EA 'really supporting' Wii U, interest in digital, details coming in Summer, new IPs for new hardware
A portion of a CVG interview with Electronic Arts Labels boss Frank Gibeau...
CVG: Because of EA's history of aggressively supporting hardware launches we've no doubt you've got plenty of Wii U games in the pipeline, but at E3 you only announced Mass Effect 3. Why have you seemingly opted to hold back?
FG: It's a couple of things. We've got a couple of more games in development for Wii U and we'll have a bigger line-up for Wii U than we did on the Wii. It is the first next-generation platform coming out so we're really supporting it.
We're really interested in digital platforms and we're really interested in showing off our games when they're ready to be shown off in a big way. Just looking at E3 and where we're at, we wanted to hold our fire a little bit on a couple of the other games that we're working on. We'll have more announcements this summer on the rest of the Wii U line-up.
CVG: EA has a lot of sequels planned for this year. Is it deemed too risky to put out a new IP at this stage of the console cycle?
FG: One of the things I hear a lot about from the boards is 'there's not enough new IP coming' etc. If you're running a studio organization, the moment you stop creating new IP, your creative organization dies. Because you have to constantly innovate and try new ideas and people inside the organization want to do new things.
At the same time you do have a lot of brands with big hits that you can innovate within that can be very cool and very different in a year over year basis. So it's really about getting the right blend and getting the timing right for when you launch new IPs.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter Back a few years ago when we were putting together the new EA Games label and EA was trying to reset a lot of its products, we tried a lot of new IPs; Dead Space, Dante's Inferno, Mirror's Edge, we completely rethought and rebooted Battlefield... that was the right time to do that and we built some of those franchises out.
CVG: The introduction of new hardware from the big three is going to allow us to reembark on a bunch of new IPs, because it's the better time to do it, because you can really explore new ideas and do different things.
FG: In a market this massive, launching new IPs is very risky and it's a big investment to make these games. So it's a natural thing to see in this point in the cycle a little bit more emphasis on the knowns - the big properties and franchises - but in the new cycle you're going to see a lot of new IP from Electronic Arts.
CVG: One of the running themes of E3 2012 has been developers jumping the gun a bit and showing off their next-gen technology. Was EA not tempted to showcase its future games and tech?
FG: I didn't think it was the right time when we talked as a team. It's better to show something of substance. Gamers are smart and they'll figure out if what you're showing is a pre-rendered movie, they'll be able to diagnose and pick it apart. That's one of the things we did last year with the Battlefield 3 trailer - we very consciously put out a 14 minute sequence of gameplay because we wanted it to be a real experience that shows you what the game's like on PC.
Given our relationships with the NDAs and what's going on with the other parties, we felt like it wasn't the right time to come out with that stuff. We've already been doing a lot of work on that, but in general we want to keep our powder dry and get to a better place. It's also the reason why we're not necessarily showing off a lot of the Wii U games - because we want to get to a place where we can actually show off something really cool as opposed to doing something fake at a trade show.
CVG: Because of EA's history of aggressively supporting hardware launches we've no doubt you've got plenty of Wii U games in the pipeline, but at E3 you only announced Mass Effect 3. Why have you seemingly opted to hold back?
FG: It's a couple of things. We've got a couple of more games in development for Wii U and we'll have a bigger line-up for Wii U than we did on the Wii. It is the first next-generation platform coming out so we're really supporting it.
We're really interested in digital platforms and we're really interested in showing off our games when they're ready to be shown off in a big way. Just looking at E3 and where we're at, we wanted to hold our fire a little bit on a couple of the other games that we're working on. We'll have more announcements this summer on the rest of the Wii U line-up.
CVG: EA has a lot of sequels planned for this year. Is it deemed too risky to put out a new IP at this stage of the console cycle?
FG: One of the things I hear a lot about from the boards is 'there's not enough new IP coming' etc. If you're running a studio organization, the moment you stop creating new IP, your creative organization dies. Because you have to constantly innovate and try new ideas and people inside the organization want to do new things.
At the same time you do have a lot of brands with big hits that you can innovate within that can be very cool and very different in a year over year basis. So it's really about getting the right blend and getting the timing right for when you launch new IPs.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter Back a few years ago when we were putting together the new EA Games label and EA was trying to reset a lot of its products, we tried a lot of new IPs; Dead Space, Dante's Inferno, Mirror's Edge, we completely rethought and rebooted Battlefield... that was the right time to do that and we built some of those franchises out.
CVG: The introduction of new hardware from the big three is going to allow us to reembark on a bunch of new IPs, because it's the better time to do it, because you can really explore new ideas and do different things.
FG: In a market this massive, launching new IPs is very risky and it's a big investment to make these games. So it's a natural thing to see in this point in the cycle a little bit more emphasis on the knowns - the big properties and franchises - but in the new cycle you're going to see a lot of new IP from Electronic Arts.
CVG: One of the running themes of E3 2012 has been developers jumping the gun a bit and showing off their next-gen technology. Was EA not tempted to showcase its future games and tech?
FG: I didn't think it was the right time when we talked as a team. It's better to show something of substance. Gamers are smart and they'll figure out if what you're showing is a pre-rendered movie, they'll be able to diagnose and pick it apart. That's one of the things we did last year with the Battlefield 3 trailer - we very consciously put out a 14 minute sequence of gameplay because we wanted it to be a real experience that shows you what the game's like on PC.
Given our relationships with the NDAs and what's going on with the other parties, we felt like it wasn't the right time to come out with that stuff. We've already been doing a lot of work on that, but in general we want to keep our powder dry and get to a better place. It's also the reason why we're not necessarily showing off a lot of the Wii U games - because we want to get to a place where we can actually show off something really cool as opposed to doing something fake at a trade show.
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