The Importance of Mobile

Last week EA's president of Casual Entertainment explained her perspective on her plans for non-traditional gaming markets.

In part two she talks about her perception of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, as well as the importance of the mobile platform moving forwards.

At this point, Casual does not exclude any of the platforms. However, from a demographic standpoint, early adopters of Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 are not looking for casual experiences. So to take a casual game and to put big support behind the launch of a new platform is probably not the most prudent strategy. But as the platforms age, then you start seeing PS3 or Xbox 360 pick up the more casual consumer. That's the point in time where they become a bigger part of the mix for me.

At the same time, there's things like Xbox Live Arcade, for instance, where even core gamers like to have short bursts of fun in casual games. Sometimes there are good businesses early in the platform that are just a segment of the platform.

I don't think [mobile gaming] has been a priority for most of the traditional video game companies and even the ones who may have gotten in early on, like THQ Wireless.

If you approach it like you approach the regular video game business, you will either be not successful or incredibly frustrated. To be successful on a new game on a mobile phone, you need to hit thousands of handsets on Day 1. You have to organize differently; you have to think differently about your development process and deployment process.

There's been so much growth in the core business that a lot of companies said, I'm just going to maximize my participation in the market -- I'm just going to keep focused. And I think other groups said, it's not worth our time, or we don't get it, or we can license our brands out.

The mobile business is coming out of that first phase of a new industry where the market is growing so fast and early adopters are hungry for anything you can give them. You're sorting things out with the carriers, growing internationally, and throwing things up there and seeing what sticks. I think we're getting to the point in the cycle, which is still double-digit growth, where we're saying, how do we continue to grow? It's probably not to just keep doing what we have been doing. It's about, how do we broaden to reach more consumers?

We know exactly what to do to reach the early adopters of cellphone games. We've done that well. But we're not content to stay at our current share of the current-size market. We see our role as the lead player to formulate growth strategies to ensure that we grow the whole pie, so that our Number 1 share is more meaningful to us.

The Casual Entertainment division is a mix of differently sized and differently organized businesses. But mobile is a very important part of today's business and of growth for the future.

If you're talking about developer resources, the hardest thing when I was at Activision [was] always going up against the industry heavyweight, EA, and having to differentiate yourself. We grew parts of the business from not existent to big pieces, [and] grew internationally.

Some of those challenges are with me here. I wasn't certain at the time I was going to go back to working in the video game space, because I didn't want to do the same thing I had done at Activision. One of the reasons that this job was so appealing is that I didn't come in and run one of the existing businesses; I've come in to build a new division, and to deliver significant growth to EA. The idea of building and growing something -- that's what really attracted and excited me.

This role with new platforms and very different consumers and, therefore, very different products was exactly what I was looking for in terms of building something again. The good news is that I do it from the comfort of having EA resources behind me.