Peter Moore - no more offline games, Wii U has our heads spinning in good and bad ways

The following comments come from EA’s Peter Moore…

“We are probably in year three of a very focused community management strategy that allows our consumers and our fans to provide us with feedback to give them platforms for their opinions as well as finding ways to be able to integrate that in a very public manner. If there’s a piece of real estate in video games that’s prominent, it’s the cover of Madden. There were 32 players, one from each team, and it all came down to Peyton Hillis and the fans have spoken… it’s the first time we’ve ever had a player from a losing team the year before on the cover. I think the ability for us to be able to utilize the power of the community to listen, to learn and to improve as a result is very important in our industry.”

On motion controls…

“(Our teams have) learned a lot of lessons that have taught us what we need to do to make the application of that technology more prevalent. We know exactly what we need to do. We have four Kinect games next calendar year. In the case of Move we had Tiger, and we’re looking at ways to be able to integrate Move going forward.”

On Wii U…

“My dev teams — their heads are exploding, in a good way and a bad way. How do we look at this new technology? We don’t just want to bolt this on; this has to be relevant to the sports gamer. …from the perspective of once again, Nintendo is putting a different spin on things, showing that it’s not all about graphic fidelity and processing power. In the world of sports, our minds are racing as to how we can bring a sports game to life in a unique way. (Using the controller to call plays in Madden is) kind of a no-brainer for us.”

“We love the fact [Wii U] is high def, that Nintendo has a renewed focus on building online communities. Nintendo adds that kind of outlier mentality that is a very different take on what the industry needs, and more power to them.”

On multiplatform social play…

“We look at our research and see, there are 130, 140 million fans of the NFL in America. What do we need to do to bring a Madden experience to them? It could be as simple as a three-minute experience every day, or as complex as playing Franchise Mode, or every stop in between Now everyone who’s a sports fan who has a device is a consumer. The goal ultimately is to move those folks further along the value chain, and that’s what we’re intending to do. It’s a double-edged sword: It’s a more fragmented marketplace, but there are more gamers than ever before. It’s a broad swath of experiences and a great opportunity to grow our business. …You can imagine that being extended, this concept of persistence, to Madden next year. We want to use this ability to make our games less discrete, standalone experiences and more like services. Madden shouldn’t be a place you buy, it should be a place you go. And skill-based gaming is the next frontier we continue to look at with our partners at Virgin Gaming: How do I allow you to prove how good you are and have a monetary value around that as well?”

On moving forward with online-connected games only…

“(the games industry is) clearly becoming an industry that’s taking massive franchises and then spreading that experiences across multiple platforms and multiple geographies, anytime, anywhere. There will be no offline games, and it’s very pleasing to see how our industry has embraced connectivity, has changed our business models to react to consumer demands.”

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