EA confident in annual bookings, announces new ‘Battlefield’ title by Reuters

(Reuters) – Video game publisher Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ) said it expects to hit the high end of its annual bookings forecast and unveiled the next installment of its multiplayer shooter “Battlefield” at its investor day conference on Tuesday .

The new title will mark a return to the modern context after three consecutive games set in different time periods, competing with Activision Blizzard’s (NASDAQ: ) best-selling “Call of Duty” franchise.

EA’s bet on the more than two-decade-old franchise comes as consumers have cut back on discretionary spending over the past year, opting instead to stick with popular games as stubborn inflation weighed on budgets.

In July, EA said it expects bookings for fiscal 2025 between $7.30 billion and $7.70 billion.

The company also announced an ‘EA Sports’ app to tap into the loyal audience of its sports titles such as ‘EA FC’, ‘Madden NFL’ and the newly launched ‘College Football’. The app will act as a social platform that combines sports content, messaging and games, all centered on global football, it said.

Additionally, EA announced that it is partnering with Amazon’s (NASDAQ: ) MGM Studios to produce a movie based on its role-playing game, “The Sims,” ​​adding that it expects to double its annual bookings for game in the next five years.

The global success of Sony (NYSE: ) television series “The Last of Us” last year spurred Hollywood studios and gaming publishers to greenlight film and TV adaptations of popular video game intellectual properties.

The success of these adaptations isn’t always guaranteed, as evidenced by the recent box office disappointment of the movie based on Take-Two (NASDAQ: ) Interactive’s “Borderlands,” which received poor critical reviews last month.

The film grossed more than $32 million in worldwide box office revenue against its estimated budget of about $115 million, according to data from the film website IMDb.