For the first time ever, Electronic Arts (EA), the world's third-largest gaming company, gained more revenue through Apple than any other single partner. All-told, the company's mobile and tablet revenue hit $90 million last quarter, representing 18 percent of its overall takings. Digital revenue in general grew to $378 million, meaning less than a quarter of EA's $495 total revenue came from traditional sales. The company highlighted mobile game The Simpsons: Tapped Out as a top performer.
EA has invested heavily in developing mobile games. The company bought the American developer PopCap, most famous for its Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies franchises, back in 2011 for $750 million. "It’s not an experiment," EA's Frank Gibeau tells VentureBeat, "it’s a full commitment — we burned the ships and marched inland." In the coming quarters, the publisher is banking on FIFA 14, Ultima Forever, Tetris Blitz, and the long-awaited sequel Plants vs. Zombies 2 to continue its mobile and digital growth.
Comments
Mobile gaming is the future.
By aNYthing24 on 07.24.13 4:51am
Sadly the games themselves look like they were made in a barren past.
By Onderhond on 07.24.13 4:56am
And it doesn’t matter because the majority of mobile gamers would be happy with 8 bit graphics.
I don’t get why people are up in arms defending consoles. There’s clearly more than one market in play here. On one had there are casual gamers that just want a short boredom fix on their phone. Then you have we typically call the hardcore gamers.
In the current environment it makes perfect sense that the majority of revenue is coming from casual gamers. With casual gamers EA’s earnings is all about big numbers. The more smartphone owners there are, the more they’re going to pull in — and every day over a million people are getting a new smartphone.
Conversely, hardcore gamers are a harder sell. Games have to justify their price tag — and that’s increasingly difficult as the current generation of consoles get more and more outdated. Simultaneously, we have the Osborne effect impacting game sales of current gen consoles. Nobody wants to spend a lot of money on games right before the next gen consoles drop.
By ericesque on 07.24.13 9:35am
I don’t necessarily mind the 8bit graphics … the lacking gameplay, repetitive nature and horrible controls on the other hand.
By Onderhond on 07.24.13 9:51am
I’m with you. I’m a FIFA addict on my Xbox, but the iOS version is just about worthless. I would KILL for a hardware controller accessory for my iPhone 5. Hopefully it’s less than a year away!
By mattkicksass on 07.24.13 10:37am
You know, it doesn’t have to be either/or. I think that’s the problem a lot of people have with mobile games today, most of which are just an insult to everyone’s intelligence. They’re shovelware, and people eat it up because they don’t know any better – the people who buy that stuff have no frame of reference.
Arcade games in the early days were what we’d now call “casual games” – that doesn’t mean they weren’t good. Pac-Man is still just as awesome today as it always was, and it was a wholly original idea. Bejeweled, on the other hand, is a cheap ripoff of a million better puzzle games that came before it.
There’s no reason why a game can’t be an awesome mobile game and an awesome console game, and get back to the roots of what gaming is really about. I’m thinking of a game like Katamari Damacy, for example. This idea that there’s some distinction between “mobile gaming” and every other kind of video gaming is the heart of the problem – the implication is that mobile gamers are dumb, and will buy whatever dumb game a big company puts out. There’s just no effort put into “mobile games” beyond the efforts to build as many micro-transaction opportunities into these “games” as possible.
By badasscat1 on 07.24.13 11:00am
Yeah, a long way in the future if the current games being produced are any indication
By mlwry on 07.24.13 5:14am
“Mobile” as in “on the couch”.
By tN0 on 07.24.13 5:27am
Or EA is so shit (shittiest company in America) that mobile gaming is their only bright spot
By hie on 07.24.13 8:37am
Shittiest company in America? Wow. Strong words.
By xyzoptics on 07.24.13 8:47am
they came out top in a poll of the worst companys a couple of months back.
By plasticrabbit on 07.24.13 9:21am
Mobile gaming is the future: Nintendo
By Leica_Virgin on 07.24.13 8:52am
Not sure what you’re trying to say here…but you should overlay the PSP and PS Vita to show that being mobile has very little to do with it. Being Nintendo is the answer.
By Iconoclysm on 07.24.13 7:23pm
children are the future.
By Killing_TIme on 07.24.13 12:51pm
I believe in making the future better for our children, but not our children’s children, because I don’t think children should be having sex.
By schemedbynick on 07.24.13 6:46pm
Apple is about to take over the gaming world when controller support comes in iOS7.
By billtimbob on 07.24.13 5:02am
I don’t think Valve, Microsoft or Sony are too worried, Nintendo (being more of a casual platform) may be.
By Emeraldisler on 07.24.13 5:37am
With battery issues, it won’t be too mainstream, probably 5m controllers a year. Funny how we forgot that Android has supported controllers since 3.1 and dozens of AAA titles are supported, such as Vice City, RavenSword, Bards Tale, ShadowGun, Conduit HD and ChronoBlade.
By Oldarney on 07.24.13 6:09am
Who forgot about Android? I thought this article was about EA and Apple?
By myonlinelifenow on 07.24.13 6:40am
But but Android had it first! I must say that so that I can feed my superiority complex!
By _Kubes on 07.24.13 6:08pm
iOS has had controller support since before Froyo. The difference now is that it is finally standardized
By RedBowl on 07.24.13 6:49am
Now *since 3.1
By XCMeathead on 07.24.13 8:07am
Does the 360 PC Controller work natively?, haven’t tried it in forever. Wireless adapter?
Just curious.
By ttringle on 07.24.13 8:30am
Nintendo just made boatloads of money off of Animal Crossing 3DS, sold a whole lot of new 3DS systems thanks to that game and will probably see that quadrupled in october when Pokémon X/Y launches. Wii U sales are slow, but it only takes a Zelda game or two to get that thing rolling and they’re effectively not losing any money on it anyway. I don’t think they’re really worried as long as they can bank on their own games, which they evidently still can.
By That New Cat Smell on 07.24.13 6:18am
Gabe Newell went on record earlier this year saying that AppleTV is his biggest concern in regards to Steam and Steambox, not consoles.
“I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there, and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room?”
By RedBowl on 07.24.13 6:51am