Frank Gibeau, EA Games president, has stated he’s confident they can launch two or three new properties a year, they have a ”three-year SKU plan” on the board.
Between the EAP third-party program and internal teams, it shouldn’t be too hard a goal. Q3 ‘08 had ”too many” new franchises launch at once, admits EA should have ”spread them out”.
”It’s hard to forecast, but I think we’re probably looking at two to three new IPs a year,” Gibeau told Gamasutra in an interview. A level of output, ”I feel good about,” he said.
”We’re looking at a three-year SKU plan right now. Between EAP and our internal studios, both of which are in our group, I can safely say it’s at least two to three new IPs.” He wasn’t above admitting they shot themselves in the foot a little before Christmas, regarding IPs.
”I think we launched too many new IPs all at once in Q3,” he noted earlier in his chat, ”I would have spread them out and found better windows for them. I would have had longer marketing for them. The marketing cycles were fairly short.”
”We didn’t have enough assets to really build the fanbase, build the community, and get that long lead demand built.” Community is everything now, get a group whipped up enough and they’ll convert non-believers to follow a games development.
Are ‘two to three’ new properties launching a year from one publisher a good thing? At least that’s not two to three more sequels pumping out…
Dead Space
