Tis the season to be suing the pants off your nearest rivals. Activision’s lawsuit against former Infinity Ward gents Jason West and Vince Zampella has expanded to include—you guessed it!—EA. Activision claims that EA “set out to destabilize, disrupt and to attempt to destroy Infinity Ward.” Ooh! West and Zampella left Infinity Ward earlier this year, and have since formed a company called Respawn Entertainment, which will create games for EA. Oh: the lawsuit against EA is worth a cool $400 million. Why innovate (or even iterate) when you can litigate? → Read More
It seems like it was only *the day before today* when in-game ads were all the rage. I even remember candidate Obama taking out campaign ads in one of those racing games. Those days may be coming to an end, with EA saying that micro-transactions, and not in-game ads, are the *true* source of additional revenue for publishers. That’s good news and bad news. It’s good news for those of you who *hate* to see in-game ads, but it’s bad news for those of you who *equally hate* having to pay 75 cents every time you cast a spell in an MMO, or shoot off a round of ammunition in an FPS. → Read More
Man, October was a pretty bad month for video game sales, particularly those published by the big guns. Medal of Honor, EA’s modern day reboot of the series, sold a little more than 1 million copies. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, 1 million copies sold, but the expectation was for closer to 1.5 million copies sold. Perhaps people saw that the game was just OK: nothing stellar but nothing to freak out over. → Read More
EA has announced the development of Battlefield Play4Free. I’ll forgive the use of the “4” in the title since Battlefield 3 is already in development. Moving on. As you might imagine, it’s Battlefield, and it’s free. Not too bad. → Read More
Following in the footsteps of Zynga, Electronic Arts has just announced that it has entered into a five-year strategic relationship with Facebook. Similar to the Zynga deal, Facebook Credits will become the exclusive payment method in EA games on Facebook.
EA, which owns Zynga competitor Playfish, will enter into a 70-30 percent revenue share for Facebook Credits, according to a release. Playfish operates a number of popular social games on Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, and other social networks, including Pet Society, Restaurant City, Country Story and Who Has The Biggest Brain? → Read More
EA Sports MMA went on sale last week. The first week’s sales? Not too good, which furthers the idea that it’s not mixed martial arts (MMA) that’s hot right not, but rather it’s UFC that’s hot right now. A Cowen & Company analyst has called the game’s sales “more or less DOA at retail.” Ouch. → Read More
Yikes. A quick trip to Metacritic (a site I usually loathe, but it’s helpful right now) reveals that EA’s Medal of Honor is… just OK. It’s currently sitting at 76 out of 100. Not exactly what EA’s bigwigs were hoping, you have to assume. Wall Street isn’t happy, either, but what do those guys know, how to loose other people’s money? Exactly. One analyst said that the reviews are “a black eye for EA management given the amount of focus and hype they have placed on the game,” before adding, wryly, welcome to “Tier 2.” I see what you did there. → Read More
EA’s Medal of Honor is available today, and the very first reviews have already appeared online. The general verdict: not too bad. Not perfect by any means, but bad at all. → Read More
Well, there it is. EA has announced that it’s changing the name of “the bad guys” in Medal of Honor from the Taliban (which, incidentally, merely means “students” in Pashto—I know this because I read it in a book) to the “Opposing Force.” If you ask me, “Opposing Force” sounds like the name for a stable of heels in pro-wrestling. “Look out, Opposing Force has arrived at the arena!” → Read More
All this negative attention? Apparently not have a negative impact. EA’s upcoming Medal of Honor now holds the distinction of being the most pre-ordered game in the series’ history. Nice. → Read More
As anyone with working pair of eyes knows, EA released FIFA 11 yesterday. Far more important than Madden to EA’s global bottom line, FIFA 11 is the company’s latest chance for you take take Real Madrid to Wembley. Well, unless your name is Pedro León! → Read More
EA will host a three-day Medal of Honor open beta (PC version only, I’m afraid) beginning on October 4. Why? Oh, you know why. → Read More
If you’re a startup that’s building a game development platform, you can’t get a much bigger endorsement than the one Unity is getting today from Electronic Arts, the multi-billion dollar developer of the Madden series, Harry Potter games, and more. Today, the companies are announcing that EA has signed a multi-year enterprise deal with Unity: EA will be using Unity’s platform across multiple franchises, and all of EA’s developers will have access to the “entire range of Unity products from web and mobile to consoles and beyond”. The timing is also good: Unity is launching its 3.0 upgrade next week.
The EA partnership for Unity is big in and of itself, but check out this quote from EA VP Chief Creative Director Richard Hilleman: → Read More
The first expansion pack for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be released only as a DLC. (Cue people complaining about DLC.) EA says Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam, which is scheduled to be released this winter, will only be available via download. → Read More
The European soccer season is well under way, and that could mean only one thing: the new FIFA and PES games are right around the corner! I’m a PES man myself, but I’m more than willing to give the new FIFA a try. And why not? Both EA and Konami have released demos of both games today. Here’s what you can expect. → Read More
As if there were any doubt that the free-to-play model for MMOs would take off (and be viable, too), word from EA is that its online racer, Need For Speed World, has passed the 1 million user mark. The game, which officially launched on July 27, puts players in a perpetual world where they can race each other, earn points, customize their cars, etc. → Read More
The demo for EA’s upcoming EA Sports MMA will be released on September 28 for both the Xbox 360 and PS3. There will be four fighters to choose from, one of which was badly exposed at the most recent Strikeforce event and another of which isn’t even a part of Strikeforce anymore. Banging on all cylinders, I see. → Read More
As expected, EA’s Medal of Honor is coming under fire from all sides. The game, a first-person shooter, is scheduled to be released on October 12 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, takes place in Afghanistan, and puts you in control of U.S. soldiers on the ground there. It also, at least in the multi-player mode, lets you play as the Taliban. So, the natural line of thinking is, what kind of video game lets you shoot and kill U.S. soldiers? → Read More
Captain America Landon Donovan is the cover boy for FIFA 11 here in North America. Well, Kaká, of Brazil, is the real cover athlete, but Donovan and Carlos Vela, of Mexico, share the cover with him. → Read More
Last year, EA Sports brought its hit football franchise Madden to the iPhone and iPod Touch — the game went on to become one of the top-selling iOS games of 2009, and has since racked up a total of nearly 13,000 reviews. Later this week, the gaming powerhouse will be bringing the virtual gridiron to a device that’s even better suited for its touchscreen gameplay: the iPad.
Madden 2011 will be released for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch this Tuesday (pricing details haven’t been announced, but the iPad version will likely go for around $12, and the iPhone version will be less expensive). We sat down with Jeremy Gross, a Producer at EA Mobile, who gave us a walkthrough of the final version of the game. → Read More
