http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=ERTS

I would think the purchase of the licenses would be considered a capital expense to be amortized over the length of the contract, not a one time charge.

It could be, but they also bought some developers recently as well. Lots of spending going on.

I knew I'd have to sift through several "Die EA and their CRAP games" posts before I got to someone that actually knew who they were talking about.

I'm pretty sure EA expected this and next year they will see record profits.

Seriously!! 60 hour work week is a minimum for a lot of professions.

Now for EAs collapse...I say good. Serves them right for trying to buy a monopoly. Make your fucking games better and you'll build a monopoly based on merit.

I don't think i could ever work 60+ hours a week. I'm glad i didn't apply to work at EA like i was thinking about. At my current job, i've worked 7 straight days before and a little over 50 hours i believe, and I was absolutely exhausted.

I'd say that it's a good buy opportunity now.

I worked 60+ hours for a two year stretch in my mid twenties and it had a very negative impact on my health and nearly ruined my relationship. Sometimes you really have to look at the big picture and figure whether the money is worth ruining your health and your life over. I got smart and moved on and though it took me a couple of years I now make the same kind of money working a 40 hour week with a much less stressful job.

What professions are these? That's 10 hours a day for 6 days on average, or 12 hour days for a five day work week. Now, I can see having these on rare occasions (big project deadline or something), but I can't see 60 hours being a minumum for any job. Maybe I'm just in the dark about this, though. You'd pretty much need to have very little commute, no family, and no life outside.

As for this being an "acceptable" loss for EA: I'm sure they thought that buying developers and licenses would dip into their profits a bit, but nowhere near this extent. Don't you think they would have held off on at least some of their expenditures if they were going to post a 90% decrease in profits? Amazingly, they didn't try to give some excuse that last year was a banner year, which is why profits fell... if anything, people just reading the headlines will have a bad feeling about the company.

And I hope those executives do get raked over the coals. What they did was pretty much inexcusable, from what the article is saying.

EA isn't going to be filing for bankruptcy anytime soon. They are a huge organization with so many franchises that this slow period isn't going to hurt them one bit in the long run. As soon as they release the new Madden, you will see record profits.

You've never been to Wall Street have you? Ask anyone at an iBank who doesn't have the title Managing Director how many hours they work a week. Gaurantee it's closer to 80 than 60. Or a law firm? Hell...I work at a consultancy and I'm on the clock at least 55 hours a week and that doesn't include the flight in or out. My bonus depends on it...and I like my bonus.

Yeah, there's lots of jobs that require 60+ hours.

You just have to decide how important money/career is to you. It's the least important thing in life to me (and unfortunate necessity) so I could never hack more than 40 hours regularly.

I still stand by my comment that insiders usually have their shares held in a blind trust. They are usually selling their shares to diversify their portfolio.

I still don't see criminal intent.

Pretty much any engineering job for starters...

... but I'm an engineer!

When I was a contract employee, I had no qualms about taking as many hours as I can get, so I guess 60+ hours would be fine if I had no family, or if my family were overseas. But even at a small startup, working the wee hours just to keep in contact with the design team in India, I don't think I worked 60+ hours regularly, just around deadlines and such. I remember people working that much before the bubble burst, because they felt they could cash out and be millionaires soon after...

Wow, this is getting off-topic. It is all about what a job is worth to you, though... and what state of life you're in (bachelor, married, married with young children, etc.).

This was my first impression when I first saw this thread yesterday afternoon... I come back today and see alot of 'EA suxorz' sentiment. Yeah, they do suck... and yeah, they release alot of mediocre games... but they're not going anywhere - they've been on a buying frenzy lately and it's just coincidence that sales are down (time of year, timing of release dates). Their move on ubisoft worries me somewhat.

I work 40-hour work weeks (or pretty close to it) as does my dad who's nearing retirement, but my mom (a legal administrator for a large law firm) regularly works 50-60 hours a week. Recently they moved buildings and she was in charge of the entire move process. For the final stretch she was pretty much working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 2 or 3 weeks. She's not the type to exaggerate, so I'm guessing that's pretty accurate.

What defines good compensation? Anyone know a dollar figure of how much they get? Or at least an estimate. What kind of degree do these people need? Are they just a bachelors? I'm just curious as I have no idea what the technology industry it. I'm all about healthcare.

salary.com

Most game programmers have a CS degree. Other are CG majors with Physics and Engineering majors thrown in for good measure depending on the company.

If you read the articles you'll see that these were not shares held in a blind trust. They exercised options. Options held for a fairly long time.

The criminal intent is in withholding dissapointing earnings news until they entered an open trading period. The withholding of information is not really the issue, it was that they provided false information so the stock would not tank before they were legally allowed to exercise their options and cash out.

That's also not an expense. It's acquiring assets. You're describing transactions that would have a negative impact on their cash position. The way accounting works, however, means cash position really has very little to do with the profit/loss statements.

Now there may have been one-time charges associated with both transactions, but usually management calls them out as separate. Only the amortized license and goodwill from the UBISOFT transaction should hit their books in the expense column last quarter. I doubt EA engaged in transactions where just the quarterly amortization would lower their quarterly profit 90%.

Granted, I'm too lazy to read the statements, but I think there are problems beyond the transactions cited.

Activision posts a 46% drop in earnings from last year, even as sales rose 25%. I guess the cost of making these games and the lower prices are hurting the bottom lines at companies... making me believe more and more that price hikes are to come.