Yi Electric Adjustment business model will be free to the main game to attract new users

Beijing time August 1 news, according to foreign media reports, the United States Arts (EA) announced in Tuesday, will be the company's flagship video game "Star Wars: The Old Republic" (Star Wars:the OID Republic) introduced a free model. Industry insiders believe that the move is intended to attract and develop more new users.

Over the past three months, the price of art electricity has fallen by 28%. The company's shares rose 1.5% to $11.19 in Tuesday after trading after a free gaming announcement by art power.

Since November this year, the Star Wars game will be replaced by a dual pricing model: One option for users to charge 14.99 dollars a month, and a free model, according to art. Free mode has some limitations on content and advanced functionality. Before the program came into effect, the Star Wars game's charging scheme was to charge 60 dollars for the first month and 15 dollars a month thereafter.

Ken Barker, Ken Barques's chief Financial Officer (CFO), said in Tuesday that it had announced a new pricing scheme for Star Wars games, including a free solution to entice players to play the game, as early as the E3 games industry technology conference, which was held earlier this year. BULQ said: "Our latest pricing measures have been welcomed by the user, the new scheme will provide players with more choices." ”

EA has launched the "Star Wars" web version of the multi-role game, the purpose is to see Blizzard's "World of Warcraft" scramble for the market, while strengthening its pay version of the game product strength. Although the game has been praised by the industry's old players, but compared with "World of Warcraft", "Star Wars" by the attention of ordinary players is not high enough.

User Drop

"Star Wars: Old Republic" active users have fallen to less than 1 million per cent during the first quarter of this year, compared to 1.3 million in the fourth quarter of last year, with an active user of 1.7 million per month, said Frank Gibeau, president of labels, Frank Gibb. Gibb said: "Although the game launched at the beginning of a good response, but the user has been declining trend."

Gibb also revealed that the game's break-even point is about 500,000 users, "although our current user volume is far higher than this balance point, but the current performance is not so good." The feedback provided by the players is also very clear and they are blocked by the monthly subscription fee. Other players have hinted that they will come back if they can offer a free solution. "It is reported that in the free version of the Star Wars game, it includes the ability to purchase an upgraded version."

The current quarterly revenue is expected to be between 1.05 billion and 1.1 billion dollars, and earnings per share is expected to be between 7~12 cents. The average estimate for the analyst is: 1.07 billion dollars in revenue, 14 cents per share. It also lowered its forecast for full-year revenues this year, down from the $4.3 billion trillion expected in May this year to $4.25 billion.

The reason for the reduction of full-year revenue forecasts is to take into account two factors: one is the change of foreign exchange rate, and the other is the market performance of "Star Wars" is not satisfactory. In addition, the EA board also approved a stock repurchase scheme worth 500 million of dollars. Bulq said the repurchase of shares also showed the company's confidence in its own strategy.

Mode change

In recent years, with more and more competition from the art power, art has been adjusting its business model, that is, to vigorously strengthen mobile and online games, while not giving up the top-earning game.

During the quarter, it launched the Facebook version of Sims (Sim City), which allows users to play the game on Facebook via a browser. The game will compete with popular works such as Zynga's "FarmVille", the art Electric said. "Sims" is doing well on Facebook and is now the site's most popular game, according to statistics published by AppData, the US market research firm. Art electricity in Tuesday said that the current "Sims" has more than 10 million users.

It also announced a subscription-based service for the battlefield game. The current "Battlefield" toll subscriber volume has exceeded 1.3 million, according to the art electricity. In addition, the volume of "Crazy Rugby 13" (Madden NFL 13) increased by 25% over the year.

EA announced earlier in Tuesday that Black Jogensen (Blake Jorgensen) has been appointed as the company's new CFO. Jorgensen previously served as CFO for Levi Strauss & Co.