EA Acquisitions Lack Industry Recognition; Apex Legends and F1 2021 Met Expectations
Blake Jorgensen, COO, and CFO at Electronic Arts are pleased with the sales results that F1 2021 from Codemasters is generating. He feels that the way EA acquired the studio should have received more recognition.
Yesterday, Electronic Arts published a financial report for Q1 of the current fiscal year (i.e. for the period from April 1 to June 30). Commenting on the figures, the company's COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen, highlighted the success of Apex Legends, as well as the sales results generated by F1 2021 from Codemasters, which EA acquired this February for $1.2 billion, te latter not included in the document. The racing game sells better than expected - and Jorgensen points to the developers' rapid integration with the publisher's publishing and marketing policies as a reason for its success. At the same time, he pointed out that the way EA took over Codemasters deserves more recognition in the industry.
"It's to the testament of an exceptional game development team that was able to produce the right assets, to produce the right marketing materials to help us drive this business and the teams working together. And you know what? I think we don't get enough credit for that."
It looks as if EA is looking for applause for the exemplary acquisition of a new developer, and yet we know that the company's relationship with Codemasters was not so perfect as Blake Jorgensen seems to draw it. Otherwise, I guess the heads of the studio wouldn't have left it a few months after the acquisition, right?
CFO of Electronic Arts also praised Respawn Entertainment, the devs of Apex Legends - a game that drew more than 13 million people each week over the past season. Jorgensen didn't leave out the publisher's credit this time either, though.
"Respawn has obviously driven the amazing development of Apex Legends, pex, but they've partnered with us extremely well to drive what is now -- it's coming up to almost $2 billion in business over two years. That's unheard of in our industry. And I'm not sure we get enough credit for it."
Jorgensen seems to forget that he's talking about the same Respawn Entertainment whose Titanfall 2 was published by EA between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and then was surprised that the game sold poorly. In general, mister COO seems to have a poor memory - former members of EA's disbanded studios such as Visceral Games (the devs of Dead Space 1-3, BF Hardline), Westwood (Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2) or Pandemic (Star Wars: Battlefront 1 and 2, Lord of the Rings: Conquest) could refresh his memory a bit.
