http://www.ea.com/news/announcing-the-ea-competitive-gaming-division-led-by-peter-moore
The same Peter Moore who said:
For many of you, the passion for games is defined by competition – a relentless focus on being the best, and leaving your mark on the games you love. It fuels many of the amazing things we see from millions of you playing EA games each day. As this passion continues to grow, we’re committed to creating even more opportunities for you to connect and compete.
Today I am excited to announce that Peter Moore is moving into a new role as Executive Vice President and Chief Competition Officer for Electronic Arts, leading our new EA Competitive Gaming Division (CGD). As the latest step in our journey to put our players first, this group will enable global eSports competitions in our biggest franchises including FIFA, Madden NFL, Battlefield and more. The CGD will be built around three core pillars:
· Competition – To create highly-engaging competitive experiences with our games, officially supported by Electronic Arts.
· Community – To celebrate, connect and grow our community of players across all levels of expertise.
· Entertainment – To develop live events and broadcasting that bring the spectacle of competition to millions of people around the world.
There is no one better in our industry to lead this new effort than Peter. He was an early pioneer in championing competitive gaming programs, such as the FIFA Interactive World Cup and the EA SPORTS Challenge Series, and Peter’s personal passions for the player experience, sports and competition, make him a tremendous leader for this new division. Peter’s team will partner with our development studios, marketers and publishing teams to bring this new platform to life.
We’re also delighted to have Todd Sitrin joining Peter in the role of Senior Vice President and GM of the CGD. Todd is an EA veteran, whose distinguished 14-year career here has included leading our global marketing teams as well as driving marketing and strategy for EA SPORTS. Todd will lead strategy and operations for the CGD, working closely with our development studios to create an exciting competitive platform in our games.
As Peter and Todd begin these critical roles, we are focused on both delivering our commitments for FY16 as well as putting great energy behind this new opportunity. Peter will continue to lead his current organization through the end of FY16 before shifting full time to his new position. We will share further details about the CGD in the coming months.
Competition runs deep in the DNA of Electronic Arts, and our games are already at the center of competitive gaming events at different levels today. FIFA fans around the world continue to compete in the FIFA Interactive World Cup, ESL One is hosting worldwide championships with Battlefield 4, we recently announced the return of the Madden NFL Live Challenge, and our games will be played in dozens of other regional competitions around the world in the next year. EA’s CGD will seek to build a best-in-class program to centralize our efforts with new events, as well as the infrastructure to bring you the world’s preeminent EA competitive experiences.
The formation of the Competitive Gaming Division is a groundbreaking opportunity for Electronic Arts to celebrate your passion for play and competition. I’m excited to see what Peter and the team will share in the months ahead.
The same Peter Moore who said:
Sports on the PC
Posted Jun 14 2008, 03:18 PM
Several weeks ago, we announced that we would not be shipping Madden on the PC this year. As I mentioned then, and I will re-iterate today, the PC platform presents serious business challenges to us in the sports category. Love it or hate it, that’s the reality. I can’t make you like the decision, but nevertheless it’s a hard decision we had to make.
While I have no announcements for today, we are listening to the concerns of the fans and hope to have an announcement soon about some steps we’re taking on Madden in particular that we hope will appeal to some of the fans this fall.
In the last week or so, many of you have asked for clarification as to what our intentions are this year for the PC platform specifically.
Let me clearly state our plans: This year, we plan to ship FIFA and NHL on the PC. FIFA Manager will also be available in some territories.
This year, we don’t plan to ship Madden, NCAA Football, NASCAR, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, or NBA LIVE for the PC platform.
We continue to explore new ideas for reinvigorating the PC platform for sports. We have exciting projects taking place right now in Asia with NBA STREET and FIFA on the PC, with a strong focus on the on-line experience. We’re learning from this and will keep you posted on new developments and how we think we can bring sports to the PC in a way that creates exciting game experiences and will be sound business decisions.
Contrary to some of the passionate posts on this blog, we have no intention to abandon the PC as a sports gaming platform. Rather, we are taking this time to re-define the way we bring you compelling experiences while at the same time making sure we make the appropriate and necessary investments for the future. I ask for your patience, understanding, and openness to new and unique ideas…
Peter
Addressing the Core Issues
Posted Jul 01 2008, 03:31 AM
On a Saturday night red eye to London when I started writing this, connecting to Vienna for meetings with our partners at UEFA and FIFA (and maybe the Euro final between Spain and Germany…). I’ve been reading the constant flow of comments regarding our position this year on sports games on the PC, and at the risk of once again opening the floodgates of people comparing me to the devil incarnate, I will try to address what I see as the core issues that continue to be up for (very spirited) debate.
- The PC as a platform for authentic, fully-licensed, simulation sports games has declined radically in the past three years as the next generation consoles, with their high definition graphics and 5.1 sound capabilities have attracted millions of consumers to eschew the “lean in” PC sports gaming experience for the “lean back” full room console experience.
- The business model for PC games is evolving from packaged goods to a download model. The on-line experience is paramount, and hundreds of companies in this space are experimenting with direct-to-consumer revenue models, incorporating premium downloadable content, sponsored downloads, micro-transactions, subscriptions and massive tournament play.
- Piracy is an issue. Sorry, I know many of you disagree with me on this, but the numbers don’t lie. Companies spend millions developing content, and deserve to see a return on investment for their risk. The employees developing the game design, writing code and creating art deserve to get paid for their work. Period.
- Businesses have to make hard trade offs for where to invest for the best return, thus creating capital to make even more games. They have to take expensive risks in our hits and misses industry with new intellectual property to keep the games available to gamers fresh, innovative and pushing the technical boundaries of the hardware platforms. I know this concept touches a nerve with some of you, but our industry is founded on publishers that have driven for financially-successful games and then re-invested the proceeds in development of even more content for gamers to enjoy. It’s a simple financial premise, and an obligation for publically-traded companies who answer to their shareholders. We are not making games in garages or bedrooms any more.
- In order to make fundamental shifts in an ecosystem, you sometimes have to hit the reset button. That’s what we have done this year at EA SPORTS as regards some of our franchises on the PC. That does not mean that we aren’t coming back next year with new, innovative, maybe even less-expensive ways to play all of our franchises on the PC, but for right now we are assessing all of the options open to us to shift the current paradigm for our games on this platform.
Writing in the middle of the night when you are a little tired is always a dangerous thing, but what you have is my honest, personal, unvarnished opinion. I am sorry that our decisions on this issue have caused some of you so much apparent heartache, but at least you maybe have a little more insight into our thinking here…
So lock and load and have at it…
Cheers,
Peter