Pigskin scores for Electronic Arts as video-game publishers add AI to their gameplans

College football goes pro… Facing an industry-wide gaming slowdown, “Madden” maker Electronic Arts turned to the game it knows best to help it weather the storm: football. The publisher said its sales grew 6% last quarter as it scored a record $2.1B in net bookings (a 14% jump from last year). EA’s football franchises are expected to eclipse $1B in sales this fiscal year. The company’s new “College Football 25” game — already the second-best-selling sports game of all time — is leading its stat sheet.

• Touchdown celly: Both new player #s and total football game-play time more than doubled from last year.

• The other football: “EA Sports FC,” the company’s first soccer title after the end of a 30-year FIFA partnership, has also more than doubled its player numbers.

• Sim-ulating: Along with pigskin wins, EA said its decade-old “Sims 4” game added another 15M players this year.

Adding AI to the playbook… Game publishers have been dabbling in genAI. EA this year said it had 100+ active AI projects, including a new partnership with Adobe that lets “College Football 25” players generate custom team logos. GenAI elements have reportedly found their way into major franchises like Microsoft’s “Call of Duty,” and about half of game developers said AI’s being used in their workplace (which could be contributing to mass gaming layoffs). Gaming voice and motion actors represented by SAG-AFTRA have been on strike for almost 100 days over companies’ use of AI.