Video game company Electronic Arts saw revenue rise to $2.02 billion in its second quarter, up 6 percent on a year-earlier $1.9 billion, on the strength of American football video game sales expansion.
EA posted net income at $294 million, or $1.11 per share, compared to a year-earlier net income at $399 million, or $1.47 per share. The company saw its latest results come out amid steady demand for video games globally after a boom during pandemic-era lockdowns.
EA reported $2.07 billion in total net bookings for the past three months, a record for the second financial quarter and up 14 percent from year-earlier net bookings at $1.82 billion. The company said its American football sports video game series was on track to surpass $1 billion in net bookings for full year 2025. That’s after total hours of football game play rose in the second quarter 140 percent year-over-year.
“EA delivered another strong quarter with record Q2 net bookings, driven by our incredible teams, broad portfolio and technology leadership. The momentum in our business reinforces our strategic vision to deliver innovative experiences and interactive entertainment that deepens and expands engagement across our global communities,” Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, said in a statement that accompanied his company’s latest financial results.
On an after-market analyst call, Wilson reiterated EA was developing video games over extended periods and for increasingly connected ecosystems, rather just develop a gaming world with unique characters for release and sale on limited platforms.
That means launching football video game franchises less on a yearly or seasonal basis, as was typical in the past, and shifting the Madden NFL game franchise to a “football fan platform that serves all American football fans for 365 days a year,” Wilson argued.
He added EA would leverage the scale and technology of its creative teams to build video games based on other global sports besides American football, which includes the recent launch of the NFL 25 game based on the National Hockey League, and plans to launch video games based on LaLiga, or Spain’s top professional soccer competitions.
“Global football is just the beginning. We plan to introduce more sports in more regions in the future through a scaled release cadence with data from each release helping to define deeply engaging future features,” Wilson told analysts about EA Sports, a division of Electronic Arts that creates and publishes sports video games.
The video game publishing giant earlier this year unveiled plans to cut its workforce. In Feb. 2024, the company said it would shed around 5 percent of its workforce, or over 650 jobs, and incur about $125 million to $165 million in total charges to complete a restructuring plan.
Other cost cutting included the cancelation of a high-profile Star Wars first-person shooter game.
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