Industry heading towards golden age of gaming, believes EA’s Frank Gibeau

By: Muhammad Qasim Hassan

  |   September 5th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

There is no denying the fact that the gaming industry is undergoing some significant changes over the last few months, something that has been repeatedly pointed out by analysts and companies alike.

The president of Electronic Arts (EA) Labels Frank Gibeau is convinced that the industry is heading toward a golden age of gaming despite struggling for stability and adapting to the changed environment.

During an interview with GamesIndustry International, the EA executive described the recent developments in gaming industry as “chaos.” However, he had no doubts once the transformation completes, the industry will find itself staring at a prosperous future, with a whole new set of factors to manipulate while conducting its business and offering satisfying goods and services to the consumers. These include new business models, distribution channels and new platforms.

“I’ve been in the industry for a fair bit of time, and looking at the chaos that people perceive is happening out there right now, frankly, from my perspective, the underlying opportunities are so huge that we’re about to embark on a whole new golden age of gaming,” Gibeau said.

He pointed out that the size of the gaming industry was measured at 200 million gamers a decade ago. However, the figure has risen up to one billion gamers now and it still continuing to move towards an even more overwhelming figure.

Gibeau noted that with such a rapid and massive grown in number of gamers, there is a golden opportunity for the industry to capitalise on.

“From this chaos, you’re going to get a new order, a new approach, that’s going to be a very vibrant time for games,” he said. “Yes, there’s chaos right now, but a golden age is coming.”

While the EA executive seems really confident about the future, he did not hesitate to acknowledge the complaints that a lot of gamers and analysts have regarding the publisher sticking to existing franchises instead of launching new intellectual properties (IP).

Gibeau explained that it is a strategic decision to refrain from launching a brand new IP in the later part of the hardware cycle as it fails to make the same impact that launching new IP in the first 24 months of a new hardware platform makes. Therefore, the publisher is currently focusing on improving its first-person shooters and racing franchises.

He further went on to reveal that EA already has three-to-five fresh IPs in development for the next-generation consoles, which it plans on releasing during the first two years of the new hardware.

EA is without any doubt one of the leading video game publisher, managing to churn out one successful title after another. The company may be struggling to earn the respect of the entire gaming community, but the huge profit being shown on its balance sheets every year is a proof of just how successful it is.