EA CFO backs off "microtransactions in all games" statement

[Azazel]

Executive says comments from last week were misconstrued, only applicable to mobile market

Last week, Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen made headlines when he told investors the publisher was building microtransactions into all of its games. Jorgensen spoke at the Wedbush Securities Transformational Technologies Management Access Conference today, and took the opportunity to walk back his statements a bit.

"I made a statement in the conference along the lines of, 'we'll have microtransactions in our games,'" Jorgensen explained. "And the community read that to be 'all games.' And that's really not true."

He did concede that all mobile games were likely to have microtransactions built into them due to the free-to-play focus. He pointed to the recently released Real Racing 3 as an example of the company's strategy on this front.

As for the non-mobile market, Jorgensen said the company was instead focusing on "extensions." As an example, Jorgensen pointed to Battlefield Premium, which offers players all five of the game's expansions as well as some perks for an extra $50.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-off-microtransactions-in-all-games-statement

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Given what they've done with Dead Space 3, then having made that announcement after it's launch, I remain skeptical, esp when you combine it with their statement about wanting to have some kind of online component in all their games, even ones that were originally meant to be played solo.

From what I can tell, this online subscription-like mentality that's associated with F2P games is infecting all their titles.

 

[Frick]

In the olden days known as "expansions" and in modern times as "DLC".

Anyway makes sense.

 

[Fourstaff]

In the olden days known as "expansions" and in modern times as "DLC".

Anyway makes sense.

In the olden days expansions were crafted to be a significant chunk of content, nowadays what you get is more akin to a small bit like a new map or horse armour. Sure, bite size and you buy only what you want, but I do miss another big adventure with roughly the same settings.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I think the means test between defining what is an expansion and what isn't is by looking at the cost of what it would take to publish on disk and distribute it. If there isn't even content in it to get people to buy it as a retail product, it's DLC. DLC is something they'd never turn a profit on if they published it because they'd have to sell it for less than cost to get enough volume to make up the publication costs. Micro-transactions, for example, will not work on the old publication model unless they bundle lots of them together and sell it as an expansion.

 

[Frick]

In the olden days expansions were crafted to be a significant chunk of content, nowadays what you get is more akin to a small bit like a new map or horse armour. Sure, bite size and you buy only what you want, but I do miss another big adventure with roughly the same settings.

Some games have good DLC, like Fallout New Vegas. Otherwise i agree it generally is a bad concept.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

EA people seem to be backing off on lots of things.
Promises of refunds for SimCity included:

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/...s-refunds-threatens-customer-with-origin-bans

 

[Azazel]

emm

They did not go back on anything, the guy was being a jerk

the threads he posted did not say anything about giving people refunds...most digital distributors don't.

 

[happita]

their statement about wanting to have some kind of online component in all their games, even ones that were originally meant to be played solo.

From what I can tell, this online subscription-like mentality that's associated with F2P games is infecting all their titles.

I suspect that F2P games are going down the road of mobile F2P where they advertise ads in-game which is very annoying to see while playing. Then they offer you a few extras if you decide to actually pay for it, one of them being no more online advertisements. I think most future games (80% or more) will be following that business plan 1 way or another unfortunately. I think it's a pretty f'd up way to force customers to pay in order to support them.