Companies wonder why their products or services aren’t selling as well as they could. Sometimes the reason why is due to making bad business decisions. Let’s look at a questionable one from Electronic Arts.

Electronic Arts (EA) announced yesterday that they were pushing back the release of their game The Sims 3 until June 2, which happens to coincide with the Electronic Entertainment Expo which starts on June 2. The Godfather II lost its February release date as well. Dragon Age: Origins has been pushed back to the end of 2009. They also announced a $641 million loss and plans to close 12 facilities. Good news…they released a new trailer. Yeah!

Why the Push Back?

Let’s be clear here, they are pushing back their revenue, potentially messing up their first quarter financial statement by delaying one of their main title releases. Why are they doing this?

“In the case of Sims 3, we’re moving this title to June 3 to give us additional time to build the worldwide marketing campaign a title like this deserves,” said CEO John Riccitiello.

Not because the game is not done. Not because they want to make the game better. They want to market the game better. Releasing a game from an optimal non-competitive “quiet” time to a potential “not sure how the economy will be, odds are the competition will be releasing games at the same time” release period. Why would they do this?

Enter: Bad Business Decision

Honestly, IMO, EA dropped the ball on this one. EA was doing great and really could have rode the election wave doing videos like this one to hype their games based on current events. What better game to highlight the current situations? Raising a family, escaping “real” life, living a dream…so many options.

And one of the crucial elements of The Sims 3 is that the game is played by casual gamers. The people who aren’t following game sites to see when a game is released. The person that isn’t necessarily checking in on the community regularly. *Cough* The people who aren’t attending E3 *cough*. To get those people back, EA has to use other methods like email or TV (in coordination with gaming sites) to reach those people. Yet there was nothing.

Let’s look at this realistically. EA owns Madden, Rock Band, Need For Speed and still had a $641 million dollar loss. Why? Chief executive John Riccitiello explains:

“Clear and simple, our titles did not perform to our expectations,” Riccitiello told analysts during a conference call.

Dropping the ball on marketing isn’t the only problem. EA is known for putting out a weak game to ride the cash cow wave. Let’s be real: the features in The Sims 3 should have been released years ago. Madden is another title that is released without pushing the limits of the game. With tough economic times ahead people are making wiser choices on how to spend their money. The “release a weak game now and have the gamer pay for expansions” model isn’t sitting well with a community of people who aren’t looking forward to starting the process all over again. The Sims 3 is not compatible with The Sims 2. Take a look at the expansion packs for The Sims 2 and groan as you translate that into dollars potentially invested in The Sims 3. Cash cows only work when people have the cash to spend on them.

How Can I Learn From This?

Your blog/site, product, service, etc. has to evolve as trends, the economy, etc. changes. Unfortunately, the easy route is to continue what you’ve always done, especially if you are successful. That is a drastic mistake without realistically looking at the changes going on around you.

Take a realistic view at the community you are trying to be apart of or trying to grow and see if the decisions you make today will compliment and enhance your goals for tomorrow. With EA, they have the tough hurdle of trying to sell a high-maintenance game during a time when people will have less income to spend. A person would receive much more reward (content vs. financial investment) playing World of Warcraft or a console game than investing in a game the person knows in advance could be another $100 investment in expansions.

In comparison to other blogs, why should I visit yours? What makes yours better than someone another blog/site? Why should I purchase your product or use your service? Don’t slip into the “free” model because all things aren’t meant to be free. Most people don’t mind paying for a good product or service.

How to Turn This Situation Around

For EA, hopefully they are:

• Reducing the number of expansions. Make a great game and push the limits of that great game to create an even better game.
• The Sims 3 should be Mac compatible by June.
• Better marketing for their games. Reach out to casual gamers more.
• The Wii is your friend. Wii games are selling like hotcakes compared to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. However, accurately project the market to see if that will be the case by the time a Wii game is developed and released.
• Interact with the community more. Give people a reason to keep coming back to EA games.

What can you do? Learn from other companies mistakes. You do not want to be the person, company, blog/site scrambling to survive.