Electronic Arts is a good buy ahead of Battlefield 5 launch

On June 11 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 held at Los Angeles Convention Center, Electronic Arts (EA) announced that its next edition of popular franchise Battlefield 5 would feature a Battle-Royale mode, which was first introduced by rival Epic Games. The announcement sent shares of the gaming giant up almost 2.5% on the next day.

In the one month since the announcement, EA shares have increased almost 4%. Battlefield 5 is set for launch on October 16 and we expect the rally to continue till then. It is still perhaps not too late to benefit from last month’s announcement. It may be noted that the gaming giant’s shares have increased 32% since the beginning of this year, compared to 3.3% by S&P 500 index.

Image courtesy: Electronic Arts

Battle-Royale is a multi-player feature that allows as many as 100 players to fight each other at a common gaming environment till only the winner is left standing. It was introduced by Epic Games last year in its widely-popular Fortnite, and later adapted by PUBG, developed by South Korean gaming company Bluehole.

Thanks to the huge popularity of the format, Activision Blizzard (ATVI) had recently announced that it would incorporate Battle-Royale to its own flagship title Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

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Reiterating its overweight rating on EA stock, Piper Jaffray had recently expressed optimism that Battlefield 5 would provide a fillip to the company’s sales. The rating agency expects the game’s sale to be 16 million units in fiscal 2019, which would help EA regain some of the market share it lost to PUBG and Fortnite.

Apart from this, Anthem, a multi-player title that allows gamers to battle it out in super-cool exosuits, is coming out in February 2019. Anthem is developed by BioWare, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts.