EA's Plan for World Domination

My boyfriend is not a gamer. I mean, he did unlock all of Moby's gear in three days of playing SSX Tricky. But he's not a gamer. He's not "hardcore". Well, he did play FIFA Street for five consecutive hours. It's a game his friend Tom bought, even though he doesn't even have a PS2. Tom just brought it over to our house and we've been playing it here. Tom's not a gamer, either...but he is French, and he's a huge fan of le foot. The fact that you can play FIFA Street in locations like Marseille with his favorite (and least favorite) players was enough to make him pick it up. He'll be buying a PS2 for the first time, too.

Tom and Jesse aren't gamers. A lot of gamers (my office buddies, for example) think FIFA Street is, well, garbage - to put it more delicately than they did. But gamers aren't whom EA is courting with games like FIFA Street; they're wooing Tom and Jesse.

And it's working. The sports games arena is sometimes ghettoized by hardcore gamers who treat it as some bastard offshoot of pure gaming that appeals only to frat guys. The sports games are solid, but gamers complain they're too simplistic, too easy, too copy-cat, too... whatever, that doesn't matter to Tom and Jesse. They don't read game reviews. They couldn't even name one video game magazine or news outlet. "I saw an ad for it on Yahoo or something," Tom said. "And I clicked on it, which I never do."

EA is betting on that for their non-sports titles, as well, shelling out the big bucks for hot licenses like The Godfather for a game based on Coppola's 1972 classic film, based on a novel by Mario Puzo. The game so far looks like GTA 3 with mafia skins, but although that might be "been there, done that" for gamers, the movie might have enough resonance to galvanize film fans and mafia buffs to spring for the title. After all, Infogrames (now, Atari) released Enter the Matrix to become, in spite of nearly universally poor reviews, an incredible hit, selling more than 2.5 million copies in just over a month.

It's not like EA needs the money. As the top-grossing game company, their profits total more than the next three companies on the list combined. But churning out games in their development factories - a practice EA has been criticized for - sometimes shows in the lack of really good games, which can come back to bite them. Even novice gamers couldn't get behind Urbz and GoldenEye:Rogue Agent. Urbz's attempt at hipness was transparently laughable and off-putting, while GoldenEye was just a fairly standard FPS that couldn't compete with highly=anticipate titles like Halo 2 ad HalfLife 2.

But it's EA Sports which is going to draw in the last few guys out there without PS2s. At least, that's the plan. If EA is successful, we may see efforts in other fields as well. They already appeal to younger and casual gamers with EA Pogo.com. Will we see an EA Girls division some day? That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Just ask Tom and Jesse - newly hardcore gamers of a single game.

Comments

[mk-1601]

"Will we see an EA Girls division some day?"

thesims.ea.com

...

The people you describe buy and play games. Why are they not gamers? Does it only count if you write blogs about games too?

[Casey]

Um, I think that was the point of the first paragraph... that although these people don't identify themselves as hardcore gamers and they don't fit the usual profile of such, they are playing games a lot anyway, thus redefining and broadening the gaming demographic.

[Casey]

Um, I think that was the point of the first paragraph... that although these people don't identify themselves as hardcore gamers and they don't fit the usual profile of such, they are playing games a lot anyway, thus redefining and broadening the gaming demographic.

[Ham]

It seems somewhat obvious that is what EA's Role is.

In general the majority of Hollywood movies aren't very good, in fact most are pretty bad. But that doesn't stop the average movie viewer from consuming them by the bucket load.

And most average movie goer's couldn't care less about the finer details of cinema.

Most would never seek out an obscure film or go see a movie unless they had seen the mind shaking trailer on thier TV's, or the evening 'news' didn't do an editorial on it, or the newspaper didn't tell them to go see it.

However, they are definitely movie watchers and they are Hollywood's bread and butter; the Masses.

Someone's got to fill that roll in the game industry. EA looks to be the one. And like Hollywood, they will more than likely dominate the industry.

[Foopy]

"The sports games are solid, but gamers complain they're too simplistic, too easy, too copy-cat, too..."

Huh? Okay, this is kinda non-sequitur, but as a supposed "gamer" and non-sports-fan, I've always found sports games to be way too complicated and difficult. How is a single person supposed to keep track of like 10 people and a ball at the same time, let alone control half of those people?

I've spent hours with NFL2K and FIFA '96 and I still don't get it. But then again, I have trouble following the ball when I just watch a soccer game. Which may be why the only "sports" game I ever really enjoyed was the original NBA Jam--only having to control 2 people at a time is a lot easier on my brain (and the game's interface) than 5. And of course, even someone who despises basketball can appreciate watching a guy launch a slam-dunk from the other end of the court while his body is on fire.

Maybe I don't understand this genre, but frankly, I'm wondering how these gamers you mention think sports games are supposed to get any more complex or difficult--even my few friends who like sports prefer the simplicity of the original NES Tecmo Bowl to any of the recent football games put out by EA or Sega.

[outsider]

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