A portion of a VG247 interview with EA’s Peter Moore… VG: Talking about EA Sports PM: We need to grow our game business, and I’ve been very clear over the last 18 months about the expansion of the brand. To expand our core business is important, but growing again and getting after that new consumer… it’s not a game. But one thing I told Dave McCarthy [demoing EA Sports Active in the intro demo at the event] was that he’d better smile while he was doing this. And that was the creative brief I gave him. He’ll tell you that. He’s worked so hard to get this game right. This game has been a labour of love for him and his team. It’s exercise with a smile on your face. But you’ve got to be able to get this thing right, basically. To your point, it’s out of our core competency, and it was not easy to get it going and get it right, then all of a sudden it clicked. And boy, we did a lot of usability, brought a lot of people into the studio, got a lot of feedback from Riccitiello and myself, and David has been a trooper. We’ve finally got it right, and we’re very proud of where we’re at right now. This is a brand new platform. To your question, I call it a platform. Yes, it’s a game, but it’s bigger than a game, bigger than a franchise, bigger than a product. It’s a true platform that we can sell expansion packs, sell more peripherals, ultimately get some download on there. I’ve got to figure out how to get your biometrics on the screen. If I can do that, if I can get your heart-rate on the screen, I mean then I can really drive towards what my vision of this product ultimately can be. It’s not difficult, but it’s not cheap. I mean, you can find heart monitors that give off wirelessly, but I’ve got to figure out how to get a transceiver, if you will, on the screen. Once we do that I think we’ve really stepped up. It’s good for the industry that we’re doing things, experiences, games, products, whatever you want to call them, that allow us to look and point at something that is do-good. Because over here you suffer from what is probably the most vitriolic press. The Daily Mail always seems to jump up on this stuff and blame [videogames] for pestilence, the plague, everything, and I think it’s good that we have things to point to that say, ‘This is getting you off the couch’ and provide a little bit of balance. It gives us a defensive argument about what we do in our industry. source: http://gonintendo.com/?p=80981
Active, which is probably your biggest departure from a traditional product, I spoke to Jen [PR demoing the game] about it yesterday, and she very candidly said that it wasn’t a game. Is there a slide on your PowerPoint that says “game” one way and “non-game” the other? I mean, is it part of your strategy that you want to have non-game products, or do you just want to be in that sector with Wii Fit?
