ea

EA crowned top publisher of 2010

Electronic Arts has been named the leading games publisher for the second year in a row. The firm took the biggest share of the UK games market in 2010 in terms of revenue generated from games and units sold – as it did in 2009. Data from GfK Chart-Track revealed that Activision Blizzard and Nintendo took the second and third biggest share of the market in terms of value, while Ubisoft and Nintendo were the No.2 and No.3 publishers in terms of games sold. 2010 was also a bumper year for Microsoft as Xbox 360 took the biggest console market share. It took 35.2 per cent of the market in terms of value and 28.9 per cent of total retail game sales. To see the full charts and analysis, read the top publishers of 2010 list.

Read More

EA CEO Claims Cloud Gaming Is Not The Future

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitello has announced that he thinks cloud-gaming is not necessarily the future, and that games issued on disc are still the best way for consumers to enjoy gaming. In an interview with Industry Gamers, Riccitello claimed that discs will be around for a long time to come as they are still the most practical and reliable way of accessing games quickly. “I think the consumer…doesn’t care what the technology is, what lives behind the veiled curtain; they just want it to work,” Riccitello said. He explained that streaming a game is often not the most efficient way of processing the experience. He pointed out that relying on an internet connection means that users would be unable to access games if their broadband was down and that there are lag issues with slower connections. “The point, though, that I’m making is that sometimes you’re not going to…

Read More

EA and LucasArts Enter Into New Global Publishing Agreement for Star Wars: The Old Republic

In what amounts to a bit of publisher houscleaning, Electronic Arts has announced that it has entered into a new agreement with LucasArts that basically has EA taking over most of the publishing and marketing duties for the upcoming MMO Star Wars The Old Republic. Under the new agreement, LucasArts will continue to collaborate with EA and the game’s developer BioWare on the “design and marketing” for the game in addition to LucasArts’ basic role as the licensor of the Star Wars property itself. Financial terms of this new deal were not disclosed. BioWare and LucasArts first entered into an agreement to collaborate on Star Wars The Old Republic back in 2007 before the game itself was announced and just before BioWare was acquired by EA. The game itself was announced in October 2008. EA and Lucasfilm Ltd, announced today an updated global publishing agreement for the highly anticipated massively multiplayer…

Read More

SWTOR – The $ 300 million Failure?

fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering A soon to be former employee of EA Bioware/Mythic has written a very lengthy post on why he/she believes Warhammer Online has failed. I don’t really care much about the Warhammer stuff, as I left that game soon after it was released. But for us the most relevant bits are where the poster talks about Star Wars: The Old Republic. And, according to the poster, it isn’t pretty: And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that? And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have….

Read More