Glen Schofield of EA has told GamesIndustry.biz that the publisher has learned a valuable lesson when it comes to release dates.
They ”could probably launch a game at any time” and it will be ”well received” if it’s good. Mainly they’ve learnt it’s incredibly foolish to release new IPs and games so close together.
The holiday period last year was crammed with goodness but there were ”far too many” games all competing for the attention of gamers’ wallets. The newly cooked up Mirror’s Edge suffered because of the savage environment, coupled with the poor economy.
”I think that we traditionally thought that people only buy games at Christmas or around holiday time, and now we’re looking back and going, ‘You know what, GTA launched in May; Resident Evil comes out in March’,” said EA Redwood Shores’ general manager Glen Schofield, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.
Recently a string of delays have been announced for EA titles like The Sims 3, Dragon Age: Origins for PC and The Godfather II. Does it astound you that some executives are only now just realising that gamers do buy games all year round?
EA has been pushing the idea of quality above quantity under the helm of Jon Riccitiello. Schofield believes this is the right path despite the publishing giant posting losses recently and laying off staff.
”The other thing that we’ve done is establish a couple of things: one, some credibility back with EA. EA took some chances and made some really good games. And two, we established Redwood Shores as a triple-A studio, and now you can start to see that coming through with games like Inferno.”
EA’s Dante’s Inferno is an action game based on the first part of The Divine Comedy, and is expected to release in 2010.