EA says online is the wave of the future.
Can someone hand EA Games label president Frank Gibeau a a parachute before he jumps off the plane. It's true online games are popular but focusing only in Online games he will be alienating an entire population of gamers. Not to mention that people will eventually get bored of said games and then move on. Just imagine paying $60 for an online only game only for the servers to be up for about a year and then get taken down. What if you want to go back to play that game in the future?
EA is no stranger to this, they themselves shut down many servers because there aren't enough players online. A perfect example is All Points Bulletin. An online game which took years to develop only to get shut down 4 months down the road. Did people who purchase the game get their money back. Probably not. But EA still wants to focus on this part of the gaming industry now more than ever.
“We're very comfortable moving the discussion towards how we make connected gameplay — be it cooperative or multiplayer or online services — as opposed to fire-and-forget, packaged goods only, single-player, 25-hours-and you’re out,” Gibeau said. “I think that model is finished. Online is where the innovation, and the action, is at.”
“I firmly believe that the way the products we have are going, they need to be connected online,” Gibeau said, adding that multiplayer gameplay is just “one form” of that.
“We’re going to try out new price-points, and we’re going to try free-to-play models within my group, things like we did with Battlefield 1943, which was a $10 XBLA game that did extremely well,” he said.
Back in the early 2000's EA was one of the top companies out there. Now it seems like they're days are numbered if they decide to focus on this aspect of the gaming industry.
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment