EA on FIFA being their crown jewel, return of casual EA Sports brands, rugby and cricket talk

The following comments come from EA senior VP of worldwide development Andrew Wilson…

“I love all of our children, and you’re not allowed to have any favourites as a parent, but what [EA Canada] doing with controls, and with physics, and with tactics (in FIFA), is amazing. Then when you look at the way users watch media together, interact with each other on Facebook, and across platforms, FIFA is leading the charge there as well. I don’t think our other games are far behind, but FIFA is certainly pioneering a lot of new ground for us. As you’ll have seen at the press conference, our focus this year is to turn every game that we make into a live service. We want to move away from the idea that what you get on the disc is what you play for an entire year, because our gamers are saying is “we want more of this great experience”. What you saw with EA Sports Football Club is delivering a live service, a connection to your club, a connection to the game, a level that you build around yourself based on [all that]. Once we get that then we can start to think about the future.”

Mr. Wilson also discussed the possibility of EA’s more casual sports brands returning…

“We just did some great stuff with NBA Jam and that was very well received, and there’s absolutely a place in our portfolio for those types of products. We’re at a point where we have a much more direct relationship with our consumer than ever before, and we work very closely with them on what they want to play. So we’ll talk to them about whether it makes sense for an arcade soccer or (American) football title, because there’s absolutely a place for them in our portfolio - at the point that people want to play them.”

Finally, Wilson mentioned a possible return of rugby or cricket…

“I’ve been on this rugby and cricket journey for the 11 years I’ve worked at EA, and in all honesty I actually think things are starting to shift. I built the early rugby and cricket games with about $200,000 total development budget - some would argue they could tell! - because I wanted to build rugby and cricket games for an audience of my friends who wanted to play them. But I think the expectations are much higher today, and rightly so. We want to make sure we can deliver great games, and I just don’t think we’re in the right place for that today.”

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