State of Play: Electronic Arts

By sharing technologies internally - allowing specialist teams to focus on their key areas and product needs, but then distributing that tech to other areas - EA is leveraging its team size and resources, whilst remaining product-focused and nimble. But sharing tech doesn't mean that individual studio identity is being crushed. That, says Bradshaw, is key to success and happy employees.

"One thing I've always appreciated about EA's senior management is that they do respect the culture that each one of the studios and groups that come to EA has," says the EA Play Label boss.

"That makes for a stronger portfolio and a more interesting point of view. I think there's a lot of sharing of information and collaboration, a very strong drive towards a relationship. Some of the tools we have as a team to drive that direct to consumer relationship, be it community, or distribution or DLC activities, it's about those strengths and experiences combining to make EA stronger."

That synergy, of central identity and individual freedom results in a model closer to a republic than the Evil Empire of old, and although the influences of the central government undoubtedly control the output of outlying regions like BioWare, the house of the Doctors is just as likely to learn from Playfish as it is the board.

By spreading its bets across a number of disciplines, EA invites a Jack of All label, but also inures itself against the shrinkage of any of those markets, allowing a fluid move into more emergent areas. So is the Redwood behemoth preparing for another financial crisis?

"Well we've made investment," says Moore. "Companies that truly believe, and I don't think EA as a company does believe we're about to go into a double dip recession, hang on to their money on their balance sheet as a bit of a war chest to see them through rough times.

"We're seeing a growth business. I think the key in tough times is that you've got to offer the consumer more opportunities to buy content at a cheaper price. Even though we're theoretically in recessionary times, iPads are selling at a breakneck record, smartphones are setting records, the console business goes up and down depending on what month it is."

Intat is less certain.

"If you look at what happened in recessions in the past and try to correlate, I would actually try to warn you against trying to make a conclusion, because you never know what might have happened without a recession," says the European head.

"The underlying progress of our industry, which is the attractiveness of games and the attractiveness of hardware platforms, but mainly the games, is driving the industry much more than economic factors.

"If you have a total recession it might have an impact on people actually buying consoles, new consoles. But having said that, there are so many other devices out there that people can play on that I'm not actually really sure whether recession would be a good or a bad thing. I don't know."

Ambition tempered by some inherited humility and bolstered by showmanship seems like an apt precis of where the company sees itself heading - a laudable goal. But can a leopard really change its spots? Peter Moore would certainly like you to think so.

We see games as a 365 days of the year live operations experience. It's no longer launch and leave, no longer the dev team getting there then throwing it over the fence and going on holiday for 3 weeks and comes back and starts all over again.

Peter Moore, Chief Operating Officer

"We see games as a 365 days of the year live operations experience. Whether it's a sports game, or a shooter like Battlefield 3, or Star Wars as an MMO. It's no longer launch and leave, no longer the dev team getting there then throwing it over the fence and going on holiday for 3 weeks and comes back and starts all over again.

"When we look at how we're structured and a little bit even at my level here with the recent restructure - it's for this digital age. The dev teams are the same way. We're as likely now to be hiring biz analysts on a dev team as we are a programmer.

"People will look at what's going on every hour of every day, with telemetry from people such as yourself who might be playing FIFA - their job is to figure out what people want, and give it to them - and not give it to them next month in a patch but the following day.

"In the 12 years that I've been in this industry, gaming has changed radically at every level - from a development perspective, from a marketing perspective, distribution channels, everything. And it's all focused around the consumer at the centre rather than what a publisher like us needs to do to drive our business, because the consumer is now in charge, that's what online has done for this industry."

But then he would say that, wouldn't he?