14 DAY TRIAL // Peter Moore, the chief operating officer for Electronic Arts, has shared his mind regarding why gamers react negatively to the newly introduced models in the gaming industry, like freemium and free-to-play titles.
"I think the challenge sometimes is that the growth of gaming... there's a core that doesn't quite feel comfortable with that. I don't get frustrated, but I scratch my head at times and say, 'Look. These are different times.' And different times usually evoke different business models. Different consumers come in. They've got different expectations. And we can either ignore them or embrace them, and at EA, we've chosen to embrace them," he explains in an interview with Games Industry.
While it is true that the growth of gaming into new markets and business models has left some of its core fans feeling uncomfortable, Moore is ignoring the fact that it's not the change in a general sense that gamers are often resistant to, as evidenced by their support of mind-boggling stuff such as Early Access or Minecraft, but the specific change that EA wants to implement.
"There is a core--controversial statement coming from me, sadly--that just doesn't like that, because it's different. It's disruptive. It's not the way it used to be. I used to put my disc in the tray or my cartridge in the top, and I'd sit there and play. And all of these young people coming in, or God forbid, these old people coming into gaming," he further states.
He points out that when he first joined Electronic Arts, the company had a roster of 67 games that were either in development, about to launch, or just recently launched, and since then the company has undergone a massive shift in the way it deals with its games, moving away from the "launch and leave" model that dominated the industry and embracing the new mantra of games as a service, with continued development and support after a title is shipped. Furthermore, he also shares that the company is now content with an average of 11 or 12 games a year.
"It's a completely different approach in the way we're listening to gamers and the way they want to consume games," Moore says, clarifying that EA is simply listening to what consumers want and adapting in turn to better suit their needs.
In spite of his claims that the core audience does not like the change that comes with the growth of the gaming industry, he is very optimistic of what the future holds for both EA and gamers, stating that we are entering a sort of golden age of gaming.