EA: The PC is 'Rapidly Becoming the Largest Gaming Platform in the World'

Ok, based on established trends, we are over 50% through the life cycle of current gen consoles. These "PC GAMING FTW!" articles are always the indicator. "PC GAMING IS DEAD!" is indicative of the first half of a console generation's life.

Still, that's another 3 -4 years. In the next two, however, we'll start to see MSFT rolling out some conceptual specs on the new Xbox, and Sony will continue to say their product has a much longer life cycle, until finally they realize that people will want new and will expect a new PS within 1-2 years of a new Xbox release.

PC online is where the money is at. its the console packaged goods biz that sucks. just look at these numbers and you decide.

Look at the current stock market value by company:
EA $6.6b, Activision Blizzard $14.8b, Ubisoft $1.9b, TakeTwo $700m, THQ $250m, Midway bankrupt, Eidos acquired for $58m. These are all console companies with the exception of Activision which has Blizzard. Now compare these market values to the Asian online game companies.

Tencent $17.1b, Netease $3.9b, Shanda $3.7b, Giant $1.9b, Perfect World $1.0b, NCSoft $2.3b, Neowiz $400m, CJ Internet $300m. If you take a look at it, the Asian game companies now have a larger combined market value than the western companies.

Now look at the companies' operating profit margins:
Activison 22%, EA -4%, Ubisoft 11%, TakeTwo 7%, THQ -30%, Midway -45%, Eidos -44%. These margins are at best 22% and that is because Blizzard contributes 52% margins to Activision. If you just look at Activision console biz it has a 12% margin. So at best console publishers have a 12% margin and many are hugely in the red and have gone bankrupt.

Now look at the Asian online companies:
Tencent 43%, Netease 62%, Shanda 40%, Giant 60%, Perfect World 47%, NCSoft 14%, Neowiz 21%, CJ Internet 29%. I wonder who is more profitable??? ..... its not even close. Online PC MMO is significantly a better biz than selling packaged goods console games at retail.

Now you wonder why EA is trying so hard to get into the online space? Just look East and you will find your answers!

How do you get a job as an analyst that these guys listen to. Get paid to tell them what average gamers already know sounds sweet to me.

Just release Brütal Legend on PC then!

online pc games dominate the asian culture
western gamer developers need to catch up
WoW is an example of lame game

I thought it was dying?

Sooo sorry for double post - my mistake

I think that this new "nintendo" generation is very very loud and that was/is the main reason why some companyes made huge mistake and marked PC gaming dead; or start with terrible console ports (where you can resign the basic keybinding or moronic checkpoints that are complitely OUT of PC games, because people who play on PC have a tons of space for save not like some tiny memory card on some console)...
There are a LOT of things which killed PC gaming in a very core way, and than blaming the pirates or whoever else, just to drow atention from this miserable ports...
But after all, during this long years I can say PC gaming is NOT dead and it will never be. I hear this storyes since 1995 and as wonder hardcore games ARE PC games and PC gamers are still here.
Maybe majority here will not agree with me and I can understand that, but tell me one good title for consoles still life after 2-3 years, and I'll tell you 10 for every one of them wich you can find still people playing on PC.
# 1 - Quake
# add the rest :-)

I think that this new "nintendo" generation is very very loud and that was/is the main reason why some companyes made huge mistake and marked PC gaming dead; or start with terrible console ports (where you can resign the basic keybinding or moronic checkpoints that are complitely OUT of PC games, because people who play on PC have a tons of space for save not like some tiny memory card on some console)...

There are a LOT of things which killed PC gaming in a very core way, and than blaming the pirates or whoever else, just to drow atention from this miserable ports...
But after all, during this long years I can say PC gaming is NOT dead and it will never be. I hear this storyes since 1995 and as wonder hardcore games ARE PC games and PC gamers are still here.

Maybe majority here will not agree with me and I can understand that, but tell me one good title for consoles still life after 2-3 years, and I'll tell you 10 for every one of them wich you can find still people playing on PC.
# 1 - Quake
# add the rest :-)

I think that this new "nintendo" generation is very very loud and that was/is the main reason why some companyes made huge mistake and marked PC gaming dead; or start with terrible console ports (where you can resign the basic keybinding or moronic checkpoints that are complitely OUT of PC games, because people who play on PC have a tons of space for save not like some tiny memory card on some console)...

There are a LOT of things which killed PC gaming in a very core way, and than blaming the pirates or whoever else, just to drow atention from this miserable ports...
But after all, during this long years I can say PC gaming is NOT dead and it will never be. I hear this storyes since 1995 and as wonder hardcore games ARE PC games and PC gamers are still here.

Maybe majority here will not agree with me and I can understand that, but tell me one good title for consoles still life after 2-3 years, and I'll tell you 10 for every one of them wich you can find still people playing on PC.
# 1 - Quake
# add the rest :-)

Wait wait wait. Am I misremembering, or did Johnny Boy or someone else at EA make some comments about PC gaming dying or being a niche or some similar shit less than a year ago?

I'll only be on board with downloadable PC games when they're DRM-free and non-proprietary. I hated Itunes when they only sold music as AAC files with DRM, so why should I want to get on board with a game download service which follows the DRM-laden Itunes model? I want to buy and download DRM-free PC games, the same as I demand downloaded music to be DRM-free.

No shit Sherlock.

Rapidly becoming the largest gaming platform, without the games that make gaming as such worth it in the first place.

I'm a gamer because of Deus Ex, Doom, StarCraft, Baldur's Gate 2, Chrono Trigger and BioShock, not cute minigames.

Yesterday I hear "No new game consoles, if ever," and then this. http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MzkzOTAsLCwsLCwx

Hmm, the more I think about it, the more consoles are designed to make money. I know it sounds stupid, but when you have ONE company selling you a product they can raise the prices to whatever they want. A comparable computer to a 360, parts-wise, is pretty much a throw-away/ give-away PC. Nintendo makes some 45% profit on every Wii sold -- if a PC parts manufacture tried to do that they'd go under REAL fast. Apple computers cost WAY more than their hardware is worth (assuming you see no worth in shiny plastic), and console games in general cost $10 more because of the privilege simply to be played on a console (owned and regulated by a private company). Um, I guess what I'm saying is that a PC is an open platform for hardware and competition, whereas consoles (and Apple) are restricted and regulated by a single company.

I need some coffee -- this post doesn't even have a point. Ok, here's a point: Pick and choose your computer components, learn how to build your own computer and help bring prices down through competition! OK.... coffee....

Aren't these the same chuckleheads who shrugged off the PC as "niche" and consoles as "the next big thing"?

Isn't this the same company that hogties the consumer to their homegrown, derided online distribution platform?

Isn't this the same company that pushed for activation DRM on Mass Effect, Spore, and Crysis Warhead?

They must be planning on releasing something big for the PC soon...
Syndicate maybe?

EA Music just made a press release guys, apparently there is some old band called the Beatles which is rapidly becoming popular!

...Which is clearly supported by the fact that the PC accounted for 17% of game sales last year. Come on.. is EA saying this just to appease the anti EA crowd? If big means many people play games, then maybe, but if big means thriving market, then no. Piracy has crippled the PC as an economic element in the gaming industry.

People like to pretend like good games were made for them and grow on trees but they don't. If people don't start paying for their stuff, then we are going to see a huge decline in the PC gaming industry a few years. People can deny this and say "well, it's not my fault that I steal games, it's the developers fault because their games aren't good enough or the specs are too high", but unless we change our moral outlook on gaming, the PC is going to take a change for the worse.

Im talking casual games and subscription-based games, as these will be the only economic models that can hold piracy at bay.

So what they really mean is,

"We have decided to depart the console hype train since it's a train to no where".

Cell phones are the biggest gaming platform.

PC is the second biggest gaming platform

This tip is free, normally I require a salary for this kind of info.

I Was going wtf as I misread that


EA: is 'Rapidly Becoming the Largest Gaming Platform in the World'

Maybe you can do us some non-shitty ports then. Or hell, maybe even develop a model for releasing PC-primary titles?

The EA CEO lives inside his own little fantasy world.....

"the PC is becoming the largest gaming platform in the world"

Feels like it's the 1990's again

This article is a repeat from 1982

Then where is my F*CKING FOOTBALL GAME!?

I need Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 now! now! nooooowoowowowowow!

Too funny.

Now if they stop making crappy console ports and someone make good and awesome adventure games again, that would make me happy. I just miss that genre a lot. Yeah action action...I think the last 12 games i've scored were action. Would love to work on something like a dark, twisted story ala se7en but with the old school adventure elements...come on! ;)

EA must have signed a secret deal with the internet pirates.

I think all of their public announcements would sound less naive if they just scoped them to be about themselves instead of about the market or the industry.

For example instead of saying "Very rapidly the PC is becoming the largest gaming platform in the world" they should say "Very rapidly the PC is becoming the largest gaming platform for US". If they just took that approach for everything they said their business intelligence would stop sounding to idiotic.

I wish they'd make up their mind.. It's dying.. oh noo .. it's growing super big!

"Becoming"?? LOL

Newsflash to Brown, you genius, it always was the largest platform in terms of size and game varieties. Dar!!

s/becoming/is/