Frank Gibeau Says EA Will No Longer Publish Entirely Single Player Games

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
There are still people buying EA games? I stopped long ago.

The Dead Space series. Although I have some doubts about the next one.

Well, I can understand that, if there are some games we really like, it can be hard to ignore those just becasue it is EA.

I've had to struggle and curse a few times when I realised some of the games I really wanted to play was EA only.

Not surprising as there objective is to move towards F2P on the PC. I don't like it but there is nothing we can do to stop it. Suits run the company's not gamers.

In an interview with games industry journalists, Senior Executive, Frank Gibeau, discussed how the move is affecting EA, the game publisher behind phenomenal successes such as the Mass Effect and Battlefield series and sports games FIFA and Madden:

“For us the fastest growing segment of our business is clearly digital services and ultimately Electronic Arts, at some point in the future we’re going to be a 100 percent digital company, period. It’s inevitable.”

From a big picture perspective EA's has two businesses; video games, and video game publishing. This plan really doesn't make a great deal of sense for either of those businesses.

Looking to the business of video games, the plan mandates specific requirements for every game EA publishes. But it's fundamental in business that successful products are customer driven. In addition, product driven design and improvement can be beneficial, such as product changes to inherently improve the product, product costs, or the like. However EA's new product requirements aren't customer driven, or even product driven. They are driven solely by a desire to increase income from EA's publishing business. It seems self-evident that when the publisher's business becomes more important than the games marketed by the publisher there's a real risk the games are going to be hurt in the long run.

The new rule is also questionable from the publishing standpoint. EA's fundamental goal is to build its digital publishing business. But the new requirement doesn't focus on fundamentals of digital publishing. This is evident by comparing the new EA business model to the business model used by market leader Steam. Steam's business focuses solely on digital game distribution and sales. Steam doesn't add on multiplayer game requirements, or any other requirements onto the games it distributes. Why do that when it could undercut Steam's digital distribution business, and potentially the games themselves.

EA is making a huge mistake here. EA's core business goals should be mandated strictly by its video game and video game publishing businesses, themselves. Online multiplayer games isn't a core aspect of either business. Attempting to make online multiplayer gaming a core aspect of both businesses, when it fundamentally is not a core aspect of either, is a business plan unlikely to succeed.

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