Electronic Arts: “solo games represent a very important part” of its portfolio | Xbox One

Electronic Arts’ latest financial results show higher results, most of which is attributed to “live service” games such as Fifa 22. important to its future.

Service games still generate most of the business

Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, recalled the strengths of the group, stating in passing that more than 600 million active accounts are now registered on its network.

Our franchises are among the most engaging and culturally relevant entertainment properties in the world. Apex Legends is a leading cross-platform franchise, with our console and PC live service driving massive ongoing engagement as well as a new mobile game that lives up to our early expectations. Engagement in our Sims franchise is also outpacing the market with content that resonates with a wide and diverse audience. We have a proven ability to successfully grow long-term live services in our portfolio, with an ongoing commitment that drives resilience, recurring revenue and continued value to our business

Through all of these experiences, our vast global network has grown to nearly 600 million users. Every day, our players forge new friendships and new social bonds. And with the scale of our network and the ability of our teams to use our data, we can understand where, how and what our audiences are playing today, and where they want to go next.

Electronic Arts needs single-player games in the balance

The “live service”, which includes annual games and everything that revolves around them, such as microtransactions and FUT, today represents 70% of Electronic Arts’ business. But Andrew Wilson points out that the company does not intend to abandon the solo games which still represent an important part of its portfolio.

How we think about it doesn’t revolve around which game, but rather around the motivations these games respond to.

We know that our players have these fundamental motivations such as inspiration, escape, competition in social connection, self-improvement and creation. Those elements that bring us together as players and creating worlds, building characters, and telling stories are really important in achieving some of those motivations.

So when we think about our portfolio and when we think about growing it, we really think about it on two key vectors. First, how can we tell amazing stories, and second, how can we create great online communities? And how do you reconcile these two things?

The way you should look at our portfolio, what you should look for is how do we do that? How do we construct these worlds and tell their stories? How do we develop global online communities? And how we bring these two things together for the fulfillment of motivations.

And what we see when we do that is, first, we grow our network, and two, we increase the amount of time players spend on our network and in our games. And when we think of single-player games, we think that’s a really, really important part of the overall portfolio that we offer in achieving those core motivations. The way we’re going to plan for this is just to look at our community, and look at what they’re spending their time on, and look at where the motivations may or may not be met. And we’ll be looking to supplement that with the addition of new online games, new multiplayer games and new single player games.

Electronic Arts has several single-player games in development today. We know, for example, that a single-player Battlefield campaign is in development, that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is in development, and that a single-player FPS in the Apex Legends universe is in preparation at Respawn. It’s hard to say for now if it’s Titanfall 3, but fans of the license are keeping their fingers crossed.