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It is one of the more ignoble of ways to be seemingly announced, but the often speculated Mirror’s Edge 2 now has a support page on EA’s site. (Update: since deleted.)

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SimCity's "Amusement Park Set" is available now to fill up those tiny land plots with as many carnival rides and roller coasters as you can muster.

The DLC, which features several different amusements to generate cash, bring in tourists and boost the local economy, has a price of $10. The pack's cost is in line with the previously released British, German and French DLC building sets.

The DLC set follows last week's addition of the 4.0 update (v1.4 if we're being realistic) for the game. The patch introduces several fixes to SimCity, in addition to a new region and park.

NCAA Football 14 will receive some changes this year to Dynasty mode, the series' career mode in which players lead a school's football team to victory. Of the changes, the addition of coach skills stand out, which grant your team's leader and play-caller more nuance in the form of 18 RPG-like abilities that can be upgraded as your dynasty progresses. The abilities range from "Road Warrior," which helps your quarterback succeed on the road against teams, to "Clutch," which encourages your team to play better in high-pressure situations.

NCAA 14 will also see a more streamlined athlete recruitment process. Whereas NCAA 13 included a phone call system, the feature's been stripped out entirely in favor of a points system called "Power Recruiting." Players will receive 5,000 points per week and can allocate points how they see fit towards scouting, recruitment and offering scholarship.

Like minutes on a cell phone plan, points roll over every week, so players can put off their athlete recruitment process as well and not falter too much. The offseason recruitment phase, in which players receive 10,000 points to play with, has also been rolled into a single stage, making for a faster, likely more stressful experience.

The psychology of being inside a car is kind of fascinating – in a twisted, human-limits-revealing sort of way. We tend to stop viewing our fellow road-hogging compatriots as people, preferring instead to focus on the galloping four-wheeled colossi in front of us. Other drivers become objects, impediments, enemies. Have you ever had one of those moments where you’re honking and raging, and then you finally pass the person ahead of you and briefly see their face? “Oh god,” I often think. “They look so upset. Did I do that? To another person? That’s *crag*ed!” But I keep doing it anyway, because I’m in a soulless metal shell, and so are they. That, I figure, is why street racing games are never about anything other than competition, rivalry, and sticking it to the po-lice. It’s so easy to hate a car, run it off the road, and laugh. Need For Speed Rivals‘ title, then, strikes me as weirdly redundant, in its own way.

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SimCity's 4.0 patch - whose numbering nomenclature has certainly sent developers everywhere into a death spiral - should arrive shortly. The update adds a new park, new region, more explicit details on what generates happiness, and the usual set of fixes.

The update comes a week before the "Amusement Park Pack," which is scheduled to launch on May 28. EA announced earlier this month that the game has gone on to sell 1.6 million copies despite its launch complications.

In Madden 25's Connected Franchise career mode, players can take on the role of team owner and perform a number of new tasks, including relocating teams to new cities. Madden's Creative Director Mike Young told Joystiq today that the mode is designed to limit the franchise relocation option to 17 different markets. The 17 cities include Brooklyn, London, Dublin, Toronto, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Austin, Columbus, Orlando, Portland, Oklahoma City and Memphis.

Additionally, some locations with an already-established NFL presence can receive a second team, such as Chicago and Houston. Players will have the option to retain their team name, logo and uniforms when moving or select from three different preset options for each city, including the Brooklyn Beats. The mode also grants players the option to reboot now-defunct teams from the NFL's history, such as the Columbus Panhandles, London Monarchs or the Houston Oilers. Players can opt to turn off the team relocation feature, disabling the option entirely.

EA Sports provided us with a new trailer for the game in which Young discusses the move from Madden 13's Connected Careers mode to this year's Connected Franchise mode. Madden 25 will launch August 27 for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Last week, EA shocked no one by announcing a fantasy-themed MOBA of its very own. RPS went street level to witness the complete lack of riots, and everything went pretty much exactly as expected. Jim Smitherford of Some Random San Francisco Apartment was incredulous. “Wait,” he said, brow furrowed as though on the verge of collapse. “They haven’t done that already? Huh. Also, how did you get inside my home?” Kelly Someoneson of Someplaceburg shared a similar sentiment. “Oh,” she replied when we gave her the news. “Well, good luck to them, I guess.” Then we tapped one last man on the shoulder and asked for his input. “Really? So they’re finally doing that, huh. Well I’ll be,” he exclaimed. It was EA COO Peter Moore.

[Obviously, the above events are highly fictionalized. The following Dawngate video footage and details, however, are most certainly not.]

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EA Sports won't just show off next-gen FIFA tomorrow at Microsoft's Xbox reveal, but is also planning on punching out some details about its UFC game, which is not scheduled for release this year (as far as we know).

EA obtained the rights to UFC games thanks to THQ's financial pains at the time, eventually passing to the great octagon beyond. The Xbox event is scheduled for tomorrow, May 21, at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT, 6 p.m. UK). Prepare yourself for some next-gen sweat tech.

EA Sports lifted the curtains today on one of its core additions to Madden 25 this year, Connected Franchise owners mode. In it, players take on the role of team owner, setting prices for tickets and concessions as well as having the option to relocate teams to both domestic and international cities. Owners also handle the hiring of team personnel, such as scouts, trainers and coaches, and they answer questions from the media. Players will manage stadium upgrades and market their superstar athletes so fans will buy their jerseys, increasing their teams' yearly profit.

The options to import draft classes from EA's NCAA Football series and take control of all 32 teams in the Connected Careers mode were woefully absent from last year's game, but will return to Madden 25. Additionally, the game's primary career mode will receive a face-lift thanks to an improved user interface that includes a transaction log to follow the movement of players from team to team. The mode's UI includes a new Trade Center, allowing users to see what other teams are offering for players and draft picks so they can top their opponents' bids.

Lastly, Madden 25 will feature more media personalities for the career mode's in-game Twitter feed, such as ESPN fantasy analyst Matthew Berry and Fox Sports NFL writer Peter Schrager. It will also receive new legendary players and coaches, including Mike Ditka and William "The Refridgerator" Perry.

This video for Madden 25 shows a sizzle reel of defensive features while San Francisco 49ers linebacker Navorro Bowman discusses tactics for tackling players in the NFL. The game will see some under-the-hood changes, including Infinity Engine improvements and the addition of heat-seeker tackling.

Kevin Flynn, who's worked for the last two years as a senior product manager for EA's UK arm, has left to join Activision's UK side as a senior brand manager on Call of Duty. Flynn's previous efforts for EA include launching Battlefield 3 and its subsequent Premium DLC campaigns in the region.

Flynn enlisted with the Call of Duty squad this month, which we imagine must be the busiest time to sign on for an Activision paycheck. With Call of Duty: Ghosts launching on November 5 and next week's next-generation engine reveal during the Xbox event on May 21, we just hope Mr. Flynn is finding adequate time for his lunch break every day. A hungry worker is not a happy worker!

Following up on recent rumors, EA has confirmed that it does not currently have any games in development for Nintendo's console.

Here’s a sobering revelation: your parents probably wish you were a MOBA. I mean, they thought they wanted a doctor or a fireman or a pioneering, cancer-curing geneticist when they first birthed you, but these days, everyone is making MOBAs. All your folks can do now is mourn what could have been. So it went for EA, too – casting sullen, disparaging glares at John Madden and Dead Space guy alike – until now. Via a website we weren’t supposed to know about yet, the publisher accidentally revealed Dawngate, a fantasy-themed battler that vaguely claims to offer “a whole new way to experience MOBA gameplay.” What does that entail? Beats me. Details are scant at the moment, but you’ll find a few others after the break.

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SimCity's "Amusement Park Pack," which leaked like oil out of a tea cup ride a tad early, has been confirmed to arrive in two weeks by developer Maxis. "Some of you may have seen thrilling new SimCity content that arrived too early at the gate. It's coming May 28th. We think you'll be amused," the official SimCity Facebook page now notes.

The pack will allow mayors to lay out the park how they wish, featuring several different rides and customizable entrances. The park will also generate cash by bringing in shoppers, tourists and boosting the local commercial economy. No price was listed for the expansion.

One of the first publishers to dabble in the idea of an "online pass" - whereby gamers were charted a fee for accessing certain online content if they purchased a title pre-owned - has decided to do away with the program. EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg has told VentureBeat. “Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass. None of our new EA titles will include that feature.” Interestingly, Reseburg claims the decision is based on consumer feedback. “Initially launched as an effort to package a full menu of online content and services, many players didn’t respond to the format. We’ve listened to the feedback and decided to do away with it moving forward.” EA kills its controversial Online Pass program [VentureBeat]

DICE, the developers of Battlefield, and EA, who now own the rights to make Star Wars games, have bowed to the inevitable. According to a report in Gamasutra: “Electronic Arts has opened a new DICE studio in Los Angeles, with a key focus around creating new video games in the Star Wars franchise.”(more…)

Despite big layoffs in other areas, publisher Electronic Arts is opening a brand new office in Los Angeles for Battlefield developers DICE, the Wall Street Journal reports. The office isn't a development studio per se; it's there to "help with recruiting talent" for the company's upcoming Star Wars games, which the report says are still in the very early stages of planning. As much as I know you all like to be kept up to date on video game recruitment drives, the really interesting part of the story is near the end, where DICE General Manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson tells the WSJ the developers "are looking at either creating an entirely new experience or piggybacking on an older Star Wars game series". Like, um, Battlefront? Also of interest is the fact Troedsson talks about poaching talent from rival companies like Activision, and how DICE needs to "expand its wings following the success of the Battlefield franchise", suggesting the Star Wars games may be worked on by new teams - or at least an influx of new talent - rather than DICE's existing studios. EA Opening New Los Angeles Game Studio [WSJ]

Command & Conquer‘s march into free-to-play territory has been fraught with confusion. Will it have single-player? Won’t it? Is it even technically Command & Conquer Generals 2 anymore? I guess not, seeing as EA’s taken to shaving off that grizzled, battle-tested moniker in favor of the simple, sprightly Command & Conquer. And that, it would seem, wasn’t some careless “why not?” decision made on a whim. “We need to kind of wash the stain of C&C 4 away,” said lead designer Samuel Bass. The goal? To go back to the series’ roots. By, er, using Generals as a blueprint. I guess Victory’s reasoning kind of makes sense in video form. See the whole thing after the break.

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Electronic Arts - using a known third-party service - registered the dot-com domains for Battlefield's 13-20. Fusible took note of the registrations, going on to mention that EA owns most of the Battlefield domains between one and 20 now. Battlefield 4 is expected to launch later this year.

Although the initial instinct may be to call this long-term planning a little overdone, it's not so crazy if Battlefield takes the annualized approach á la an EA Sports title. Battlefield '14 through Battlefield '20 doesn't sound so crazy now.

We now live in a world where The Sims: Star Wars or Need for Speed: Tosche Station could become things. I’m not saying it’s likely (though the former would not shock me in the slightest), but Star Wars is under new management, so who knows? For now, all we can say for sure is that BioWare, DICE, and Visceral are actively adding their own chapters to the space opera, but we won’t see results from those initial efforts until at least mid-2014 – and much later, in all likelihood. You’ll remember, however, that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II developer Obsidian also has a rather ambitious idea floating around, and – last we heard – it was about to lay it before the greatest Sith Lord of them all: Mickey Mouse. So then, what happened there? And where does Obsidian’s new Star Wars RPG end up now that EA’s pulling the strings? I got in touch with Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart to find out.

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“Son, did I ever tell you the story of Plants vs Zombies?”

“Yes, dad, like, 20 time–”

“It was soooooo great. Made people go like this. I mean, plants? Fighting zombies? Hilaaaaaarious! But then it tipped its hat and rode off into the mobile/social sunset, never to be seen again. And we were like this. Lulllllz. It’s been ages since then. I don’t think you’d even been born yet.”

“It’s been four years. Really not that long in the grand scheme of things. I am 27.”

“Well, I still demand a sequel. It feels like we’ve been waiting forever. And not a whisper from PopCap, either. They ought to title it Plants vs Zombies 2: It’s About Time. Lolololololol.”

“Actually, that’s exactly what they’re calling it. But I’m guessing it’s actually a cheeky reference to some kind of time travel twist. Bolts in the logo, double-meaning in the title, etc. It’s coming out this July. Are you even listening to me?”

“Sorry, too busy Vining this whole conversation.”

[This has been an excerpt from the hotly anticipated upcoming novel, My Dad: The Internet.]

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In Electronic Arts' quarterly earnings call today, Frank Gibeau, the president of EA Labels, strongly indicated that EA Sports' troubled NBA Live series will be a next-generation console title when it launches later this year. Gibeau told investors the company plans "a full reveal at E3 including more next generation titles in development," for the coming year. "This will include breakthroughs in graphics and gameplay for some of our biggest franchises including Battlefield, FIFA, Madden, NBA Live, and Need for Speed." Gibeau later added that a "a brand new sports engine from EA Sports" also is forthcoming, and will be discussed at E3 in June. NBA Live—then known as NBA Elite 11—was canceled one week before release in 2010. It took a year off, with plans to return in 2012, rumored to be a cut-rate downloadable title, but EA Sports aborted that effort weeks before its presumed release, too. The series only recently dismissed its creative director.

Electronic Arts will not be publishing any Star Wars video games in the coming fiscal year, the company told investors in a quarterly earnings call today. Yesterday, EA and Disney announced an exclusive partnership to make games.

Electronic Arts announced as part of its year-end financials that SimCity has sold 1.6 million units since its launch in March.

The company noted that 50 percent of sales were "digital downloads." Since the city-builder is only available through EA's Origin digital distribution network, we deduce that to mean 800k sales through there.

The company previously mentioned the game had sold 1.1 million copies in two weeks despite the title's launch complications, which are still being worked out.

Battlefield 3's Premium service has garnered over 3.5 million subscriptions to date, according to EA's fiscal fourth quarter 2013 financial results. Additionally, the service has earned over $120 million for EA.

This compares to the financial results reported by EA for the last quarter, in which the Battlefield 3 Premium service generated $108 million and had 2.9 million subscribers.

SimCity will receive the 3.0 update this week, which will hopefully go down smoother than 2.0 released in late April. The 3.0 update (listed after the break) tweaks traffic routing, phantom air pollution, stuck school buses and university students crossing roads. Apparently SimCity grammar schools didn't implement the "buddy system" as a road-crossing teaching tool.

The SimCity update is another piece on the pyre of good news EA blasted out yesterday in preparation for today's financial call, where the company is expected to deliver bad news (harsh enough to make a CEO stand down). Yesterday's news included a Plants vs. Zombies 2 release window, the announcement of The Sims 4 and EA's Star Wars exclusivity.

The more disenfranchised portions of the peanut gallery have spent years calling EA an evil empire and claiming that it’s done every horrific act short of blowing up Alderaan with a Death Star, so this feels oddly fitting. It’s probably not the headline you were looking for, but it does not lie: EA has officially snapped up rights for all things Star Wars and videogame-y. DICE, Visceral, and BioWare will be doing development honors on various offshoots, apparently. So then, Battlefield: Star Wars – Old Knights Dying In Space (On Ice!) in 3… 2… 1…

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Plants vs. Zombies 2 will finally launch in July, according to PopCap Games.

"Yay! I can finally say it! PvZ 2: It's About Time is coming in July!" PvZ Community Marketing Manager Stephanie Bayer announced on Twitter this morning.

PopCap Games announced the sequel last year with a "first half of 2013" release window, so we guess this counts as a mini delay. Hey, PvZ zombies are the slow kind.

Fuse—the multiplayer shooter that evolved from a more cartoon-styled earlier version called Overstrike—will be getting a demo for PS3 and Xbox 360 on May 7th. So, if you want to see if the game will be worth your time, that's your best chance.

Theoretically, sports should be one of the safer gigs in video games today. These are series that come out every year, they're usually reliable sellers, the publishers have sunk a lot of money into a license, and often they're the only ones holding it. It isn't like taking a risk on a new concept that fails to catch on. But EA Sports wasn't spared the pain and uncertainty of the across-the-board layoffs and cost-cutting moves that Electronic Arts made on Thursday, and had been making before then. It was a tough week for one of the sturdiest labels in games development, and the dominant force, by far, in sports video gaming. Still, the changes show how pivotal the label will be as Electronic Arts tries to regain its footing before a new generation of gaming consoles hit shelves, and a new means of selling video games takes hold. For if a series like Tiger Woods PGA Tour is put on hiatus, even for a year, then everything is on the table. I have learned, from persons with knowledge of the series' development, that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 15 is not happening. On any platform. EA's plan was to outsource that edition of the game, to give the in-house team two years to make Tiger Woods 16, taking advantage of all the PS4 and the next Xbox would have to offer. When CEO John Riccitiello gave his resignation last month, that plan was scrapped as a cost-saving move. The game hasn't been reassigned to the Tiger Woods team, either. Some of its personnel already have been sent to other teams in the EA Tiburon studio for the time being. I went to an EA Sports spokesman with that rumor and was told they wouldn't comment on it, which is not surprising. The latest game came out only a month ago, and publicly traded video game companies have investor relations divisions that don't want people chattering about unannounced products, especially ones that have been unofficially canceled. Tiger Woods PGA Tour is a 16-year-old annual series, one that presumably pays royalties to two parties—Augusta National Golf Club and Tiger Woods himself. It's admirable that the development team got a two-year window to put out a game that would be truly distinctive, rather than incrementally updating or porting over something after publishing three titles in 33 months. But if EA Sports really does put it the series on ice for a year, that is a remarkable decision. Yes, NBA Live was abruptly withdrawn in 2010 and again last year, presumably with the forebearance of its licensing partners. But Tiger Woods PGA Tour doesn't face the kind of quality concerns dogging the basketball series, much less the behemoth (or any) competition of a game like NBA 2K. Don't think that NBA Live's development staff was exempted, either. Among the layoffs it suffered was its creative director, Jason Barnes, a guy I profiled about a year ago in looking at the rebuilt game. No one on that team got their bonuses, either. Yes, when you don't ship a product, the idea of meriting a "bonus" is somewhat farfetched. But in Florida, with no state income tax, companies tend to pay you in sunshine. And customary bonuses of 10 to 15 percent are relied upon by development staff under crunch. In private conversations I had after the layoffs, the morale seemed to run from cynical, to worried, to aggrieved. These are all short term developments, though. Tiger Woods PGA Tour will return. NBA Live will be made, come hell or high water, although for what console, who knows. Long term, the biggest personnel change affecting the manufacture of sports video games, and how we consume them, figures to be EA Sports president Andrew Wilson now taking command of Origin, the company's digital distribution platform. Nothing Electronic Arts says or does, particularly in its unfortunate moments, goes unremarked upon, so it was surprising that none among the enthusiast press noted this or extrapolated its meaning when it happened. Electronic Arts has made no secret that it sees its growth in selling software as a service. The annualized nature of sports video games and the spectrum of titles EA offers under that label make it a natural fit for such a model. Indeed, I've heard Wilson and his predecessor talk about both concepts for the past two or three years, and the two-year-old "Season Ticket" currently offered on the PS3 and the 360, though light on value to anyone but a big DLC spender, has always looked like the exploration of that strategy. If the rumors about Electronic Arts demanding a massive, if not exclusive, Origin presence on the Wii U are true (at which Nintendo balked, which is why the Wii U is in sports purgatory), then it probably has similar designs on the Playstation 4 and the next Xbox. Freed from the costs of shipping, storing and stamping discs, we could see some creative subscription models—not to a single title and its DLC, but broader all-you-can-eat plans that lure a gamer to multiple titles and, of course, the add-ons they sell. You may not be buying just FIFA or NHL or Madden in the future. You may be, simply, buying EA Sports. If EA's Partners label—responsible for Crysis 2 and 3 and Bulletstorm—is gone, then Battlefield, Need for Speed and Dragon Age are really their only console franchises with a consistent presence and a confirmed future. So under a subscription model, you can understand how pivotal EA Sports—publisher of six annual series—is to a debut on consoles designed to sell games over the Internet. "Season Ticket" shows that EA Sports is by nature a subscription to the future. These games depend on current stadia, current uniforms and, yes, current rosters. Buying an older version of the game means little. It also means that EA Sports' personnel in Maitland, Fla., Burnaby, B.C., and Austin, Texas may have paid a price today—the rumor was a 10 percent reduction in workforce, across the board. But the fact their top boss is in charge of something that needs to monetize a gamer's loyalty—not to golden oldies, but current and future games, is why those who can ride out this storm should still be in one of the safer gigs in video games development. Comparatively speaking, anyway. Stick Jockey is Kotaku's column on the intersection of sports and video games. It appears weekends.