Interesting article yesterday on gamesindustry.biz. The article is suggesting EA’s CEO John Riccitiello is going on a limb with the PopCap acquisition, but when looking more closely one can see they are actually following a strategy which has been set out a long time ago.
While it is true EA has been improving the quality of their product catalog and they’ve been killing dying franchices in their traditional business, the main thing Riccitiello has brought has been a diversification of their business towards multiple target audiences, multiple channels, a focus on digital distribution and developing direct relationships with the customer.
In the hardcore space they have been focusing on DLC for years, starting on Xbox Live. EA store (now rebranded to origin) has been online since 2007 and of course the nowadays forgotten-by-hardcore-users game franchise Rock Band is a perfect example of how the lifetime and ROI of a game could be increased via the sale of virtual items. The introduction of the upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic must be seen in this context and not merely as a me too initiative.
Besides innovating in the hardcore space, EA has also been one of the few companies to explore the casual gaming space early with Pogo.com, experimenting with the advertising and subscriptions revenue models. They were already investing in ipod and mobile games before the iPhone existed and their games are now dominating the iPhone app store.
The PopCap acquisition has, besides buying a studio which delivers quality games that can be monetized on all the platforms EA is active on, given it a good asset to help them become more successful in the promising virtual goods/social gaming space as well. A segment incidentally where they have been gaining experience AND monetizing for a couple of years now with Battlefield Heroes, but also through Playfish. Once PopCap ramps up they can start monetizing their social games relatively quickly because of the high traffic Pogo destinations EA has at their disposal.
Lastly and not unimportantly: EA has had a strong focus on CRM for years. This means the data warehousing/analytics and communication means are in place to build and expand on direct relationships with their customers on all the platforms they’re active on.
While most of the competition has been sleeping and milking the traditional hardcore business, EA has been been putting everything in place for the future.
Gearchiveerd onder: games
