Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Andrew Wilson: Let me start with the second part of your question, then I’ll move into the first part of your question. Thinking about what you’ve heard from us for some time now is as we work with our global communities of players and we really listen to what they’re looking for, what they hope to do is really interact and engage with their favorite IP, which as it turns out is the biggest IP in the world, many of which sit within our portfolio, they want to both play, create, watch and connect. And so our expectation on a go-forward basis is that even as we expand the definition of play and the types of things you can do in the context of these interactive worlds that as we bring in more creation opportunity in these worlds, that in and of itself will also spawn more watch.

Watch traditionally, of course, is well, do we make a movie, do we make a television show and our expectation is that we will see more of that. But in addition to that, we expect that we’ll see many, many billions of hours of content created by our communities, both in the context of what goes on inside the game and in the context of what goes on outside the game. And of course, the most important part of that will be out the ability for players to connect with each other in the context of play, create and watch. And so while we look at what’s going in the industry right now, we see the fact that gaming IP is now manifesting inside of film and television and is topping those charts in addition to topping the interactive entertainment charts.

Our expectation as we build out our portfolio is that we will get that benefit. That will be a tailwind for us. But in addition to that, we’re really thinking about how we engage our players across the expansion of play, inviting them to connect and expand and extend and enhance the worlds that we create. The watch element that comes from that, we talked about billions of hours watched in FC alone, you should imagine that is also across Madden and the Sims and Battlefield and Apex, but really built on a deep sense of social connection. And that’s something that a company like us has a unique ability to deliver for our players that maybe hasn’t been the case with traditional entertainment companies. To answer your question on advertising broadly, again, I think it’s still early on that front.

And we have looked over the course of our history to be very thoughtful about advertising in the context of our play experiences. But again, as we think about the many, many billions of hours spent, both playing, creating, watching and connecting and where much of that engagement happens beyond the bounds of a traditional game experience. Our expectation is that advertising has an opportunity to be a meaningful driver of growth for us. We’ll be very thoughtful as we move into that, but we have teams internally in the company right now looking at how do we do very thoughtful implementations inside of our game experiences, but more importantly, as we start to build community and harness the power of community beyond the bounds of our games, how do we think about advertising as a growth driver in those types of experiences.

Eric Sheridan: Thank you.

Andrew Wilson: Okay. Well, thank you all for being here, and thank you for the great questions. I want to extend my deepest appreciation to our teams for their passion, their hard work and commitment in delivering an incredible year. To close, I’m extremely excited about what our future holds. I look forward — and look forward to sharing more about our pipeline and longer-term strategy to drive growth at our Investor Day in New York later in the year. Thank you so much.

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

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