EA's Casual Attitude

As the video game industry shifts significantly towards producing more casual gaming titles, Electronic Arts has followed suit. In June 2007 Kathy Vrabeck was hired by EA Games to lead their Casual Entertainment division. As the president for this newly- formed label, she oversees not only packaged retail games, such as those utilizing the Harry Potter license, but also the company's popular online games site, Pogo, and its mobile games service (EA Mobile).

Vrabeck came aboard EA from one of their major competitors, Activision, where she first worked as a top executive from 1999 and was eventually promoted to president in late 2003. It was throughout this period that she was involved in strengthening the Activision brand and its position in the market - especially against EA - by leaning heavily on licensed properties and expanding business internationally.

She left Activision in April 2006, and, as she admitted to GamesIndustry.biz, was not sure if she would return to the videogames business, until the opportunity with EA arose. (Prior to a career in videogames, Vrabeck mostly worked as an executive at food brand corporations, like ConAgra and Quaker Oats.)

Less than 3 months into her new job, Vrabeck spoke with GamesIndustry.biz about EA expanding and strengthening its business in casual games, and her observations on the different approaches required to succeed in this category.

Kathy Vrabeck: No, I wouldn't say that. You accurately point out that EA has done great things in the casual space. I would [include] the stuff they did in acquiring Pogo and continuing to build that, as well as buying JAMDAT and becoming the Number 1 leader in mobile gaming over the course of the last year.

I think what they recognized - what John [Riccitiello, EA CEO] in particular recognised - was that this is a business that needs to be run differently than the rest of the businesses, if it's going to capitalize on the kind of growth that people are talking about in the casual gaming space.

We will not likely have "EA Casual" as a consumer facing brand. The casual space is full of people who don't even know what "EA" stands for. We'll be working game titles [and] franchises on their own verses "EA Casual in your face."

That's right. Internally, we use ["EA Casual"] for differentiating our group from the other groups. But, externally to the consumer, it won't look like that.

The answer to that question is an answer in of itself. In the casual market, it will always be about the suite of games that you're putting out there. The business models and new ways of thinking about who the casual consumer is [are] really what's exciting about what's coming up.

It's not one big title. It's not Tetris on mobile, although that's a very important title. It's really about how we are bringing games to mobile. It's how we're going to be attacking the online casual space. It's going to be about how we build up the kids' business. It's about how we develop a business in Asia. There's really not one thing that is the most exciting. It's that there are about 8-to-10 really big things that are exciting.

That's exactly right.

The biggest is thinking differently about the business model. For the last 10 - 20 years, it's been about getting a terrific game onto as many console platforms as you can and shipping it into Best Buy, Wal-Mart or wherever around the world.

You can't think with that mindset when you approach casual, because casual traditionally has different distribution methods. (It can be packaged goods, and there're some great examples of stuff we're launching on the Wii or the DS this year. Harry Potter covered all the platforms.) But it is more about: How do we create business online? How much of it comes from ad sales? How do you get people turned into subscription users, like we have on Pogo? And mobile: How do you work that?

When you think about Asia, the packaged goods model is not the model that has been successful. It's been about online, sometimes even giving away the product and monetizing it through micro-transactions. So the biggest challenge is making sure that you're not too boxed in by the traditional video game model.

It's literal. (Chuckles)

I'm not narrowing it down by traditional demographic measures: age, gender, where they live, or income. We're really looking at it - and it may be "ill-defined" by your standards - [as] opening up interactive gaming to people. It's more about a mindset that we're targeting than it is a demographic. It's people who are looking to be entertained in some sort of gaming format in short bursts of time. It doesn't mean they won't sit down and play for three hours, but it's "quick to the fun." It's things that can provide early rewards - rewards early and often, building those kinds of experiences into the game, making them easy to access, not requiring a USD 60 purchase price to get in and play. Some of the Pogo guys call it, "more carrot, less stick."