EA's Quigley Talks Up PC Gaming
While many gamers have been cranky at EA lately for their aggressive antics concerning Take-Two, I was pleasantly surprised to spot some positive EA business from Gamasutra's interview with EA Group VP of Global Marketing, Mike Quigley.
After a rather rambling discourse on EA's development process, Quigley talks about the PC gaming industry and how important it is for EA - and for maintaining a healthy variety of game types:
As a platform, there's still genres like life simulation with our Sims label, our own Spore from the Games label. And BioWare - I played Mass Effect on the Xbox 360 and I love it, but as a Baldur's Gate fan, historically, I can't wait to play Dragon Age when it comes out on the PC.
It's a platform we're investing in. We like the breadth it gives us and the diversity of the lineup that it gives us, and frankly, it's a great place for us to experiment and be able to iterate a little more quickly.
Quigley also tackles the question of profitability, notably the PC market's ability to offer free client software monetized with subscriptions, microtransactions, or other PC-friendly mechanisms:
If you think about titles like Battlefield Heroes, which we've announced, and BattleForge, which just debuted, those are games that are not going to be just your typical, "Okay, I'm going to go to Best Buy. I'm going to buy my $49.99 product," or that sort of thing. These are games that... some are going to have a free client, and some are going to have microtransactions or different content packs you can buy.
Obviously, Warhammer will be more traditional in the MMO category later on this year when we ship that with the packages component and the subscription component, but again, there are a lot of different models we're trying. Some will be for Western markets, and some will be for Asia, but the PC platform gives us a lot of flexibility from a global standpoint, both to try out different consumer strengths, and also try out some different business models.
I love hearing anything positive about the PC market, which despite a certain core robustness is anything but standing in the spotlight. There are specific reasons why PC gaming will always remain viable - not the least of which is the fact that most of us spend a great deal of time working (or avoiding work) on PCs. The same kind of ubiquitous install base will never be the case with consoles or handhelds - there will always be a PC nearby, which isn't the case with console systems or handheld platforms. So it's interesting to hear about all the benefits companies like EA are looking to extract from the underestimated PC gaming market.
In-Depth: Electronic Arts' Quigley On The State Of EA Games [Gamasutra]
[via VE3D]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany on 18 June 2008
Other stuff like this: bioware, dragon age, ea, mike quigley, pc gaming, warhammer
