EA, §1A diff (2016 → 2017)

Item 1A. Risk Factors Our business is subject to many risks and uncertainties, which may affect our future financial performance. If any of the events or circumstances described below occurs, our business or financial performance could be harmed, our actual results could differ materially from our expectations and the market value of our stock could decline. The risks and uncertainties discussed below are not the only ones we face. There may be additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently do not believe could be material that may harm our business or financial performance. Our business is intensely competitive and “hit” driven. We may not deliver “hit” products and services, or consumers may prefer our competitors’ products or services over our own. Competition in our industry is intense. Many new products and services are regularly introduced in each major industry segment (console, mobile and PC free-to-download), but only a relatively small number of “hit” titles account for a significant portion of total revenue in each segment. Our competitors range from established interactive entertainment companies and diversified media companies to emerging start-ups, and we expect new competitors to continue to emerge throughout the world. If our competitors develop and market more successful and engaging products or services, offer competitive products or services at lower price points, or if we do not continue to develop consistently high-quality, well-received and engaging products and services, our revenue, margins, and profitability will decline. We maintain a relatively limited product portfolio in an effort to focus on developing high-quality and engaging products with the potential to become hits. High-quality titles, even if highly-reviewed, may not turn into hit products. Many hit products within our industry are iterations of prior hit products with large established consumer bases and significant brand recognition, which makes competing in certain product categories challenging. In addition, hit products or services of our competitors may take a larger portion of consumer spending or time than we anticipate, which could cause our products and services to underperform relative to our expectations. Publishing a relatively small number of major titles each year also concentrates risk in those titles and means each major title has greater associated risk. A significant portion of our revenue historically has been derived from games and services based on a few popular franchises, and the underperformance of a single major title could have a material adverse impact on our financial results. The increased importance of live services revenue to our business heightens the risks associated with our limited product portfolio as live services that are either poorly-received or provided in connection with underperforming games may generate lower than expected sales. Our business is dependent on the success and availability of platforms developed by third parties, as well as our ability to develop commercially successful products and services for these platforms. The success of our business is driven in part by the commercial success and adequate supply of third party platforms for which we develop our products and services or through which our products and services are distributed. Our success also depends on our ability to accurately predict which platforms will be successful in the marketplace, our ability to develop commercially successful products and services for these platforms and our ability to effectively manage the transition from one generation of platforms to the next. We must make product development decisions and commit significant resources well in advance of anticipated platform release dates and may incur significant expense to adjust our product portfolio and development efforts in response to changing consumer platform preferences. Additionally, we may enter into certain exclusive licensing arrangements that affect our ability to deliver or market products or services on certain platforms. A platform for which we are developing products and services may not succeed as expected or new platforms may take market share and interactive entertainment consumers away from platforms for which we have devoted significant resources. If consumer demand for the platforms for which we are developing products and services is lower than our expectations, we may be unable to fully recover the investments we have made in developing our products and services, and our financial performance will be harmed. Alternatively, a platform for which we have not devoted significant resources could be more successful than we initially anticipated, causing us to not be able to take advantage of meaningful revenue opportunities. Technology changes rapidly in our business and if we fail to anticipate or successfully implement new technologies or adopt new business strategies, technologies or methods, the quality, timeliness and competitiveness of our products and services may suffer. Rapid technology changes in our industry require us to anticipate, sometimes years in advance, which technologies we must develop, implement and take advantage of in order to make our products and services competitive in the market. We have invested, and in the future may invest, in new business strategies, technologies, products, and services. For example, we are investing in the infrastructure for our EA Player Network which we expect will allow us to market and deliver content and services for our franchises more efficiently as well as enable new player-centric ways to discover and try new experiences. Such endeavors may involve significant risks and uncertainties, and no assurance can be given that the technology we choose to adopt and the products and services that we pursue will be successful. If we do not successfully implement these new technologies, our reputation may be materially adversely affected and our financial condition and operating results may be impacted. We also may miss opportunities to adopt technology, or develop products and services that become popular with consumers, which could adversely affect our financial results. It may take significant time and resources to shift our focus to such technologies, putting us at a competitive disadvantage. Our development process usually starts with particular platforms and distribution methods in mind, and a range of technical development and feature goals that we hope to be able to achieve. We may not be able to achieve these goals, or our competition may be able to achieve them more quickly and effectively than we can. In either case, our products and services may be technologically inferior to those of our competitors, less appealing to consumers, or both. If we cannot achieve our technology goals within the original development schedule for our products and services, then we may delay their release until these goals can be achieved, which may delay or reduce revenue and increase our development expenses. Alternatively, we may increase the resources employed in research and development in an attempt to accelerate our development of new technologies, either to preserve our product or service launch schedule or to keep up with our competition, which would increase our development expenses. We may experience security breaches and cyber threats. We continually face cyber risks and threats that seek to damage, disrupt or gain access to our networks, our products and services, supporting infrastructure, intellectual property and other assets. In addition, we rely on technological infrastructure provided by third party business partners to support the online functionality of our products and services. These business partners, as well as our channel partners, also are subject to cyber risks and threats. Such cyber risks and threats may be difficult to detect. Both our partners and we have implemented certain systems and processes to guard against cyber risks and to help protect our data and systems. However, the techniques that may be used to obtain unauthorized access or disable, degrade, exploit or sabotage our products, services and systems change frequently and often are not detected. Our systems and processes, and the systems and processes of our business partners, may not be adequate. Any failure to prevent or mitigate security breaches or cyber risks, or respond adequately to a security breach or cyber risk, could result in interruptions to our products and services, degrade the user experience, cause consumers to lose confidence in our products, as well as significant legal and financial exposure. This could harm our business and reputation, disrupt our relationships with partners and diminish our competitive position. Successful exploitation of our systems can have other negative effects upon the products, services and user experience we offer. In particular, the virtual economies that we have established in many of our games are subject to abuse, exploitation and other forms of fraudulent activity that can negatively impact our business. Virtual economies involve the use of virtual currency and/or virtual assets that can be used or redeemed by a player within a particular game or service. The abuse or exploitation of our virtual economies include the illegitimate generation and sale of virtual items in black markets. Our online services have been impacted by in-game exploits and the use of automated processes to generate virtual currency illegitimately, and such activity may continue. These kinds of activities and the steps that we take to address these issues may result in a loss of anticipated revenue, interfere with players’ enjoyment of a balanced game environment and cause reputational harm. Our business could be adversely affected if our consumer protection, data privacy and security practices are not adequate, or perceived as being inadequate, to prevent data breaches, or by the application of consumer protection and data privacy and security laws generally. In the course of our business, we collect, process, store and use consumer and other information, including personal information, passwords and credit card information. Although we take measures to protect this information from unauthorized access, acquisition, disclosure and misuse, our security controls, policies and practices may not be able to prevent the improper or unauthorized access, acquisition or disclosure of such information. For example, third parties may fraudulently induce employees or customers into disclosing identification or other sensitive information which may, in turn, be used to access our information technology systems. The unauthorized access, acquisition or disclosure of this information, or a perception that we do not adequately secure consumer and other information could result in legal liability, costly remedial measures, governmental and regulatory investigations, harm our profitability and reputation and cause our financial results to be materially affected. In addition, third party vendors and business partners receive access to information that we collect. These vendors and business partners may not prevent data security breaches with respect to the information we provide them or fully enforce our policies, contractual obligations and disclosures regarding the collection, use, storage, transfer and retention of personal data. A data security breach of one of our vendors or business partners could cause reputational harm to them and/or negatively impact our ability to offer our products and services. We are subject to payment card association rules and obligations pursuant to contracts with payment card processors. Under these rules and obligations, if information is compromised, we could be liable to payment card issuers for the cost of associated expenses and penalties. In addition, if we fail to follow payment card industry security standards, even if no consumer information is compromised, we could incur significant fines or experience a significant increase in payment card transaction costs. Data privacy, data protection, localization, security and consumer-protection laws are evolving, and the interpretation and application of these laws in the United States, Europe and elsewhere often are uncertain, contradictory and changing. It is possible that these laws may be interpreted or applied in a manner that is adverse to us or otherwise inconsistent with our practices, which could result in litigation, regulatory investigations and potential legal liability or require us to change our practices in a manner adverse to our business. As a result, our reputation and brand may be harmed, we could incur substantial costs, and we could lose both consumers and revenue. We may experience outages and disruptions of our online services. We are investing and expect to continue to invest in technology, hardware and software to support the online functionality of our portfolio of products and services. In addition, we rely on technological infrastructure provided by third party business partners. Launching and operating games and services with online features, developing related technologies and implementing online business initiatives is expensive and complex. Implementation of these technologies and execution of these initiatives could result in operational failures and other issues impacting the technical stability of our products and services. In addition, having access to the necessary infrastructure to support the online functionality of our products and services is vital to our growth and success. Our products and services could be adversely impacted by outages, disruptions and failures in our network and related infrastructure, as well as in the online platforms or services of key business partners who offer or support our products and services. We may not consistently meet our product development schedules or key events, sports seasons or movies that we tie our product release schedules to may be delayed, cancelled or poorly received. Our ability to meet product development schedules is affected by a number of factors both within and outside our control, including feedback from our players, the creative processes involved, the coordination of large and sometimes geographically dispersed development teams, the complexity of our products and the platforms for which they are developed, the need to fine-tune our products prior to their release and, in certain cases, approvals from third parties. We have experienced development delays for our products in the past, which caused us to delay or cancel release dates. We also seek to release certain products in conjunction with key events, such as the beginning of a sports season, major sporting event, or the release of a related movie. If such a key event were delayed, cancelled or poorly received, our sales likely would suffer materially. Any failure to meet anticipated production or release schedules likely would result in a delay of revenue and/or possibly a significant shortfall in our revenue, increase our development and/or marketing expenses, harm our profitability, and cause our operating results to be materially different than anticipated. Our business is highly seasonal with the highest percentage of our sales occurring in the quarter ending in December. While our sales generally follow this seasonal trend, there can be no assurance that this trend will continue. If we miss key selling periods for products, for any reason, including product delays, product cancellations, or delayed introduction of a new platform for which we have developed products and services or through which we distribute our products and services, our sales likely will suffer significantly. Additionally, macroeconomic conditions or the occurrence of unforeseen events that negatively impact retailer or consumer buying patterns, particularly during the quarter ending in December, likely will harm our financial performance disproportionately. Our financial results are subject to currency fluctuations. International sales are a fundamental part of our business. For our fiscal year ended March 31, 2017, international net revenue comprised 56 percent of our total net revenue, and we expect our international business to continue to account for a significant portion of our total net revenue. As a result of our international sales, and also the denomination of our foreign investments and our cash and cash equivalents in foreign currencies, we are exposed to the effects of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. Strengthening of the U.S. dollar, particularly relative to the Euro, British pound sterling, Australian dollar, Chinese yuan and South Korean won, has a negative impact on our reported international net revenue but a positive impact on our reported international operating expenses (particularly when the U.S. dollar strengthens against the Swedish krona and the Canadian dollar) because these amounts are translated at lower rates. We use foreign currency hedging contracts to mitigate some foreign currency risk. However, these activities are limited in the protection they provide us from foreign currency fluctuations and can themselves result in losses. We may not attract and retain key personnel. The market for technical, creative, marketing and other personnel essential to the development, marketing and support of our products and services and management of our businesses is extremely competitive. Our leading position within the interactive entertainment industry makes us a prime target for recruiting our executives, as well as key creative and technical talent. If we cannot successfully recruit and retain qualified employees, or replace key employees following their departure, our ability to develop and manage our business will be impaired. We may experience declines or fluctuations in the recurring portion of our business. Our business model includes revenue that we deem recurring in nature, such as revenue from our annualized titles (e.g., FIFA and Madden NFL), and associated services, and ongoing mobile businesses. While we have been able to forecast the revenue from these areas of our business with greater certainty than for new offerings, we cannot provide assurances that consumers will purchase these games and services on a consistent basis. Furthermore, we may cease to offer games and services that we previously had deemed to be recurring in nature. Consumer purchases of our games and services may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including their level of satisfaction with our games and services, our ability to improve and innovate our annualized titles, our ability to adapt our games and services to new platforms, outages and disruptions of online services, the games and services offered by our competitors, our marketing and advertising efforts or declines in consumer activity generally as a result of economic downturns, among others. The reception to our licensed sports games may be adversely impacted by circumstances outside our control impacting the sports leagues and organizations. Any decline or fluctuation in the recurring portion of our business may have a negative impact on our financial and operating results. We could fail to successfully adopt new business models. From time to time we seek to establish and implement new business models. Forecasting the success of any new business model is inherently uncertain and depends on a number of factors both within and outside of our control. Our actual revenue and profit for these businesses may be significantly greater or less than our forecasts. Additionally, these new business models could fail, resulting in the loss of our investment in the development and infrastructure needed to support these new business models, as well as the opportunity cost of diverting management and financial resources away from more successful and established businesses. We may be unable to maintain or acquire licenses to include intellectual property owned by others in our games, or to maintain or acquire the rights to publish or distribute games developed by others. Many of our products and services are based on or incorporate intellectual property owned by others. For example, our EA Sports products include rights licensed from major sports leagues and players’ associations and our Star Wars products include rights licensed from Disney. Competition for these licenses and rights is intense. If we are unable to maintain these licenses and rights or obtain additional licenses or rights with significant commercial value, our ability to develop and successful and engaging games and services may be adversely affected and our revenue, profitability and cash flows may decline significantly. Competition for these licenses also may increase the amounts that we must pay to licensors and developers, through higher minimum guarantees or royalty rates, which could significantly increase our costs and reduce our profitability. External game developers may not meet product development schedules or otherwise honor their obligations. We may contract with external game developers to develop our games or to publish or distribute their games. While we maintain contractual protections, we have less control over the product development schedules of games developed by external developers, and we depend on their ability to meet product development schedules. In addition, we may have disputes with external developers over game content, launch timing, achievement of certain milestones, the game development timeline, marketing campaigns or other matters. If we have disputes with external developers or they cannot meet product development schedules, acquire certain approvals or are otherwise unable or unwilling to honor their obligations to us, we may delay or cancel previously announced games, alter our launch schedule or experience increased costs and expenses, which could result in a delay or significant shortfall in anticipated revenue, harm our profitability and reputation, and cause our financial results to be materially affected. Negative player perceptions about our brands, products, services and/or business practices may damage our business and the costs incurred in addressing player concerns may increase our operating expenses. Player expectations regarding the quality, performance and integrity of our products and services are high. Players may be critical of our brands, products, services and/or business practices for a wide variety of reasons. These negative player reactions may not be foreseeable or within our control to manage effectively, including perceptions about gameplay fairness, negative player reactions to game content, components and services, or objections to certain of our business practices. In the past, we have taken actions, including delaying the release of our games and discontinuing services for our games, after taking into consideration, among other things, feedback from the player community even if those decisions negatively impacted our operating results in the short term. We expect to continue to take actions to address concerns as appropriate, including actions that may result in additional expenditures and the loss of revenue. Negative player sentiment about our business practices also can lead to investigations from regulatory agencies and consumer groups, as well as litigation, which, regardless of their outcome, may be costly, damaging to our reputation and harm our business. The products or services we release may contain defects. Our products and services are extremely complex software programs, and are difficult to develop and distribute. We have quality controls in place to detect defects in our products and services before they are released. Nonetheless, these quality controls are subject to human error, overriding, and reasonable resource or technical constraints. Therefore, these quality controls and preventative measures may not be effective in detecting all defects in our products and services before they have been released into the marketplace. In such an event, we could be required to or may find it necessary to, offer a refund for the product or service, suspend the availability or sale of the product or service or expend significant resources to cure the defect, each of which could significantly harm our business and operating results. Our business is subject to regulation, and changes in applicable regulations may negatively impact our business. We are subject to a number of foreign and domestic laws and regulations that affect companies conducting business on the Internet. In addition, laws and regulations relating to user privacy, data collection, retention, electronic commerce, virtual items and currency, consumer protection, content, advertising, localization, and information security have been adopted or are being considered for adoption by many jurisdictions and countries throughout the world. These laws could harm our business by limiting the products and services we can offer consumers or the manner in which we offer them. The costs of compliance with these laws may increase in the future as a result of changes in interpretation. Furthermore, any failure on our part to comply with these laws or the application of these laws in an unanticipated manner may harm our business and result in penalties or significant legal liability. We are subject to laws in certain foreign countries, and adhere to industry standards in the United States, that mandate rating requirements or set other restrictions on the advertisement or distribution of interactive entertainment software based on content. In addition, certain foreign countries allow government censorship of interactive entertainment software products. Adoption of ratings systems, censorship or restrictions on distribution of interactive entertainment software based on content could harm our business by limiting the products we are able to offer to our customers. In addition, compliance with new and possibly inconsistent regulations for different territories could be costly, delay or prevent the release of our products in those territories. In addition, we may include modes in our games that allow players to compete against each other and we may manage player competitions based on our products and services. Although we structure and operate these skill-based competitions with applicable laws in mind, our skill based competitions in the future could become subject to evolving rules and regulations and expose us to significant liability, penalties and reputational harm. Our marketing and advertising efforts may fail to resonate with our customers. Our products and services are marketed worldwide through a diverse spectrum of advertising and promotional programs such as online and mobile advertising, television advertising, retail merchandising, marketing through websites, event sponsorship and direct communications with our consumers including via email. An increasing portion of our marketing activity is taking place on social media platforms that are outside of our direct control. Changes to consumer preferences, marketing regulations, technology changes or service disruptions may negatively impact our ability to reach our customers. Our ability to sell our products and services is dependent in part upon the success of these programs. If the marketing for our products and services fails to resonate with our customers, particularly during the critical holiday season or during other key selling periods, or if advertising rates or other media placement costs increase, our business and operating results could be harmed. A significant portion of our sales are made to a relatively small number of customers, and these sales may be disrupted. We derive a significant percentage of our net revenue through sales to our top customers. The concentration of a significant percentage of our sales through a few large customers could lead to a short-term disruption to our business if certain of these customers significantly reduced their purchases or ceased to offer our products and services. We also could be more vulnerable to collection risk if one or more of these large customers experienced a deterioration of their business or declared bankruptcy. Additionally, receivables from our customers generally increase in our December fiscal quarter as sales of our products and services generally increase in anticipation of the holiday season. Having a significant portion of our net revenue concentrated in sales through a few customers could reduce our negotiating leverage with them. If one or more of our key customers experience deterioration in their business, or become unable to obtain sufficient financing to maintain their operations, our business could be harmed. Our channel partners have significant influence over the products and services that we offer on their platforms. Our agreements with our channel partners typically give them significant control over the approval, manufacturing and distribution of the products and services that we develop for their platform. In particular, our arrangements with Sony and Microsoft could, in certain circumstances, leave us unable to get our products and services approved, manufactured and distributed to customers. For our digital products and services delivered via digital channels such as Sony’s PlayStation Store, Microsoft’s Xbox Store, Apple’s App Store and Google Play, each respective channel partner has policies and guidelines that control the promotion and distribution of these titles and the features and functionalities that we are permitted to offer through the channel. In addition, we are dependent on our channel partners to invest in, and upgrade, digital commerce capabilities in a manner than corresponds to the way in which consumers purchase our products and services. Failure by our channels partners to keep pace with consumer preferences could have an adverse impact on our ability to merchandise and commercialize our products and services which could harm our business and/or financial results. Moreover, certain of our channel partners can determine and change unilaterally certain key terms and conditions, including the ability to change their user and developer policies and guidelines. In many cases our channel partners also set the rates that we must pay to provide our games and services through their online channels, and retain flexibility to change their fee structures or adopt different fee structures for their online channels, which could adversely impact our costs, profitability and margins. In addition, our channel partners control the information technology systems through which online sales of our products and service channels are captured. If our channel partners establish terms that restrict our offerings through their channels, significantly impact the financial terms on which these products or services are offered to our customers, or their information technology systems fail or cause an unanticipated delay in reporting, our business and/or financial results could be materially affected. Our business is subject to risks generally associated with the entertainment industry. Our business is subject to risks that are generally associated with the entertainment industry, many of which are beyond our control. These risks could negatively impact our operating results and include: the popularity, price and timing of our games, economic conditions that adversely affect discretionary consumer spending, changes in consumer demographics, the availability and popularity of other forms of entertainment, and critical reviews and public tastes and preferences, which may change rapidly and cannot necessarily be predicted. Our business partners may be unable to honor their obligations to us or their actions may put us at risk. We rely on various business partners, including third-party service providers, vendors, licensing partners, development partners, and licensees in many areas of our business. Their actions may put our business and our reputation at risk. For example, we may have disputes with our business partners that may impact our business and/or financial results. In many cases, our business partners may be given access to sensitive and proprietary information in order to provide services and support to our teams, and they may misappropriate our information and engage in unauthorized use of it. In addition, the failure of these third parties to provide adequate services and technologies, or the failure of the third parties to adequately maintain or update their services and technologies, could result in a disruption to our business operations. Further, disruptions in the financial markets, economic downturns, poor business decisions, or reputational harm may adversely affect our business partners and they may not be able to continue honoring their obligations to us or we may cease our arrangements with them. Alternative arrangements and services may not be available to us on commercially reasonable terms or we may experience business interruptions upon a transition to an alternative partner or vendor. If we lose one or more significant business partners, our business could be harmed and our financial results could be materially affected. We may be subject to claims of infringement of third-party intellectual property rights. From time to time, third parties may claim that we have infringed their intellectual property rights. For example, patent holding companies may assert patent claims against us in which they seek to monetize patents they have purchased or otherwise obtained. Although we take steps to avoid knowingly violating the intellectual property rights of others, it is possible that third parties still may claim infringement. Existing or future infringement claims against us, whether valid or not, may be expensive to defend and divert the attention of our employees from business operations. Such claims or litigation could require us to pay damages and other costs. We also could be required to stop selling, distributing or supporting products, features or services which incorporate the affected intellectual property rights, redesign products, features or services to avoid infringement, or obtain a license, all of which could be costly and harm our business. In addition, many patents have been issued that may apply to potential new modes of delivering, playing or monetizing interactive entertainment software products and services, such as those that we produce or would like to offer in the future. We may discover that future opportunities to provide new and innovative modes of game play and game delivery to consumers may be precluded by existing patents that we are unable to license on reasonable terms. From time to time we may become involved in other legal proceedings. We are currently, and from time to time in the future may become, subject to legal proceedings, claims, litigation and government investigations or inquiries, which could be expensive, lengthy, disruptive to normal business operations and occupy a significant amount of our employees’ time and attention. In addition, the outcome of any legal proceedings, claims, litigation, investigations or inquiries may be difficult to predict and could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, or financial condition. Acquisitions, investments, divestitures and other strategic transactions could result in operating difficulties and other negative consequences. We may make acquisitions or enter into other strategic transactions including (1) acquisitions of companies, businesses, intellectual properties, and other assets, (2) minority investments in strategic partners, and (3) investments in new interactive entertainment businesses as part of our long-term business strategy. These transactions involve significant challenges and risks including that the transaction does not advance our business strategy, that we do not realize a satisfactory return on our investment, that we acquire unknown liabilities, diversion of management’s attention from our other businesses, the incurrence of debt, contingent liabilities or amortization expenses, write-offs of goodwill, intangibles, or acquired in-process technology, or other increased cash and non-cash expenses. In addition, we may not integrate these businesses successfully, including experiencing difficulty in the integration of business systems and technologies, the integration and retention of new employees, or in the maintenance of key business and customer relationships. These events could harm our operating results or financial condition. We also may divest or sell assets or a business and we may have difficulty selling such assets or business on acceptable terms in a timely manner. This could result in a delay in the achievement of our strategic objectives, cause us to incur additional expense, or the sale of such assets or business at a price or on terms that are less favorable than we anticipated. Our products and brands are subject to the threat of piracy, unauthorized copying and other forms of intellectual property infringement. We regard our products and brands as proprietary and take measures to protect our products, brands and other confidential information from infringement. We are aware that some unauthorized copying of our products and brands occurs, and if a significantly greater amount were to occur, it could negatively impact our business. Piracy and other forms of unauthorized copying and use of our content and brands are persistent problems for us, and policing is difficult. Further, the laws of some countries in which our products are or may be distributed either do not protect our products and intellectual property rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, or are poorly enforced. Legal protection of our rights may be ineffective in such countries. In addition, although we take steps to enforce and police our rights, factors such as the proliferation of technology designed to circumvent the protection measures used by our business partners or by us, the availability of broadband access to the Internet, the refusal of Internet service providers or platform holders to remove infringing content in certain instances, and the proliferation of online channels through which infringing product is distributed all have contributed to an expansion in unauthorized copying of our products and brands. We may experience outages and disruptions of our infrastructure. We may experience outrages or disruptions of our infrastructure, including information technology system failures and network disruptions. These may be caused by natural disasters, cyber-incidents, weather events, power disruptions, telecommunications failures, acts of terrorism or other events. System redundancy may be ineffective or inadequate, and our disaster recovery planning may not be sufficient for all eventualities. Such failures or disruptions could prevent access to our products, services or online stores selling our products and services. Our corporate headquarters in Redwood City, CA and our studio in Burnaby, British Columbia are located in seismically active regions, and certain of our game development activities and other essential business operations are conducted at these locations. An event that results in the disruption of any of our critical business or information technology systems could harm our ability to conduct normal business operations. We utilize debt financing and such indebtedness could adversely impact our business and financial condition. We have $1 billion in senior unsecured notes outstanding as well as an unsecured committed $500 million revolving credit facility. While the facility is currently undrawn, we may use the proceeds of any future borrowings for general corporate purposes. We may also enter into other financial instruments in the future. Our indebtedness could affect our financial condition and future financial results by, among other things: • Requiring the dedication of a substantial portion of any cash flow from operations to the payment of principal of, and interest on, our indebtedness, thereby reducing the availability of such cash flow to fund our growth strategy, working capital, capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes; • Utilizing funds that are domiciled in foreign tax jurisdictions in order to make the cash payments upon any repayment of our indebtedness. If we were to choose to use such funds, we would be required to accrue any additional taxes on any portion of the repatriation where no United States income tax had been previously provided; and • Limiting our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and our industry. The agreements governing our indebtedness impose restrictions on us and require us to maintain compliance with specified covenants. In particular, the revolving credit facility includes a maximum capitalization ratio and minimum liquidity requirements. Our ability to comply with these covenants may be affected by events beyond our control. If we breach any of these covenants and do not obtain a waiver from the lenders or noteholders, then, subject to applicable cure periods, our outstanding indebtedness may be declared immediately due and payable. In addition, changes by any rating agency to our credit rating may negatively impact the value and liquidity of both our debt and equity securities, as well as the potential costs associated with any potential refinancing our indebtedness. Downgrades in our credit rating could also restrict our ability to obtain additional financing in the future and could affect the terms of any such financing. Changes in our tax rates or exposure to additional tax liabilities could adversely affect our earnings and financial condition. We are subject to taxes in the United States and in various foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide income tax provision, tax assets, and accruals for other taxes, and there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. Our effective income tax rate could be adversely affected by our profit levels, changes in our business, reorganization of our business and operating structure, changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the elections we make, changes in applicable tax laws or interpretations of existing tax laws, or changes in the valuation allowance for deferred tax assets, as well as other factors. We are also required to pay taxes other than income taxes, such as payroll, sales, use, value-added, net worth, property and goods and services taxes, in both the United States and foreign jurisdictions. Furthermore, we are regularly subject to audit by tax authorities with respect to both income and such other non-income taxes. Adverse changes in our effective income tax rate, unfavorable audit results or tax rulings, or other changes resulting in significant additional tax liabilities could have material adverse effects upon our earnings, cash flows, and financial condition. In addition, the United States and other countries in which we do business are considering changes to tax laws applicable to corporate multinationals, which could adversely affect our effective tax rates, cause us to change the way in which we structure our business or result in other costs to us. Our reported financial results could be adversely affected by changes in financial accounting standards. Our reported financial results are impacted by the accounting standards promulgated by the SEC and national accounting standards bodies and the methods, estimates, and judgments that we use in applying our accounting policies. These methods, estimates, and judgments are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and changes that could adversely affect our reported financial position and financial results. In addition, changes to applicable financial accounting standards could adversely affect our reported financial position and financial results. For example, recently issued accounting standards are expected to materially change the way in which we recognize revenue and account for leases upon adoption. For more information, see Part II, Item 8 of this Form 10-K in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Note 1 - Description of Business and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies to the Consolidated Financial Statements under the subheading “Impact of Recently Issued Accounting Standards”. As we enhance, expand and diversify our business and product offerings, the application of existing or future financial accounting standards, particularly those relating to the way we account for revenue, costs and taxes, could have an adverse effect on our reported results although not necessarily on our cash flows. Our stock price has been volatile and may continue to fluctuate significantly. The market price of our common stock historically has been, and we expect will continue to be, subject to significant fluctuations. These fluctuations may be due to factors specific to us (including those discussed in the risk factors above, as well as others not currently known to us or that we currently do not believe are material), to changes in securities analysts’ earnings estimates or ratings, to our results or future financial guidance falling below our expectations and analysts’ and investors’ expectations, to factors affecting the entertainment, computer, software, Internet, media or electronics industries, to our ability to successfully integrate any acquisitions we may make, or to national or international economic conditions. In particular, economic downturns may contribute to the public stock markets experiencing extreme price and trading volume volatility. These broad market fluctuations could adversely affect the market price of our common stock. Item 1B: