Electronic Arts Focuses on Online in Asia

Electronic Arts is betting big on online gaming, mainly MMOs and also casual games portals. A senior executive declared that while currently only 10-15% of the income from Asian markets is generated online, the company is expected to get more than 75% of its Asian revenue from the online market within five years.

Also, by 2012, the total revenue percentage that the Asian videogame market will bring to the company is expected to grow around 20% while it currently stands at approximately 5%.

Chris Thompson, vice president for Asia at Electronic Arts, says that "This year, the online business for Asia is going to represent somewhere between 10 to 15 percent of our business". He believes that the growth potential of the Asian markets is extremely high, mainly because China and other countries from South East Asia are pushing hard to introduce computers and better broadband access to most of their citizens.

Electronic Arts is preparing for its biggest foray into online gaming this year, with the release of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which is expected to reach gamers during fall. The game, developed by its Mythic studio, is poised to be a serious rival to the most successful MMO to date - the Blizzard created World of Warcraft. South East Asia is a very important market for the MMO genre, with games that don't do to well in the rest of the world, like Tabula Rasa or Hellgate: London, finding a dedicated following there.

Electronic Arts also needs to conquer this market as its position as the biggest videogame publisher in the world is being threatened by the merger between Activision and Blizzard. As Activision is becoming very competent at publishing console and PC games and with Blizzard conquering the MMO genre, EA sorely needs to get its MMO act together.