While Star Wars Battlefront II‘s loot box controversy resulted in Electronic Arts’ stock taking a hit, many predicted that the backlash won’t have any real impact on the game’s sales despite a gloomy picture on the physical sales front. At least one Wall Street firm disagrees.
In a note to investors, Cowen Group has said that the loot box controversy has “clearly” impacted Battlefront II‘s sales and even if we factor in the shift to digital, the company still thinks EA will be behind the first game’s sales by at least 20%-30%.
Add to this Need for Speed Payback‘s reception, which Cowen believes was “poor,” and you have EA missing FY18 estimates.
Cowen’s Doug Creutz wrote:
We are lowering our FY18 estimates to below management’s guidance as we believe that Star Wars Battlefront 2‘s performance (lower units + the indefinite delay of MTX) has been disappointing enough to more than offset any strength elsewhere in the model.
The negative player reaction to the mishandled loot box economy has clearly impacted SWBF2 sales … we think this is evidence that the industry’s core gamer constituency is getting increasingly unhappy about the degree to which MTX is being shoehorned into core gameplay loops.
Even factoring in the shift to digital units, it seems pretty likely that initial total sales will wind up being 20%-30% behind the pace of the original Battlefront, with bigger-than-normal price cuts also likely needed to move inventory. We think that the poorly-reviewed Need for Speed Payback is probably underperforming as well.
EA’s FY18 earnings per share forecast has been reduced to $4.08 (company’s guidance is $4.20 per share).
[Source: CNBC]
