Electronic Arts Stressing The Importance Of Single-Player Games

During its first quarter earnings call in July, Electronic Arts was asked how single-player games fit into the company’s vision, and CEO Andrew Wilson made it clear what the company’s stance was:

“Our players, on balance, they have these core motivations—inspiration, escape, social connection, competition, self-improvement, creation—these things that bring us together as players of games,” said Wilson. “And the creation of worlds, the building of characters, and the telling of stories is really important in the fulfillment of some of those motivations. When we think about our portfolio and we think about building it out, we really think about it on two key vectors. One, how can we tell incredible stories? And two, how can we build tremendous online communities? And then how do we bring those two things together? So, when you look at our portfolio, what you should be looking for is, how are we doing that? How are we building these worlds and telling these stories? How are we developing global online communities? And how are we bringing those two things together for the fulfillment of motivations?”

The company’s Chief Financial Officer Chris Suh followed this declaration by making note of the fact that live services accounted for almost 75% of Electronic Arts’ business.

“If we think about the model impact and the financial impact of it, I think the first thing to always keep in mind is that live services still encompass, on a trailing 12-month basis, over 70% of our business, and that has been a proven, very reliable, highly reoccurring revenue stream, and that will still be the predominant driver in our P&L [profit and loss] long-term,” said Suh. “Second, we’ve talked a lot about the areas of investment that we’re making, and that’s both in the live service as well as some of the single[-player] title launches that you’ve seen. And so over the course of time we’ll continue to invest, our long-term growth will continue to invest in the ongoing, stable performance of our live services business and there’ll be some puts and takes along the way.”

Electronic Arts had seemingly shifted away from single-player games the last decade or so, but has seemingly warmed up to them again following the massive successes of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, and a Dead Space remake.

In the meantime, it’s been confirmed that Electronic Arts is making a single-player, open-world Black Panther game, which it’s betting heavily on. The title is in the early stages of development and is expected to launch in 2024.

(All information was provided by Video Games Chronicle)