Electronic Arts said today its results for the third fiscal quarter and the March 31 fiscal year will be lower than expected because of weaker-than-expected sales of Dragon Age: Veilguard and global football (soccer) games.
EA’s stock fell 10.71% to $127.11 in after-hours trading after the announcement.
EA’s initial guidance for fiscal year 2025 anticipated mid-single-digit growth in live services net bookings. However, the company now projects a mid-single-digit decline, with Global Football accounting for the majority of the change.
Separately, Dragon Age: Veilguard only engaged 1.5 million players during the quarter, down nearly 50% from EA’s expectations. Our own Rachel Kaser loved it.
Global Football had experienced two consecutive fiscal years of double-digit net bookings growth. However, the franchise experienced a slowdown as early momentum in the fiscal third quarter did not sustain through to the end. As a result, EA revised its outlook for Global Football to end the fiscal year down mid-single-digit at the midpoint of the new outlook.
As a result, EA is providing preliminary results for its third fiscal quarter and updating its fiscal year 2025 net bookings outlook. It now expects net bookings of approximately $2.215 billion for the third fiscal quarter and an updated range of $7 billion to $7.150 billion for fiscal year 2025. EA had previously anticipated $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion.
For its third fiscal quarter, EA now expects GAAP net revenue to be approximately $1.883 billion and approximately $1.11 in GAAP diluted earnings per share.
“During Q3, we continued to deliver high-quality games and experiences across our portfolio; however, Dragon Age and EA Sports FC 25 underperformed our net bookings expectations,” said Andrew Wilson, CEO of EA, in a staetment. “This month, our teams delivered a comprehensive gameplay refresh in addition to our annual Team of the Year update in FC 25; positive player feedback and early results are encouraging. We …