The Horrible Things That Could Happen To EA

A recent Gamasutra story noted something interesting in Electronic Arts' financials filing. The company is extremely reliant on brick and mortar retailers like Wal-mart (which made up 12% of its net revenue) and Gamestop (about 15%). Simon Carless, writing at the GameSetWatch blog, takes that analysis one step further and postulates some of the horrible things that could happen to the software giant if the conditions were right. It's all meant tongue-in-cheek, of course, but it's an interesting discussion of how even large companies can be vulnerable to simple issues: "5. Wrong System, Wrong Time! 'Our business is highly dependent on the success and availability of video game hardware systems manufactured by third parties, as well as our ability to develop commercially successful products for these systems.' More specifically, as EA explains, this is the Wii/DS effect in action: 'A platform for which we are developing products may not succeed or may have a shorter life cycle than anticipated.'"

Comments

Hardly a problem limited to EA

[onion2k]

5. Wrong System, Wrong Time! 'Our business is highly dependent on the success and availability of video game hardware systems manufactured by third parties, as well as our ability to develop commercially successful products for these systems.

That's true of all 3rd party software developers on all games consoles. And all operating systems in fact. And all products in fact, it's not limited to IT. A company that makes after-market parts for a Ford is relying on Ford not releasing a model that's a dismal failure.

Too many people think there's some mysterious difference between computers and everything else. There isn't.