I know that Battlefield 4 launched with more than its fair share of bugs and might earn EA yet another Worst Company in America award but I didn’t think that it would be this poorly received.

Two law firms are currently investigating whether a class-action lawsuit can be launched on the behalf of EA investors as a result of statements made by EA officers about the game, their knowledge of the state of the game and the impact that had on the company’s share price.

The law firms of Holzer Holzer & Fistel and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP are both looking into the drop in EA’s share value over the last six months. The suits claim that EA made false and misleading statements regarding the then upcoming Battlefield 4.

As the two action covers the period from July 24th to December 4th, the firms are suggesting that something said during the 1st quarter FY 2014 earnings conference call. Going through the transcript of that call, I found this exchange in the Q&A portion of the call about the importance of Battlefield 4:

<Q – James Hardiman – Longbow Research LLC>: Longbow Research. Thanks for taking my call. A couple of questions on Battlefield. Blake, you talked at E3 about Battlefield basically being the X factor in terms of getting to your guidance for the year. So I guess a couple of questions. Is Battlefield being roughly flat with 2011 still what you’d need to get to your $1.20 number or is it maybe a little bit easier than that given the first quarter beat? And then is there anything that you saw at E3 or within the quarter that makes you feel any better or any worse about the likelihood of Battlefield 4 meeting or exceeding Battlefield 3? And I guess just finally, if you care to give us any update in terms of the total sales to date of Battlefield 3, just as an idea of installed base, so to speak, as we get closer to Battlefield 4.

<A – Blake Jorgensen – Electronic Arts, Inc.>: Yes. I’ll – let me start and then Frank can get you – or probably give you a little bit more color on what’s going on with Battlefield or Peter as well. We’re very optimistic based on what we saw coming out of E3. The excitement that was on the floor, the excitement around our press conference, the fact that we had 64 players playing virtually nonstop every hour the booth was open, was a very big positive, not to mention all of the nominations we got for awards. All of that continues to help us signal that we should be able to do what we did in Battlefield – for Battlefield 3 in the year which it’s shipped, our fiscal 2012. I don’t want to speculate today if we’re going to ship more or less than that. I think we’re still sticking with the guidance that we provided. And a big Battlefield is obviously important to us but we’re very focused on that and the marketing floor is very much in gear. And I don’t know if Peter or Frank want to add to that.

<A – Frank Gibeau – Electronic Arts, Inc.>: I would just add that we were – that the DICE team was very encouraged and excited by the reception at E3. We will be publishing the game across 5 platforms this Christmas, and we’re excited about how we’re matching up against the competition and what the Generation 4 technology on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 is going to enable us to do. We have a lot of innovation happening in the multiplayer game and new online features. But in addition to that, the single player experience has got even more epic than in Battlefield 3. So we feel like it’s a generation ahead of Battlefield 3. We believe that we will exceed expectations, and it’s very exciting around here right now in terms of the teamwork that we’re putting against Battlefield 4.

<A – Peter Moore – Electronic Arts, Inc.>: Yes, and James, one more point from me. As I mentioned earlier, our pre-orders are stacking up well versus Battlefield 3. We came off a very strong E3. As I travel the world and speak to retailers, there is incredible optimism and anticipation for this title. And Frank and his team and, in particular, the DICE team has done brilliantly coming out of E3. I think we’re well positioned versus our competition in this segment. And our 15 million target, which is what we ended up and what we currently have at Battlefield 3 feels very achievable. So we’re feeling good there.

<Q – James Hardiman – Longbow Research LLC>: Very helpful, thanks guys.

<A – Blake Jorgensen – Electronic Arts, Inc.>: To a part of your question as well, there’s been an amazing length of the Battlefield franchise or lengthening of the Battlefield franchise, particularly with the premium offering, that we put in place. Everyone knows the deferred revenue that we had last year from Premium, it really speaks to the amount of players that are still actively involved with our franchise and continuing to buy both the original Battlefield 3, the Battlefield Premium offering and teeing up, as Peter said, with pre-orders for Battlefield 4.

I’m no lawyer but I think that the obligation that EA and its officers have to its shareholders is only really in terms of the value of the investment. In making their decision to invest, most investors are interested in the financials rather than what the critics think of their games. EA made no assertions during the earnings call about the quality of the game in development or what it’s state will be upon launch and, as we often see, the quality of a game doesn’t always correlate with its sales.

Now, where there could be grounds for a case is that the press release from Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP said that one of the bases upon which the action is being investigated is “the performance of the Electronic Arts unit publishing Battlefield 4 was so deficient that all other projects that unit was involved in had to be put on hold to permit it to focus its efforts on fixing Battlefield 4.” Basically, they’re saying that development on Battlefield 4 Premium has been put on hold to fix the rest of the game and, as such, it will cause EA to miss its stated financial targets.

What EA’s bosses repeatedly talked about during the call was the importance of Battlefield Premium as part of the overall Battlefield business model. Without Premium offerings and DLC in development, it hurts revenue generated by the game. From an accounting perspective, until the game’s DLC is released, all the purchases of Premium are stuck in deferred revenue with none of it recognized as revenue until performance is achieved. That means, EA can recognize revenue from Battlefield 4 Premium when BF4 DLC is actually delivered but not before. This could cause EA to miss its revenue (and profit) targets if timings on Premium DLCs are missed.

I can understand where some of the complaints are coming from but I don’t know if there’s any recourse for EA and DICE releasing a buggy game. If I was to guess (and I’m still not a lawyer), I suppose EA’s officers would have to know that the game was buggy at July 23rd and wouldn’t be fixed in time for release. They likely also would have had to know that the contingency plan was to hold off on BF4 Premium offerings to patch the game which would have likely cause EA to miss its annual revenue targets. It sounds like the crux of the case is EA misleading current and potential shareholders rather than making a business decision that they knew would erode shareholder value. I doubt that anything will come of any lawsuit (nothing seldom does) comes but it’ll be fun to watch this play out.

Sources: Game Informer (1), Game Informer (2), EA Investor Relations, Business Wire