarter. The company’s digital revenues, which include streams from its social and mobile games, is now split almost evenly between mobile games and console content downloads.
As for social games specifics, EA did not break out revenues earned by Playfish or discuss upcoming social game releases out of the newly-acquired PopCap Games. Release dates for its upcoming games, The Sims Social and Risk: Factions, are still unspecified, but we know that Sims Social is currently in closed beta. EA CEO John Riccitiello previously said during the PopCap acquisitions call that the company would not detail release plans for upcoming social games for fear of ambush (where a rival company could release a competing game ahead of EA).
It’s interesting to note that EA is splitting its social game development operations into pieces between internal studios. For example, The Sims Social was is designed by the internal Sims Studio “in collaboration” with Playfish while console tie-in social game Dragon Age Legends was developed by internal studio EA2D with no Playfish association. As EA is planning to bring more of its console franchises to Facebook in the form of social games, we wonder if certain internal studios will be expected to produce and run their own social games depending on their product, or if Playfish will eventually become the go-to studio for all EA brands looking for standalone social games.
> Read more on EA’s iOS earnings on our sister site, Inside Mobile Apps.
Source: Inside Social Games
Wednesday, July 27, 2011