http://www.cnbc.com/id/41875080

Electronic Arts hasn’t exactly been a darling of Wall Street in recent years.

AP Electronic Arts Headquarters, Redwood City, California

Battered by a string of earnings disappointments and underperfoming titles, the video game publisher has seen its archrival Activision-Blizzard  [ATVI  11.00    0.05  ( 0.46%)   ]  take away king-of-the hill status among industry peers, and watched its stock price fall. But Frank Gibeau, the president of the EA Games label, says the company has made the necessary changes to get back on top.

“I really feel good about where we are at EA [ERTS  18.71    0.31  ( 1.68%)    these days,” says Gibeau. “There’s a lot of transition going on in this industry and we’re really well positioned for that. …We feel like we’re on the offensive. We’re moving from a fire-and-forget packaged goods model to an online services model.”

Video games are certainly in a transition mode these days. The rise of mobile gaming, particularly on devices like the Apple  [AAPL  352.12    2.81  ( 0.8%)   ] iPhone and iPad, and social network gaming on sites such as Facebook, have hit some publishers hard as they have remained laser-focused on traditional console and game machines.

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EA really needs to do something to make profit.  They have lost A LOT of money these past years

If the NFL goes on strike then they lose Madden for the year. That can't be good for the bottom line.

It's pretty serious. I have a hard time believing either party is willing to kill the golden goose, but neither side wants to budge either. It's unpredictable right now. Billions of dollars are on the line.

It is interesting that, when things are in that state, brinkmanship ends up being stronger than ever.

The less money EA has, the more likely nfl exclusivity will be dropped(after 2013 that is).  I hate to wish people to lose jobs...but I don't want to support a company that is so fearful of competition.

Actually if there is a strike their contract has a provision for it so it won't cost them as much as it could have

this could only be good. How good Madden is doesnt matter, if they have competition it can only get better imo

True, but EA will still have exclusivity. If overall the company suffers in sales, a competitive future is more likely.

But they won't make any profits from what should be a pretty good cash cow. Considering their profits were already weak to begin with, they need the profits.

A lockout is near inevitable, I think.  The owners have done a pretty good job of preparing for this, so they don't have any short-term incentive to play ball.  The players, by contrast, don't want to sacrifice hundreds of millions in revenue without first knowing that that sacrifice is actually necessary.  The former has stockpiled tons of cash for this, and the latter is prepared to decertify.  It's going to get messy...