Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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David Karnovsky: Thank you. Last quarter, it was noted that players were concentrating their spend on major franchises. Just wanted to see first if there was any update to that? And then Andrew, in your commentary, you highlighted a goal for Apex as an experience across platforms. I’m assuming that includes mobile as well. So can you speak to how you envision, potentially relaunching that title on phones and how the approach could differ to the prior game? Thank you.

Andrew Wilson: Yes. So let me touch on the first part. I do think we continue to see big titles getting bigger and live services getting bigger. And certainly, as a company with a broad portfolio of large-scale IP and large-scale live services, we believe that we will be long-term beneficiaries of that trend. We do — that doesn’t mean that we won’t build smaller titles over the course of time. There are these incredible stories that we believe should be told in the context of entertainment. We are focusing our investments so that we can build a cost base around those that’s appropriate, but we’re also really getting behind our biggest opportunities. And as we’ve talked about our strategy and building these experiences that entertain massive online communities, our expectation is that will be a large-scale growth driver for us.

But, when thought about the right way, games like Dragon Age and Jedi can tell truly blockbuster stories and really break into that top category of games. I think what we see today is the mid-tier and lower games that maybe did pretty well through COVID, because people had a lot of spare time, they’re the parts of the industry that really aren’t doing and performing as well. And as we think about our future, you should expect we will continue to focus our investments and our energy and our resources against these big opportunities because we do believe that is where the industry is trending.

Laura Miele: Hi, David, I’ll take the Apex mobile question. As Vince and the team evaluate and look at, again, the runway and potential that we have on the franchise beyond the short mid-term that I’ve outlined today, we see really strong potential in further storytelling, in additional modalities in genre of play. Remember, Apex is set in the Titanfall world. There’s a lot of demand and interest in this universe. So as we — as they evaluate and we look at where the opportunities are, we are looking at new genres, we’re looking at potential new platforms, and we are looking at, as I mentioned earlier, the geographic expansion. So nothing to announce today, but all things are not only under consideration, but a meaningful part of our strategy for the future of the brand.

Andrew Wilson: Okay. Thank you very much for being with us today, and thank you for all of your questions. Once again, I want to express my deepest appreciation to our incredible teams for delivering a record Q1. We look forward to updating you next quarter on November 1 after what I think is going to be our biggest EA Sports season ever, including Madden 24 and of course, our highly anticipated launch of EA SPORTS FC 24. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Operator: That concludes today’s meeting. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

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