The giants are getting ready to swallow some more money

Feb 12, 2008 07:32 GMT  ·  By

Electronic Arts really wants the title of best publisher in the US back, so it starts to do everything it can to get the achievement back. Part of the plan seems to be the signing of a bunch of (actually, most of) Hasbro properties that are going to be developed especially for the ever growing casual market .

EA will start releasing the titles this year, but there are plans for the distant future, too, as games are planned to come out during the next several years. Having in mind that most of these games will be probably turned into franchises, we'll probably have, at one point, more casual game titles than people on Earth. And I am really scared at that prospect.

Still, part of the titles that will be released this year, we will have Nerf, Scrabble, Monopoly, Yahtzee, Trivial Pursuit and Littlest Pet Shop - a very popular brand with younger girls, one of the key titles in EA's opinion, having in mind the surprise success The Sims had with the adult female demographic.

Also, some of the games will be released this fall on its Pogo casual gaming site, after the Wii and DS versions will be already established titles. Also, EA Hasbro games will come to the mobile phones, too, which kind of means that Electronic Arts is not joking this time and tries to develop these titles for anything that has a screen. Strange.

"We consider these to be digital versions of the brand, as opposed to the game, and the more complex the platform, the more the design will alter from what players are used to," he explained. "Players from different age demos should be able to pick up the game, know how to play, and have a good time doing it together."

Seeing EA's plans to go casual, we can only wonder about the fate of one very promising title, G.I. Joe, a game based on the upcoming Paramount film. We can only hope that, given this "casual frenzy" that took the world by storm will not be big enough to swallow the real games - as G.I. Joe should be, for example.