In the video game and tech industries there seems to be unanimity in the perception that Microsoft and EA are the enemies of innovation and the common man. In the case of Electronic Arts, every time they acquire a new developer or negotiate for exclusivity on a license we reflexively see it as evidence of being "part of the problem." Their history with regards to Westwood Studios (Command & Conquer), Bullfrog Productions (Populous, Syndicate), and Origin Systems (Ultima, Wing Commander) and how they treated these development houses and their IPs lend legitimacy to many of the past criticisms of EA’s business practices. Particularly, Electronic Arts is often accused of playing it safe by churning out sequels to established licenses rather than trying to innovate. It’s not a hard conclusion to come to after years of Madden titles, The Sims expansion packs, and multi-million dollar grabs at entire sports leagues.

But in 2007, things began to change for EA that a lot of people may have overlooked. They lost the number one publisher spot to Activision. They lost their CEO and found a new one in John Riccitiello. And most importantly, they lost faith in their business model and realized that they weren’t helping the game industry.

Shifting Gears

A few months after taking up his new CEO spot at Electronic Arts and only a few days before E3 2007, John Riccitiello did an interview with the Wall Street Journal that revealed a surprising change of heart at EA. "We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play," said Riccitiello. "For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat," he continued. "There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before." Wait a second. Was this the same EA that we’d seen a dozen The Sims products and annual Madden entries from now criticizing its own publishing strategy?

In another interview a few weeks later, Riccitiello admitted that Electronic Arts didn’t anticipate the success of the Wii, and that their business model would be changing to focusing on more new IPs and more accessible games. In fact, just a month earlier, EA announced a massive restructuring of its brand labels to better represent their new direction. Electronic Arts would now publish its games under the EA Games, EA Sports, EA Casual Entertainment, and The Sims identities. If you don’t follow the business side of the game industry you might have ignored these events, but they’re hugely significant. You might still be shrugging and thinking that this “evolution” at EA is nothing more than an attempt at some good PR and a ploy to drive stock prices, and I initially thought the same. But lately I’ve been seeing some interesting changes for the better at EA that the consumer should notice as well. Still don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at some examples.

Risky Business

An often overlooked upside to the derivative cash cows like Madden and The Sims is that they give EA the funds to gamble on new intellectual properties like Spore, Army of Two, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, and Rock Band. Smaller publishers and developers usually don't have the kind of capital to take on the risk of something entirely new and unknown. That isn't to say that smaller publishers never try, but the frequency with which they safely can or do is significantly reduced and you end up with situations like CAPCOM's shutdown of its Clover Studios.