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Learning From EA's Annual Report

Posted by Soulskill on from the fun-on-all-fronts dept.

eldavojohn writes "GamePolitics rounded up some 'fun facts' from EA's annual report (PDF) and found among them: 'EA's failed bid to gobble up Take-Two cost the company $21 million,' while 'GameStop and Wal-Mart are EA's biggest customers; each accounts for 14% of EA sales.' It also shows that 'game content legislation and its potential effect on sales' concerns EA, as does the potential for a 'Hot Coffee incident.' More evidence that while it's good to be the big dog, it comes with a lot of responsibility and worrying."

18 comments

  1. What exactly are we supposed to learn? by Kotoku · · Score: 1

    EA is a monstrous company with lots of waste and inefficiency? You know you are big when it takes $21 million to NOT take over a company. Way to go there.

    Oh? People don't like being told that "Big Brother" knows best? Or that they are sociopaths for playing violent video games? NO WAY!

    Seriously, I wonder if there was some kind of dare between the submitter and his friends to see who could make a story out of an annual report.

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    1. Re:What exactly are we supposed to learn? by Norsefire · · Score: 2, Funny

      EA is a monstrous company with lots of waste and inefficiency?

      Yeah, I mean just look at page 4.

    2. Re:What exactly are we supposed to learn? by ta+bu+shi+da+yu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't see too much waste - more like a tech company that needs to do a lot of development and R&D to keep afloat.

      Every single listed U.S. company must state risks to their business in a 10k filing to the SEC. It's always interesting, but pretty routine.

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    3. Re:What exactly are we supposed to learn? by Kotoku · · Score: 1

      Wait, you RTFA AND the 197 page annual report?

      I don't think you are from around here...

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    4. Re:What exactly are we supposed to learn? by N1AK · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Seriously, I wonder if there was some kind of dare between the submitter and his friends to see who could make a story out of an annual report.

      I'd like to see more people take the time to produce accessible stories based on the information in major companies annual reports. There is a lot of information in them, and given the various requirements placed upon companies by law, and the requirement that they are published regularly they can provide a lot of very informative data.

    5. Re:What exactly are we supposed to learn? by philpalm · · Score: 1

      That big Brother is lobbied by various groups so it is best to also lobby Big Brother against other lobbyists. Now if you are a betting person, whenever it seems like the non-violent lobby is going to win, it is best to dump your stock in EA before it tanks.

    6. Re:What exactly are we supposed to learn? by ta+bu+shi+da+yu · · Score: 1

      No, I read the comment which said to read page 4. So I did.

      However, reading 10k filings is actually not particularly difficult. Try it some time, they are actually quite enlightening. You can pretty much skip over the financial stuff, unless you are crunching numbers and undertaking fundamental analysis of the company.

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    7. Re:What exactly are we supposed to learn? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Best part about this comment: it's funny, but it's only at 3 because in order to get the joke you have to RTFA.

    8. Re:What exactly are we supposed to learn? by JamesP · · Score: 2, Funny

      Where's the 'being eaten by a grue' risk, I don't see it...

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  2. Summary links to wrong report by game+kid · · Score: 4, Informative

    GamePolitics links the correct report at their article; Slashdot's summary links the 2008 report in "annual report" instead. (EA only has reports to 2008 at the "annual report" link in the Firehose version.)

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    1. Re:Summary links to wrong report by Solarhands · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You can also get any company's public filing through EDGAR, which is put in a standardized format, in plain old HTML.

      EA's 2009 10-K

      To me, the 21 million loss on Take-Two looks like small change to a company like EA. The bigger story that jumps off the income statement is one that most companies are dealing with these days, loss of goodwill. EA took a 368 million loss on goodwill impairment. What that means, for those who do not understand goodwill, is that their 2006 acquisition of JAMDAT, which they turned into is now worth 368 million less to them than it is worth on their balance sheet. That basically means they are not making the money on their cellphone business that they expected to be making.

    2. Re:Summary links to wrong report by MWoody · · Score: 1

      Edgar?

  3. Re:post zero by msimm · · Score: 1

    One wouldn't be the first post if the first post was zero - zero would.

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  4. Re:post zero by Jurily · · Score: 1

    One wouldn't be the first post if the first post was zero - zero would.

    First indicates a relative position. Zero is an index.

  5. that is what the annual report is by johncandale · · Score: 0, Redundant

    News flash, 10-K's can gives lots of interesting information about public companies, and one of the glories of the internet is most of them can be had for free on demand.

  6. Wal-Mart has 14% means a lot by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

    If it is same Wal-Mart which demands artists demands them to censor their work to show up on their stores and EA is a gigantic game company, we will wait a bit (!) for innovations and unique games to show up.

    Or... We better start donating to some great open source (and massively multi platform) games which appear on sourceforge etc.

  7. Another interesting takeway: by feepness · · Score: 1

    GameStop is 14% of their sales. GameStop is projecting weaker future sales.