The third quarter is always a tough one for publishers and especially for EA. That’s why I wasn’t so surprised when the company reported an $82 million dollar loss for this years fiscal Q3. That’s actually $559 million less than it lost at the same time last year, so things are looking up in the face of a continued recession.

The company does have plenty of good going too. Mass Effect 2 is already off to a great start with more than two million units shipped. Dante’s Inferno, which I covered last week, launches today. Add to it that the company’s most recent social acquisition, Playfish, had two of Facebook’s top ten games this past quarter and things don’t look nearly as dire for EA.

The company also mentioned that it was the “#1 packaged goods publisher in North America and Europe” for fiscal 2009.

Source: EA Investor Relations