Yea, I clearly don't get EA so I did a few searches and found:

EA Denies Existence Of Battlefield DRM, Problems Caused By Origin Authentication - gameinformer.com/b/...n.aspx

We Haven’t Ruined FIFA 15, EA Claims; Fans outraged at recent changes to the game. - whatculture.com/ga...ms.php

We know Battlefield sales have been mediocre and I cannot believe they delayed it to get this low of sales. They contiually piss off their main clientele. So I guess I still do not get it. They have been improving their earnings, but it appears they may have hit a wall at the moment. oh well, just write off another 50 cents of "one time" charges for something and it is all good and they still beat "earnings".

 

Guys, this is LTCG, decided to change my handle. 

Re EA's rise: pure momentum, it continues to set new multi-year highs. It is doing what GME did throughout 2013 when it kept hitting multi-year highs. 

<p>I posted an article on stockarena about the hedge funds being big into EA. Maybe I need to stop fighting against them for now. I don't see it, especially with regards to overall quality of earnings (repeated "one time stuff", but they have more money and make the market, not me!</p>

<p>It sure has been hard holdinh a short position in this market, EA has just continued to move higher.  How long has Battlefield HL been out?  Amazon has it for $39.99</p>

BFH user base peaked (24h peak concurrent users on each platform, summed) a week ago Sunday. An obvious way to look at that is that more people stopped playing BFH in the last week than there were new users buying it. And it's $39.99 now at multiple retailers, which in just 12 days has to be some sort of record even for EA.

bfhstats.com/

If this was based on fundamentals, TTWO and ATVI would be seeing similar moves, but they're stagnant. If it were insider knowledge of something, so many insiders wouldn't have been such big sellers recently. Like you said, Human, looks like someone (funds? algos?) in complete control of the stock. I noticed too on Friday evening the after hours quote was $59,91 iirc, up nearly 3%, and when I looked on nasdaq.com at the trades, there was only one single trade above the $58.30 range, which was the final trade of the week for 125 shares way way way above market price. Just painting the tape for the weekend. And it worked.

Thanks for that Jester, I thought it was quite soon for such a deep discount.  I have decided to hold firm with the short position, a mulitple in the 22.77 area is way too generous for a company that has struggled for years to grow its revenue base.  I also think that overall gamer engagement has been slowed by the miriad of competing entertainment being offered online.  The explosion of streaming entertainment in particular has got to be diluting growth of the video gaming Industry.

Human, IMO the free games from Sony and MS are taking a toll. Not only does that devalue all games, it means people spend their time on those. At the end of the day it's competition for peoples time more so than wallets, and if many of those people can game for free, they will.

PS4 March: Valiant Hearts (77%), CounterSpy cross-play (64%)

XB1 April: Child of Light (82%, and one of my favorite games of 2014), Pool Nation FX

X360 April: Assassins Creed IV Black Flag (86%, and the best AC in recent years), Gears of War Judgment (79%), Terraria (81%)

This is a very solid line-up of free games. I recall Black Flag on PS4 taking me 50% hours for a very enjoyable 100%, and Terraria is time sink for those into that genre.