EA SPORTS ANNOUNCES PLANS TO RELEASE THE SAME GAME EVERY YEAR

August 9 2009

Redwood City, CA – By the time Electronic Arts released the first version of Madden Football in 1989 the company was already growing into a mammoth. One of the first major American video game studios, EA has grown into a multimedia machine with
some of the most successful franchises in the history of the medium. That success
though has also been the industry’s success as those games helped to popularize the medium of videogames and bring it into the mainstream. Madden Football has of course led the way for the company and been largely responsible for growing it into the giant it is today.

EA though has endured a great deal of criticism in recent years, both for its monopolistic action against smaller developers and for the decreasing quality of their titles. Much of that criticism has been levelled at the various sports franchises that help to define the company and the lack of variety in titles from year to year. For many years the giant ignored that criticism but since being usurped as the king of the video game castle has begun to take a different approach to commentary and to its games. Now the company announced that they will no longer change the content of their sports titles but simply offer new covers and significantly decreased prices.

“EA is extremely happy to be able to offer this new experience and value to our loyal
customers. We have heard your criticism and we want you to know that we have been listening. EA is first and foremost a company for gamers by gamers and we want everyone to know that our first loyalty is to the players,” said a spokesperson for the company. “Starting in fiscal ’10 our extensive and unmatched sports line-up will undergo cosmetic changes only. Covers will change but the discs will be the same. This will give you, the customer, the opportunity to purchase a whole new disc, a new cover, or stick with the version you already have. Never in our industry has such choice and flexibility been afforded to customers and we are thrilled to provide this opportunity to our loyal customers.”

The first refreshed released will be next year’s version of ‘Tiger Woods PGA Tour’. The company confirmed that they will make absolutely no changes to the disc or the content and that the 2011 version of the game will be exactly the same as the 2010 version, save for the cover changes.

“Too often companies change product or remove it entirely from the market just when it’s been perfected. How often do you go into a store and find that your favourite cookie or whatever is simply not being made anymore or that it’s been changed so dramatically that it’s not the same thing anymore. With this EA will be able to avoid that disappointment in their consumers,” said Scrape TV Gaming analyst Graeme Hawthorne. “Too often EA has had a reputation of not listening to the gamers and done things regardless of the consequences. Since Activision Blizzard took over as the most powerful company in
the gaming world there has been a sea change within the company and this is an extension of that change, one that will hopefully benefit gamers.”

Though a pricing scheme has yet to be released it is believed that the new/old versions of the games will be significantly lower in cost to the original releases. The company has no plans on selling the new sleeves without the discs.

“All video game companies are in tight right now. The industry is one of the few casual
industries that has managed to thrive through the rough economy but a contraction is inevitable. Abstract strategies like this one could be just the thing the industry needs to stay vital no matter where the economy goes in the future,” continued Hawthorne. “By reducing things like development costs and labour the overhead on all of these releases is dramatically reduced. Those savings will go right to the bottom line. Consumers will also benefit because of the reduced cost. They will likely notice little or no difference in their play experience but their personal investment will be reduced so ultimately this strategy should work out to be a win-win.”

The company is also planning similar strategies for other popular franchises such as ‘Rock Band’ and ‘The Sims’.  

Douglas Havermore, Games Correspondent

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