EA enters its expansion-pack era as gaming companies count on never-ending titles
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Long cutscene… For the first time in eight years, EA Games hosted an analyst meeting this week, and the largest standalone game publisher’s stock slipped after it left investors wanting concrete financial updates. EA avoided specifics but said it planned to double its audience to 1B+ over the next five years. The “NBA Live” publisher also didn’t peg down a date for its anticipated “Battlefield” sequel. Yet it didn’t leave gamers completely empty-handed:
AI NPCs: EA announced it has 100+ active AI projects, including game-development tools that can generate characters and scenes. “Sims 4” players will be able to use AI-powered image search to find assets like outfits and houses.
Barbie Sim: While “The Sims” won’t be getting a fifth installment, there’ll be updates, expansions, and a movie (with Amazon’s MGM and Margot Robbie’s production co).
Sorry, completionists… modern games are often impossible to 100%, and it’s by design. Games have longer shelf lives than ever: “The Sims 4,” released a decade ago, has 85M players — 4x as many as it had in 2020. EA is raking in the simoleons: three-quarters of its annual net bookings come from “live services” like in-game purchases (a $7 knitting kit for your Sim). To that end, EA will start selling user-generated content in “The Sims 4,” taking a page from Roblox. It’s also debuting an EA Sports app to engage players of hit games like “Madden NFL.”
It’s easier to play from a save point… New games can cost hundreds of millions to develop, and a flop can be a big financial hit. Sony pulled its recent shooter game “Concord” from stores after two weeks, when the ~$100M game was estimated to have sold fewer than 25K copies (whereas “Call of Duty” games sell millions). Rolling out new titles is risky, which is why EA might want to save its progress with “The Sims 4.”