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EA Games president Frank Gibeau said Wednesday that a prime focus for the firm was to push into the online space with all available speed.
“It is an absolute imperative for the company to go online as fast as possible, and the more projects we can do that have scale and quality the better,” the exec told VG247 in San Francisco.
“That’s where, frankly, the head and the heart of the company are, is trying to get online in a really powerful way.”
Gibeau was speaking after the unveiling of Star Wars: The Old Republic at LucasArts, and added that it was obvious to EA that online was the “future” for gaming in general.
“It’s a key strategy for the company to drive our online businesses as aggressively as possible. It’s clearly the future, and the future is now,” he said.
“If you look at Asia, you look at where people are spending their time, where I play games: it’s just the place we want to be. What’s so powerful about the technology is connected gameplay is so cool for our creators.
“The games actually designing and building the games are just starting to scratch the surface in terms of how you can entertain in a massively multiplayer environment, a connected environment.”
No date has been placed on The Old Republic as yet.
Viewing 28 responses
Blerk said:
While I’d agree to a certain extent that online is part of the future, I disagree that the future of everything is massively multiplayer. That might be the way some parts of Asia are going, but the rest of the world in general seems content to dabble in WoW while the remainder of the MMOs basically fight over the scraps.
There’s too much emphasis being placed on MMOs at the minute. The gaming populace in general appears to prefer smaller stuff.
patlike said:
There was a lot of talk about this at the event this week. The argument is that offline, single-player games on a disc essentially have no future as the secondhand market makes it impossible to recoup the lay-out.
I didn’t ask Gibeau specficially what he meant by “online,” but I assume he meant online functions in general, not just MMOs.
G1GAHURTZ said:
It’s not about the future of everything. It’s about the future of micro-transactions, lack of piracy and a huge increase in profits.
I’m sure that online gaming will be the future of games because the people who make the games won’t want to do anything else.
Blerk said:
Games on a disc probably have a limited future, but surely they can’t reasonably expect single-player games to die out? That’s just crazy talk.
G1GAHURTZ said:
“The argument is that offline, single-player games on a disc essentially have no future as the secondhand market makes it impossible to recoup the lay-out.”
Exactly.
patlike said:
From the conversations I had, the shift seems to be towards digitally distributed single-player stuff that can’t be resold. Also, the word “shorter” was being bandied around a lot.
patlike said:
G1 - S’what Harrison was saying when Alone in the Dark came out, innit.
Blerk said:
Seems over for games, then.
patlike said:
Unless you’ve got an internet connection
When it was spelled out for me it was a bit obvious. Sony’s really priming for it now. PSP games going DD day one, 160Gb HD SKUs, “proper” episodic games as testers, etc, etc, etc.
Blerk said:
Providing the internets can handle it and they don’t start shipping us expensive shit that lasts ten minutes then I cautiously approve of an online distribution future. I don’t think the world’s quite ready for it yet, though. Maybe next gen.
patlike said:
Yeah, agree. I think the option will be there this gen, though. I reckon the “retail landscape” will be pretty different even by next Christmas. I’d go as far as to expect a “shift”.
*glasses, arms, nodding*
Blerk said:
Oh no! Not a “shift”!
How big is the PS3’s downloadable Burnout Paradise, btw? Anyone know?
G1GAHURTZ said:
What, you can download the entire Burnout Paradise onto the PS3!?
Cool.
Man, the sooner that this is for all games, the better for me.
I’d much prefer to just download my games rather than have to go all the way to a Game store or wait for some postie.
Tiger Walts said:
Lots of words being bandied about but I bet ‘cheaper’ isn’t one of them.
Shatner said:
Games are pretty cheap for what they are. The value increases when you look at how little prices have risen compared to how much game you actually get for the money.
Or would you prefer to go back to paying £50-£60 for a 16mb cartridge?
Furthermore, assuming publishers and developers can prevent the cannibalisation of their revenue due to piracy and second hand sales then they’ll probably be keen to offer incentives to consumers to draw them into an online purchase. (Which is something EA are already taking small steps to doing - particularly with respect to 2nd-hand sales)
It’s worth remembering that, presently, games are no where near as heavily laden with adverts or sponsorship as ‘cheaper’ entertainment media. Would you prefer cheaper games sponsored by McDonalds that have 20 mins of adverts before they begin and more ad-breaks after every hour of play?
As for the cost of games in general, if you complain about game prices and are paying RRP’s then you’re simply not shopping around.
morriss said:
Blerk: £20 I think.
Tiger Walts said:
I meant cheaper for downloaded, non-transferable content.
If they start selling games that truly cannot be sold on into the pre-owned market or pirated then they could slash the price of those games in half and still end up making more money than they do now. No amount of shopping around is going to get you prices like that.
Of course, the flipside is that these games will sell at their starting value for much longer and not see a discount in a very long time.
G1GAHURTZ said:
He said how big, not how much.
morriss said:
oh right. It’s been a fucking long day, tbh.
*head on keyboard*
MesserWolf said:
“The argument is that offline, single-player games on a disc essentially have no future as the secondhand market makes it impossible to recoup the lay-out.”
This is also the reason of drm like the ones in spore - mass effect etc .
Not to kill piracy , but to kill secondhand market.
MesserWolf said:
Tiger Walts is absolutly right
Shatner said:
Are you saying that a percentage of a game’s RRP is dedicated to bringing in revenue that they’ll lose through second hand sales?
I don’t think so, not when you look at the revnue breakdown and see who earns what out of developer, publisher, distributor and retailer (guess who takes the biggest chunk for doing the least work!) That sounds more like an argument of “Well, if I can’t sell it back to GAME for £20 then I want it to cost less in the first place”. Which is a false economy.
What’ll happen here is the big argument about WANTING something that’s not there, simply because it’s not there: like back compatibility.
People will moan about how transferable they want things to be even though, in reality, they won’t actually bother to use such a feature if it existed. Perhaps on a PC but not much on a console. Especially now that playing online negates the need to transfer a game to another location so your mate can play it.
Most arguments for cheaper games are usually extremely mercenary (”publishers owe it to me to make games cheaper! They need to understand my situation but it’s unreasonable for me to consider their situation”) and presented with little appreciation of how and why games are currently priced as they are.
Syrok said:
@Blerk: Re: Burnout: I think it was something around 3GB. So around 10-15 minutes of downloading if you can push the PS3 to it’s limit.
Tonka said:
Blaming secondhand sales for the rising costs of game development will lead to a lot of incorrect answers.
Shatner said:
Fair point. And extending that point further: cutting out the second hand market should not be expected to bring the price of videogames down.
SwiftRanger said:
Battlefield 3, now pls and with a proper server browser and engine this time.
David said:
Steam already offers good price games for download. If anything the download market is already here and gaining ground.
I welcome the downloadable games market I hate owning a physical disc I don’t like clutter.
If consoles follow in the footsteps of steam in regards to pricing I wont have a problem.
Syrok said:
Ay, but most do not have a decent internet connection or none at all. Those won’t be happy about a complete shift to digital distribution.
And there is still the problem of payment, not every kid has his or her own creditcard.