14 DAY TRIAL // Andrew Wilson, the chief executive officer of Electronic Arts, revealed the company's three priorities moving forward in 2014 and beyond, in a presentation held at GamesBeat 2014.
The CEO started his leading role at EA almost one year ago, and he revealed that his and the company's top priorities had already impacted the development of the Battlefield and Dragon Age franchises, both of which will have titles shipping soon.
New core principles
"The first was really establish that player-first culture back inside the company. My belief is that in the future of our industry, in a world where there are more devices that play games, more people creating content to play on those devices, that the relationships that you have with the players are going to be the deciding factor between success and failure."
"Your ability to actually reach those players and deliver them entertainment is really going to be based on that relationship that you have with them," Wilson told the audience.
The second pillar of EA's future efforts is a more profound digital commitment, and the company will dedicate its efforts to accelerating the development of its digital means of conversation.
"The third [priority] was this understanding that no longer could we operate within silos at the company, it couldn't be development on one side and marketing on the other side or sales, or finance, we actually had to work together."
"In this day and age every single person of the eight or nine thousand in the company had to accept responsibility for building and maintaining and nurturing and growing those relationships with players," the executive explained.
Things are already moving forward
Wilson also stated that implementing the company's new principles was not something to be done hastily, and the process of implementing the changes was more like a marathon than a sprint.
However, people were already noticing the change in the way EA did things, and Wilson shared his belief that emphasizing polish and innovation was the key to creating great consumer products.
"For us, that's what quality comes down to and we challenge our teams on that every single day. When you look at something like Battlefield Hardline, we moved it because there was more innovation that could go in there. The core premise was really cool... but we think there's more innovation - we think you could be doing things more differently, so we set that in motion," Wilson shared.
Battlefield Hardline was not the only EA product getting pushed back, with BioWare's upcoming role-playing game Dragon Age: Inquisition getting the same treatment, in order to get rid of bugs and further polish the experience, "both with the ultimate goal of quality," as Wilson explained.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is coming out this November, and the reinvented tactical first-person shooter Battlefield Hardline is set to come out sometime in early 2015.