14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts doesn't have a very decent reputation in the gaming industry. People often think of the big corporation as something that wants to squeeze every last penny out of a franchise and release yearly games in most of its series that rarely bring something too innovative. Such is the case with its EA Sports label, which releases games on a yearly basis, with nothing but improved team rosters.
But now EA is stating, through the voice of its president, Frank Gibeau, that the company is focusing on new Intellectual Properties, which will attract more customers and gamers. Quality is something it also mentioned some time ago, John Riccietiello citing it as the main target for the company's studios. And if you think about it, the new IPs that have been launched by EA are quite numerous; we have seen Boom Blox, Army of Two, Spore or the recently released Dead Space.
"We found a few years ago that we had a set of problems where EA's reputation became one of just doing sports games, sequels, and licenses and the market was reacting to newer properties like Grand Theft Auto and Halo," said Gibeau. "At the same time, movie and sports licensors started jacking up their rates and it was becoming less profitable to chase licenses."
He then went on to say that the latest horror survival game, Dead Space was an "IP cubed," meaning a game that was planned from the beginning to have comics or animated movies based on it. For those of you who don't know, Dead Space already has a comic book and a direct to DVD animated movie, released before the title went on sale, which act as prequels to the action of the actual game. The company's aim from now on is to create more games like Dead Space, which have the expansion plans laid out from the beginning of development.
It's definitely nice to hear that companies have started to focus more and more on developing fresh games and not choose the much easier way of releasing sequels to already successful titles, which are guaranteed to sell. Let's hope that EA will continue this trend and that other publishers and developers will take notice of it.