EA: ‘The PC Just Sprints Ahead’

Peter Moore, the EA COO has given a comprehensive interview with our colleagues at Wired on the topic of EAs transformation in response to the videogame industry. With a new focus on PC development, Moore is quoted as saying:
“As you get further into the cycle of fixed hardware, the PC just sprints ahead. The things we can do on the PC because of the power of both the CPU and the GPU are unbelievable.”
Although that might not and is not news in even the most humble of ways, what is interesting is the fact that this comment came from EA. As Mr. Moore continues himself:
“When I first arrived at EA in 2007 […] the PC was dead to us. We just couldn’t find the right business model for it. The console could become acceptable to the wife, the mother, the girlfriend. As a result, the PC became a little bit pushed back into the office and the study.”
However the PC’s accessibility for digital distribution as well as a cloud-based business has paved its comeback to further consideration on the side of EA.
“The big client PC games are back. Stuff we can do on an open platform from a business perspective, from patching every day without having to go through certification, or anybody else, dealing directly with the consumer without having to deal with our great friends at Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, makes the PC a very attractive platform.”
Moore then continues to explain SWTORs change to F2P commenting that while people enjoyed the game, the monthly subscription left them with a feeling of being ‘locked in’ and thus they had an uncomfortable time playing the game. Analysing the data they received from leaving subscribers,
“….it was very clear to us that if we could knock down that initial barrier to entry that is price, we could blow out the funnel, and instead of dealing with several hundred thousand people on a regular basis, we could get into millions. That was the plan. The world moved very quickly around us, and we had to react.”
While I personally doubt that price was the only thing that made people unsubscribe from SWTOR, it’s obviously, keeping in mind the upcoming F2P launch, in EAs interest to put it so. EA has been known to say some controversial things and often going back on what previously has been said. For those that rejoice having heard EA’s ‘confession’ that PC gaming is superior to consoles, here is another extract from the interview. Make up your own mind.
“Eventually consoles will spring ahead again and PCs will catch up but what has helped PC has been connected entertainment, putting so much stuff in the cloud. We’ve always been the number one PC publisher in the world.”
Head over to Wired to check the full interview with Peter Moore’s thoughts on digital vs. retail, Zynga, Facebook gaming and others.