“In the year 2148, humanity has discovered the advanced alien settlements on the planet Caryto. It is the first alien contact with the humans but it turned out to be hostile and the war broke out. You (Commander Shepard) who is leading the special space forces have to resolve the ongoing conflict to achieve peace across the milky way”
To understand this story by reading takes a lot of imagination and can be less engaging to the readers who don’t understand the main theme that the author is trying to convey. If the reader can experience the story visually and even interact with the characters, then he can understand the theme and may immerse himself in the story.
With the advancements in technology, the mode of communication has changed and has replaced the books and traditional forms with other formats of interactive media. One of them is video games.
The Beginning
Conceived by the brainchild of Trip Hawkins who explained his idea to Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital to start a new venture while working as an employee of Apple. Sequoia Capital is known for investing in the early stages of companies like Google, Apple, etc. With the encouragement of Valentine, Hawkins along with his colleagues left apple to pursue his idea and started “Amazin’ Software” in the year 1982. But later changed the name to Electronic Arts and the developers were considered as Electronic Artists.
From the inception, Electronic Arts published games from several independent developers and encouraged them. In this way, it has gained a positive reputation among the gaming community. In the initial years, it has shipped several games like Hard Hat Mack, Archon: The Light and the Dark, Axis Assassin etc which are developed by others. After some growth, it started developing its own games and published them.
A trendsetter in the Gaming industry
EA is known for breaking the conventional methods and introducing new trends.
One of such acts is the stylizing of the game CD casings with album cover in the rock album style. Similar to any pop culture music album, this would convey the theme of the game and reduced the marketing costs.
It is also known for giving credit to the developers who are referred to as “Artists” in the post or pre-game credits.
It is also known for introducing Interchange File Format(IFF) in the year 1985 which is used to transfer data between software produced by different companies. This has helped EA to easily develop games required for different consoles in the market. This format was later modified by Microsoft and Apple for their usage.
The Global Gaming Industry
The Global gaming industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9% from USD 159.3 billion in 2020 to USD 200.8 billion in 2023. Asia is the biggest market followed by North and South America. Europe is in third place. Consoles and Mobile platforms are having a huge growth rate followed by PC.
With the development of 5G technologies, companies are working on AR and VR technologies to make games stream as fast as a music album in a music app. Also, the companies tie-up with the graphic card companies to promote their games.
Prominent Players
| Company | Founded In | Based In | Main Industry | Gaming Revenue | Most Profitable Game/Console in 2019 |
| Sony | 1946 | Tokyo, Japan | Electronics | $20.3 billion | Play Station 4 |
| Nintendo | 1889 | Kyoto, Japan | Gaming | $11.1 billion | Nintendo Switch |
| Microsoft | 1975 | Redmond, Washington, USA | Software | $11.0 billion | Xbox One |
| Tencent | 1998 | Shenzhen, Guangdong, China | Information Technology | $9.2 billion | League of Legends |
| Activision Blizzard | 2008 | Santa Monica, California, USA | Gaming | $6.5 billion | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare |
| Electronic Arts | 1982 | Redwood City, California, USA | Gaming | $5.1 billion | FIFA 20 |
| Bandai Namco | 1955 | Tokyo, Japan | Toys | $3.2 billion | Super Smash Bros Ultimate |
| Take Two Interactive | 1993 | New York City, USA | Gaming | $3.1 billion | NBA 2K20 |
| Square Enix | 1975 | Tokyo, Japan | Gaming | $2.5 billion | Kingdom Hearts 3 |
| Epic Games | 1991 | Raleigh, North Carolina, USA | Gaming | $1.8 billion | Fortnite |
The Art of Targeting Different Audience by EA
Sports Games
Trip Hawkins signed a contract with John Madden who is a celebrated American football coach in the year 1988 to develop a sports simulation game that led to the birth of EA Sports. It is with this EA got the much-needed recognition among the gaming and sports enthusiasts.
For the first time in the gaming industry, EA included the famous “sports personalities” in its games and in its business model which made sports fans across the world buy EA games.
EA sports would sign contracts with the sports celebrities, clubs for the usage of their images, logos, characters, etc. This has encouraged celebrities to earn money outside sports. The players would get the feel of playing the game as their favorite sports personality which has increased the appeal than the other sports games in the market.
The initial success of the football games led to the EA’s entry into all kinds of sports including motor racing, Basketball, cricket, skating, etc. Parallel to EA Games, EA Sports grow itself as an exclusive brand with other entities like EA Sports Big for extreme games like FIFA Street, NBA Street, SSX, etc.
Movie Games
EA was quick to grab the attention of different audiences across the world by making the game version of the successful Hollywood movies. EA had bought the copyrights of making the games from the movie studios on several successful movie franchises like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, James Bond, Star Wars, etc. In this way, it has attracted movie lovers across the world to have an interactive version of their favorite movie.
The Casual Games
Even though most of the EA games are played by teens and young adults, EA has also targeted the likes of adults who have very little time to play and kids who need simple games with pogo.com. It is an online browser platform where the players can play casual games like card games, word games, casino games, Puzzle games, etc.
Business Model
It followed a business model where the game is developed by other developers and is launched by EA in retail shops like Walmart, Best Buy. It does not have a distributor network. It directly wants to sell the games to the end consumers. It followed a hybrid model where some games are licensed (Developed by other developers) and other games are built on their own. With the increase in e-commerce, most of the EA products are available online and can be downloaded after the payment.
EA is known for keeping purchasable items and DLCs(Downloadable content) within the games and the players who would like to have a full-fledged experience would buy them. This is a huge part of their revenue apart from the initial game sales.
EA would release the games by purchasing the licenses from the console manufacturers and release them for the console market until the contract expires.
Nowadays the games are released first on consoles followed by PC and mobile platforms. The success of the game in the console market determines the entry into other platform markets.
4P’s of Marketing Mix of EA
Product
EA serves the needs of all the gaming communities across the world by publishing all kinds of games on all platforms and genres.
Action Games: Battlefield, Hell Gate, etc
Adventure Games: Harry Potter Batman
Sports Games: NFS, FIFA, Cricket, etc
Price
A huge amount of money goes into the development of a game. EA follows the premium pricing model in segments where it has a good market share. When there is tight competition it would reduce the price to get more sales done. Later it would recover the money through the in-game purchases and DLCs(Downloadable content)
Place
EA Games are available in both online and offline format. The game CDs are available at retail stores like Walmart, Best Buy, etc. The online Game stores are also available to buy the game CDS or to directly download the game like Amazon, Playstation network, Googles play store, Apples Itunes, Steam, Xbox Live Marketplace, etc. EA has its own Digital store known as Origin.
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Promotion
EA does extensive promotional activities before releasing a new game. It would give a trial or demo version of the game to the players so that they can get a taste of it. It also releases a short gameplay video on social media to make players across the world to get aware of the features in the game.
EA ties up with console manufacturers in promoting the game by giving free first games along with the console purchase to the players. It also promotes its products by giving huge discounts on holiday seasons to encourage players to buy the games.
It sponsors some of the sporting events to make the EA brand popular among the audience across the world. It also demonstrates its game before the launch at major gaming events.
SWOT
Strengths:
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Weakness
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Opportunity
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Threats
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Influencer Marketing
Most of the gaming community spends time playing the game or streaming others playing the game. This has been a new trend in the industry. The multiplayer games are the most popular in this trend.
Most of the new players would first stream the gameplay of the Pro player, try his hacks, listen to his reviews, and then goes to play their own game.
The most popular missions or levels in the games are played by the pro players and are streamed on the social media apps like Facebook, discord, etc.
This kind of marketing has helped gaming companies to reach a much larger audience than through traditional marketing.
The Future
EA has always blended itself with the changing market tastes and is continuing to do so. The development of high-speed connectivity networks like 5G, is changing the landscape of gaming. Mobile phones have become smarter and faster which is making the gaming companies remake all of their hit games in the mobile version as well.
The entry of VR and AR technologies may change the way people play the games and the platform that supports it would be the next sweet spot for the gaming companies to target.
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