EA Shares Fall After 'Subjective' Medal of Honor Reviews
It's a marathon, not a sprint apparently.
Shares of Electronic Arts fell nearly six per cent yesterday, following a "lukewarm reception" from critics over its Medal of Honor reboot.
Despite the nearly endless hype and constant controversy in the news, fellow game reviewers did not seem keen on the finished product. The LA Times Blog notes a Metacritic score of 74/100, which is considered "mediocre," apparently. Funny, we were thinking the boundaries of 'mediocre' fell more towards 50/100, but that's just us.
Regardless, Metacritic also sports a 92/100 average for Modern Warfare 2 and 88/100 for EA's own Battlefield: Bad Company 2, so whichever way you want to cut it Medal of Honor seems to have done something wrong.
The publisher doesn't want to hear any of it though. In response to falling shares, a statement said that "critics' scores are highly subjective," and that some publications were awarding the game with 90% scores.
EA was much more interested in the reception from gamers, pointing to the fact that Medal of Honor had the highest pre-orders in the series' 11-year history. It did not reveal sales figures.
"[The pre-orders are] an essentially big achievement considering Medal of Honor has been dormant for several years," EA said. "This is the first year in rebooting the franchise. Medal of Honor is part of a larger EA strategy to take share in the shooter category. This is a marathon not a sprint -– today’s Medal of Honor launch represents a step forward in that race."
Despite the nearly endless hype and constant controversy in the news, fellow game reviewers did not seem keen on the finished product. The LA Times Blog notes a Metacritic score of 74/100, which is considered "mediocre," apparently. Funny, we were thinking the boundaries of 'mediocre' fell more towards 50/100, but that's just us.
Regardless, Metacritic also sports a 92/100 average for Modern Warfare 2 and 88/100 for EA's own Battlefield: Bad Company 2, so whichever way you want to cut it Medal of Honor seems to have done something wrong.
The publisher doesn't want to hear any of it though. In response to falling shares, a statement said that "critics' scores are highly subjective," and that some publications were awarding the game with 90% scores.
EA was much more interested in the reception from gamers, pointing to the fact that Medal of Honor had the highest pre-orders in the series' 11-year history. It did not reveal sales figures.
"[The pre-orders are] an essentially big achievement considering Medal of Honor has been dormant for several years," EA said. "This is the first year in rebooting the franchise. Medal of Honor is part of a larger EA strategy to take share in the shooter category. This is a marathon not a sprint -– today’s Medal of Honor launch represents a step forward in that race."
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