Frank-Gibeau
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EA has two teams prototyping Apple Watch game experiences
Apple revealed its new piece of wearable tech yesterday, a watch with a touchscreen, fitness apps and all sorts of other smart device functionality. Among the possibilities with the Apple Watch are gaming applications; EA has confirmed it is actively investigating, and was listed among the developers on-board with the device yesterday. EA Mobile head Frank Gibeau told CNET that the publisher has "two teams prototyping wearable experiences that are not only standalone, but also some ideas where you can actually use the fitness component in the watch that can unlock capabilities in the game that might be on your iPhone." Gibeau suggested that Watch users could possibly handle minor game experiences on the device, such as "crafting or some auction trading on your watch that goes back into your tablet game that you might check out later when you get home."
Gibeau: EA 'innovated too much' with Dungeon Keeper
EA's reboot of Dungeon Keeper rubbed new and old fans the wrong way with an aggressive approach to monetization – it's a free, mobile app heavy on microtransactions and shifty five-star rating schemes. The original game's creator, Peter Molyneux, dubbed the reboot "ridiculous," and in June, EA CEO Andrew Wilson called the situation "a shame." EA Mobile head Frank Gibeau this week told GamesIndustry that EA didn't do a good job marketing the game or communicating to fans what they could expect from a new Dungeon Keeper. "Brands ultimately have a certain amount of permission that you can make changes to, and I think we might have innovated too much or tried some different things that people just weren't ready for," Gibeau said. "Or, frankly, were not in tune with what the brand would have allowed us to do. We like the idea that you can bring back a brand at EA and express it in a new way. We've had some successes on that front, but in the case of Dungeon Keeper, that just didn't connect with an audience for a variety of reasons."
'High-end' Battlefield coming to mobile, Gibeau says
EA Labels president Frank Gibeau has discussed an upcoming "high-end and high performance" Battlefield game designed for mobile devices. In an interview with the New York Times, Gibeau was asked if Battlefield could potentially be enjoyed on the smaller screen of a mobile device. Gibeau noted that the game's Commander Mode lends itself very well to a tablet screen, then said, "We are working on a mobile game of Battlefield that will be high-end and high-performance." "It's our bet that we can successfully pull that off. But we're embarking on something no one has ever done before - to get these games to inter-operate between platforms. Will it work? It already has in some cases. Will it work for all franchises? Not all franchises will make the transition." "Battlefield might be a little harder," Gibeau added. News of a high-end, mobile Battlefield game is novel but not entirely surprising. In May we reported on EA's Frostbite Go engine, which would allow for console-esque graphical fidelity on comparatively underpowered mobile devices. Frostbite Go is a slimmed-down adaptation of the same Frostbite engine which currently powers the Battlefield franchise.
EA CEO Wilson puts Gibeau in charge of mobile, Soderlund on sports
Andrew Wilson has made his first big move as CEO of EA, re-establishing managerial roles and clarifying that all senior staff now report to him directly, an internal memo hosted on GamesBeat reveals. Frank Gibeau, formerly president of EA Labels, is now in charge of EA Mobile. Patrick Soderlund is still executive VP of EA Games Label, but he's now also head of EA Sports, the role that Wilson left to take over as CEO. Peter Moore remains brand president and Lucy Bradshaw keeps her role as head of EA Maxis, the developer of SimCity. Rajat Tenaja is still Chief Technology Officer, Blake Jorgensen is still Chief Financial Officer, Joel Linzner is still senior VP of legal and business affairs, and Gabrielle Toledano remains executive VP of HR. "Our priorities right now are simple – we must deliver on our FY14 plan, continue the transformation of our organization for our digital future, create amazing games and services, have a ruthless focus and execute," Wilson writes. "I will work closely with my senior management team to help drive these priorities through the organization. Each of these leaders will report directly to me in their roles."
SimCity sells over 2 million copies
SimCity has built sales of over 2 million units, according to EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. In a recent interview with VentureBeat, Gibeau noted the biggest takeaway the company took from the game's disastrous launch was how lucky it was SimCity has such loyal fans. Preach! "Since then, we've sold more than 2 million units, and the number of people logging in and playing is holding steady," said Gibeau. "SimCity is a success. However, underestimating demand in the first month was a major miss. We hope that the game and the service we've provided since then meets the fans' high standards." Several leads from the SimCity project have moved on to start their own studio, Jellygrade. SimCity's latest upgrades include $9 airships and $10 amusement park sets.
Dragon Age: Inquisition drops the '3' to drive home a non-linear narrative
Dragon Age: Inquisition ditches the "3," as slyly revealed during EA's E3 press conference. This decision isn't an attempt to make the name The Game Formerly Known As "Dragon Age 3" stick – EA Labels President Frank Gibeau tells IGN it's a "tactical marketing decision." "There wasn't anything that strategic about it, to be blunt," Gibeau says. "We just wanted to draw more attention to the fact that Inquisition is an all-new chapter inside of the Dragon Age universe, as opposed to people expecting a follow-on to Dragon Age 1 and 2 in a literal, linear sense." The word "Inquisition" needs to stand out, Gibeau says, since that's what this Dragon Age story is all about: "There's a whole bunch of gameplay and features and big story choices related to how you go through this Inquisition that happens in the world." We're sure this is all comforting news for Joystiq's Sinan Kubba, who definitely thought he was losing it when that "3" didn't show up during the EA conference.
EA: Wii U's lack of Madden, FIFA a 'rational' business decision
Nintendo's Wii U is struggling in sales and support. During an interview this week at E3 with Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America's head of corporate communications, we noted that the Wii U's lack of Madden this year puts it in the company of Sega's ill-fated Dreamcast. EA currently has no games in development for Wii U. "You'd have to ask EA about their future development plans. EA is a great partner of ours, they've had games on our platforms before. They want what all third parties want and what we want: for the install base to grow," said Scibetta. "We're confident that once some of these games come out that we have planned between now and the holiday and into 2014, that it will help drive the install base and when that happens the platforms will look more enticing to third parties." So, we asked Electronic Arts Labels President Frank Gibeau about what Nintendo can do to bring EA back to the Wii U.
EA: Online Pass staying dead after PS4 reveal, program's expiration not tied to Xbox One
"It's dead, it's dead, it's deep-sixed, it's at the bottom of the Mariana Trench," Electronic Arts' President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau stated plainly yesterday about the company's Online Pass program to Joystiq. Following EA's announcement in late May that it was eliminating the Online Pass program, gamers braced for "the twist." That occurred last week when Microsoft finally announced the digital rights management (DRM) scheme for the Xbox One, which would have made an Online Pass program unnecessary. However, with Sony's announcement the PlayStation 4 will follow the current model of game console DRM and used games, it was a question if Online Pass was back on the table at EA. "We're not crafting a strategy to bring [Online Pass] back, you will not input codes to unlock your game, it's not going to happen," said Gibeau. The executive then moved on to tell us the company's decision to kill Online Pass and Microsoft's Xbox One DRM plans weren't linked at all, therefore PlayStation 4's recent reveal wouldn't have changed their decision on the program anyway. He called the Online Pass program "flat out dumb."
Free-to-play model more than doubled the revenue of Star Wars: The Old Republic
Following the free-to-play announcement, many gamers were quick to mark Star Wars: The Old Republic as a broken shell of a game, with its business model conversion serving as the last gasp of a game in danger of imminent shutdown. The facts do not support that particular viewpoint. According to the most recent Electronic Arts earning call, the game has more than doubled its revenue since the conversion in November of last year. EA president Frank Gibeau stated in the most recent earnings call that the game's subscriber numbers have remained stable, with more than 1.7 million new players joining the game via the free option. He also restated that the game is aiming to keep up a content delivery schedule around every six weeks. So if you were getting a bit nervous about the long-term viability of SWTOR, it looks like you can rest a bit more easily.
Gibeau: NBA Live coming in fiscal 2014 [Update: Planned for next-gen systems]
EA will launch a game in the NBA Live series in the 2014 fiscal year (April 2013 through March 2014), President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau said during EA's fiscal 2013 year-end investor call. Gibeau listed NBA Live among the publisher's core sports titles as one of 11 games the publisher is planning for the fiscal year. The standard launch window for NBA games is in October. EA canceled NBA Live 13 in September 2012 after opting to "sit out the full year and stay focused on making next year's game great." The series has had a lengthy history of not seeing publication, starting with NBA Elite 11 being canceled in November 2010. Update: Gibeau listed NBA Live as one of the games that EA has planned for next-generation consoles. He also noted that the publisher has a "brand new engine from EA Sports," that will be seen at E3 in June.
The Daily Grind: If SimCity is an MMO, what should we call actual MMOs?
Earlier this week, EA president Frank Gibeau doubled-down on his company's earlier claims about SimCity's MMOness, suggesting the game was built as a "massively multiplayer experience" from the beginning. Rather than pick on Gibeau's comments (already done), I want to consider what would happen if we admitted defeat. What if we just accepted that the term MMO has been utterly co-opted for online singleplayer games -- what should we call "real" MMOs instead? My colleagues suggest "persistent massively multiplayer online" -- PMMO, I suppose (would we have to change our name to "Persistently"?). While I like the idea of bringing back an old-school term like "persistent," and while it would certainly separate games like EverQuest from games like Diablo III, I worry it also excludes MMORPGs that make heavy use of instancing (and therefore aren't as persistent as they seem) even as it includes games with persistent characters but not worlds. What do you think -- is it time to give up on the term MMO and adopt something else? Do we retreat to the imperfect label "MMORPG" or begin the hunt for a brand-new acronym? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
EA's Gibeau: SimCity 'plays like an MMO'
Remember when EA announced its SimCity MMO over a year ago? No? We don't either, and that's because the MMO moniker was only recently applied following the title's disasterific launch. Not so, according to EA president Frank Gibeau, though. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, he insisted that the online-only title has always been an MMO and that it's transition from a single-player franchise to an always-on environment has nothing to do with DRM. "I was involved in all the meetings. DRM was never even brought up once. You don't build an MMO because you're thinking of DRM -- you're building a massively multiplayer experience, that's what you're building," Gibeau said. "SimCity started out and felt like an MMO more than anything else and it plays like an MMO." He also posits that DRM is a "failed dead-end strategy" and "not a viable strategy for the gaming business." So why didn't EA market SimCity as an MMO from the beginning? Apparently it just slipped everyone's mind. "I'm disappointed that we didn't do a better job communicating that upfront," Gibeau explains.
EA recognizes Q3 will be 'soft' due to Medal of Honor: Warfighter, lack of NBA
A running theme during today's Electronic Arts second quarter investor call was the impact of Medal of Honor: Warfighter's critical failure and the publisher's canceled NBA game. No less than three times the pair of titles were mentioned in a negative manner, particularly when compared to the success of Battlefield 3 Premium and FIFA 13."We are managing the ups and downs. Our Q1 and Q2 were better than expected. Our Q3 appears soft, due mostly to Medal of Honor," said EA CEO John Riccitiello. He went on that the company reduced its guidance for the year because of the "weakness in Q3 associated with Medal of Honor."New CFO Blake Jorgensen also mentioned Medal of Honor's "weaker than expected performance" in his prepared remarks, also mentioning the decision to cancel the company's NBA title would also impact Q3 performance."EA Sports is committed to basketball and we will publish a basketball game when we can match the quality of franchises like Madden NFL, NHL Hockey, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and FIFA soccer," remarked EA labels prez Frank Gibeau later. He went on to note that Medal of Honor: Warfighter's critical reception fell below expectations, but that the company feels it's a "good game with a receptive audience."EA plans to support Medal of Honor: Warfighter with more marketing over the holidays, and, as Gibeau put it, going to school to improve NBA and meet EA Sports' standard of quality.
EA goes 100% online with gaming
From now on, don't expect to see EA coming out with single-player offline titles, because there won't be any. EA Labels President Frank Gibeau said that the company is full-on embracing cloud gaming and online interaction: "I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365." Forbes speculates that this approach might be a boon to MMO players, who might witness a movement toward more integrated services. EA isn't looking to turn all of its titles into MMOs, however, but is definitely adding multiplayer components and more social interaction to them going forward. Gibeau claims that this is what the players are demanding. "People want to access games anytime and anywhere, they want to connect with friends, and they want to be recognized across multiple devices," he said. "Cloud gaming is going to make it easier to step over walled gardens."
Gibeau: EA planning '3 to 5 new IPs' for next generation of consoles
President of EA labels Frank Gibeau is confident about the next generation of consoles. He thinks EA is a master of transition, even though he admits the publisher made a few missteps at the start of this generation. This year will see "a big investment" from EA in technologies aimed at the next series of consoles, and the publisher already has a handful of new IPs in the works."We've already started three-to-five new intellectual properties that we're going to launch in that first 24 months on the new-gen," Gibeau tells Bloomberg in the video interview above. Gibeau admits that while technology is a big part of it, the process begins with the game and building out from there. "What I think what you have to first do is start with the technology and the hardware that is coming out – what it does really, really well – and understand what's gonna drive innovation there. You start from the game out and you build enough games and enough diversity in your brands to come out with a really strong portfolio that you can sustain for multiple years."As for EA's strength during transition, Gibeau argues "EA has nailed about four of its five transitions" so far. "We had a bit of a rocky start on 360 and PS3, but we're number one publisher on those consoles. It took us a few years to come back on it, but we learned a lot from that transition and what went wrong, and we're applying that learning to make it right this time." Gibeau concludes that the jump from standard definition to high-definition, and consoles going from being unconnected boxes to online portals for gamers made this last transition tricky, but he's confident EA won't make the same mistakes again.
EA COO maintains confidence in BioWare
Some gamers claim that EA has lost confidence in BioWare, citing the studio's difficult year that included the less-than-hoped-for performance of Star Wars: The Old Republic and that the move to free-to-play later this fall is a sign of failure. EA COO Peter Moore, however, directly refutes that, saying, "They're doing great." Moore gave EA's take on why SWTOR didn't do as well as expected, explaining that the world of gaming changed between the time that project started and now, making a shift from subscription-based to F2P. He pointed out that changing business models was directly related to the desires of the playerbase, stating, "We do exit interviews. When people say I'm churning out, I'm going to step away for a while, we ask them why. Forty percent of people said, I just don't want to pay $15 a month. I love the game, but I'm just not into the subscription business." EA President Frank Gibeau first revealed the 40% sub-related departure rate in a previous investor call.
EA putting 'a lot of resources' toward preventing another 'FIFA hack' season
Electronic Arts made over $39 million in just three months off FIFA 12's Ultimate Team DLC last year – a 69 percent increase from the same period the year before – but it also created a lot of headaches for consumers (and us) with what came to be known as the "FIFA hack.""We learned a lot from the experience. A lot of companies are suffering from this right now. There's a lot of sophisticated hacking happening in the gaming industry and it's a continuous battle," EA Games president Frank Gibeau told us during Gamescom. "We take it very seriously, put a lot of resources on it. The learning from the FIFA example last year has been incorporated this year. There's some incremental and additional things. I don't want to get too detailed because I don't want to tip our hand. Rest assured, we take it very seriously."Gibeau said that EA did hire someone from Microsoft to add layers of security precautions and other anti-hack methods inside the publisher's products."You're never going to win this battle," said Gibeau, recognizing the company can only go so far. "The moment you declare victory, somebody will walk in and show you didn't. So you have to continuously stay on top of it and, most importantly, keep account integrity the first and foremost issue."So, should consumers feel more confident this year that they won't be hacked?"I hope that they do, and I think our performance will have to make them feel that way." He concluded, "We can promise it, but we have to actually show it."
Battlefield 3 and Bad Company 2 lead designer David Goldfarb exits DICE
Having worked on mostly Battlefield games for the past five years, the man who lead design on both Battlefield 3 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, David Goldfarb, has left EA's DICE studio. "5 years, 4 games. Grateful to have worked with such awesome people on awesome games. Farewell + Onward," he tweeted yesterday afternoon.Goldfarb told Joystiq of his exit, "I was ready to move onto new things and do something different." He wouldn't tell us where he's headed next.Goldfarb's not the first high profile DICE dev to leave the company in the past few years. Gordon Van Dyke left back in 2010; he's now with Paradox Interactive working on a Battlefield-flavored third-person action game from developer FatShark, War of the Roses. The other third of Battlefield's recent dev leadership, Patrick Bach, is currently serving as company CEO while Karl Magnus Troedsson takes paternity leave.Beyond various DLC plans for Battlefield 3, it's unknown what DICE is currently working on. The studio's Frostbite 2.0 game engine is used in several EA properties (including the other first-person shooter from EA, Medal of Honor: Warfighter), and the only other game it has made outside of Battlefield in recent years is Mirror's Edge. Troedsson told us during GDC that DICE has "ongoing plans" to differentiate its game portfolio, but we've yet to see that promise play out. EA Studios president Frank Gibeau has repeatedly noted his interest in a sequel to ME, but we've yet to hear anything more official than that.EA reps didn't respond to request for comment regarding Goldfarb's exit as of publishing.[Image credit: 'jontintinjordan']
EA boss: SWTOR 'absolutely going to embrace' free model
There's more news incoming on the Star Wars: The Old Republic free-to-play front. Electronic Arts boss Frank Gibeau recently talked business strategy with GamesIndustry International. "We're going to be in the business from a long-term standpoint so absolutely we're going to embrace free access, free trial, ultimately some day we can move in and embrace that model," he tells the website. Gibeau also stresses that EA is "really proud of Star Wars" and "really excited about the launch." He stops short of sounding the death-knell for the subscription model, though. "I don't think subscriptions ever go away, but when you have an IP as broad as Star Wars, we're definitely going to look at opportunities to grow that business and look at different ways of bringing customers in and serving them," he says.
Syndicate reboot 'didn't pay off' for EA; SSX reboot 'very successful'
Clearly a positive review on Joystiq isn't the sales driver we thought it was. Despite having a good time with it ourselves, it would seem EA's Syndicate reboot was not the commercial success the company had hoped for. So says EA Labels president Frank Gibeau."Syndicate was something that we took a risk on. It didn't pay off – it didn't work," Gibeau told CVG. "But in general it doesn't change my appetite for wanting to go look in the library and see what we have and maybe bring back some IPs for the next-generation. That's the nature of the business; some stuff works, some stuff doesn't."EA's other big reboot this year, SSX, apparently fared a bit better. Gibeau called this year's revival "a very successful launch for us," and lauded the game's "online innovation" as a catalyst for bringing the series back. "It's done well and you'll probably see more in the future," Gibeau concluded.
