EA: The Future Is Mobile Gaming

Taking the format seriously, the company will produce and develop games in-house.

EA has announced that it is putting its full weight behind the mobile games sector, with the firm revealing it will produce and develop games in-house for the format.

MD and senior VP Gerhard Florin outlined EA’s plans to bring its franchises to mobile phones, such as FIFA and Tiger Woods, at his keynote speech at trade show EGN in London.

“You can use a mobile to play a game and no one will look at you to say ‘what are you doing?’” he said. “It will help to change the understanding of gaming because many more people are doing it."

The fast turnaround of devices, quick progression with game graphics and the chance to take gaming from the bedroom into the public domain, were all reasons cited by Florin on the decision.

“We have changed our approach towards mobile," he revealed. " So far we’ve been licensing our titles like Tiger and FIFA to Digital Bridges and they were making these games for us.

“However, we’ve changed our partnership, we’ve enlarged it, we’ve strengthened it. From now EA will produce these games and Digital Bridges is our exclusive distribution partner for Europe and North and South America. We are really taking it seriously as a platform,” he concluded.

The agreement with Digital Bridges is an extension to the current licensing relationship between the two companies, which will see EA make use of Digital Bridges’ mobile-specific development expertise, connectivity technology and multi-channel distribution network.

“This agreement is not only a vote of confidence in Digital Bridges, it is also a fantastic endorsement of mobile gaming,” commented Brian Greasley, CEO of Digital Bridges.

These investments in mobile gaming are in addition to those EA has already made for PSP, DS and N-Gage.