14 DAY TRIAL // Despite the progress that publisher Electronic Arts has done with its digital strategy, one of the company’s leaders believes that it can do even more to link its big franchises, like Dragon Age and Mass Effect, with the social gaming and web browser space.
Kristian Segerstrale, who is the vice president of digital business at Electronic Arts and co-founded the social Playfish studio, told Gamasutra that “What we aren't doing very well at all as a company and as an industry is to link together these games and ecosystems across different platforms in such a way that you create something that's greater than the sum of its parts.
“Otherwise, we have these islands, where a consumer does lots of things in one ecosystem, when they could be rewarded for that in another.”
The developer added, “Increasingly, it's about figuring out a means of online interaction rather than having your game be a standalone piece of software. How do you weave our games into the fabric of a player's everyday life?”
Electronic Arts has recently launched titles like the Infiltrator application for the most recent Mass Effect, The Sims Social for Facebook and Dragon Age: Legends, which are designed to add more content for gamers who already know those franchises and offer them rewards in the core games.
Segerstrale believes that the biggest brands that Electronic Arts has will need to make appearances on as many gaming devices as possible and that each of the development teams will need to think beyond the concept of the port and deliver a customized experience for each of them.
The idea is for Electronic Arts to get a monopoly on the attention on the gaming audience and then offer gaming options on devices ranging from mobiles to home consoles that will create more revenue streams for the company.