VideoGames Go Mobile as EA Reaches 100 Million Mobile Downloads of its Sports-Related Video Games

In Recent Years, Much of the Conversation Surrounding the Sports Industry has Centered around How to Integrate Sports into the 2nd Screen. In an Age When Sports Fans Consume a Significant Amount of Information on their Mobile Devices, Teams and Leagues alike, Have Sought Ways to Maximize their Value in those Spaces. As Time Continues, the Trend of Utilizing Mobile Platforms to Build and Grow a Brand, has Moved Deeper into the Sports Landscape. One Industry which is Currently Being Reshaped by the Growing Mobile Market is the VideoGame Industry. The VideoGame Company that is Leading the Way in Marketing its Products through Mobile Devices is EA. The Creator of Sports-Related Games including, Madden NFL and FIFA 15 Ultimate Team, EA has Seen a Significant Shift in the Amount of Business it Transacts over Mobile Platforms. 2014 Marks a Significant Year in the Growth of EA’s Mobile Business, as Recently it Announced that, its Sports-Related Games Have been Downloaded over 100 Million Times on Mobile Devices this Year Alone. To Put the Significance of this Number into Perspective, One Must Understand that, Sports Network ESPN, is Found in 100 Million Homes. Similarly, the Number of EA Games Downloaded on Mobile Devices has a Greater Reach than the Twitter Accounts of All NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB Teams Combined.


That 100 Million EA Sports Games Have been Downloaded onto Players’ Mobile Devices Signals that Fans of the Company’s Games are Shifting Away from the VideoGame Console and rather, Consuming VideoGames at a Higher Rate on their Mobile Platforms. Awareness of the Number of EA’s Sports-Related VideoGames that Have been Downloaded onto Mobile Devices only Begins to Scratch the Surface in Terms the Breadth of the Movement of VideoGame Players from Consoles to Mobile Devices. According to Frank Gibeau, the Executive Vice-President of EA Mobile, 600 Million EA Games Have been Downloaded onto Mobile Devices in 2014. ”About half of the gaming business is on mobile devices right now. It’s a gigantic market in terms of audience size, engagement and participation. When you hear console teams talking about selling five to ten million units, our numbers are 120 million installations for EA Sports games. The mobile gaming business is up 60-percent this year. That is off of a very big base of multiple billions”, Gibeau Explained. What has Allowed EA to Achieve Significant Growth in its Mobile Gaming Business ? Namely, there are 2 Strategies that Propelled EA to the Position of Being the Mobile VideoGame Leader. The First Being its Portfolio of Games and the 2nd Being its Willingness to Adapt its Model of Presenting Games to Consumers. ”We focused on a couple of things. First, we have an incredible brand portfolio, which includes games from FIFA to Madden, that attracts massive audiences. The combination of our portfolio gives us a platform to create new mobile experiences oriented to be services. Second, we have moved into a free-to-play service model. In the past, when it came to mobile games, you would download the game once and that was the end of things. The business has shifted into a free-to-play model, where a user downloads the game for free and the gaming company provides you with a service that changes over time, allowing users to participate in a highly interactive way”, Gibeau Noted.


Utilizing its Free-to-Play Service Model has Allowed EA to Strengthen its Portfolio of Games. Doing so has Subsequently Driven More Users to its Games. ”We’ve really embraced the conversion to the free-to-play model, which has allowed us to unlock huge audiences. It’s a big opportunity for us by switching the accessibility of the games to this free model with premium features that has really worked for us. Taking games like FIFA and Madden and embracing the free-to-play service model while also building those games from the bottom us is what has allowed us to see the biggest jump in growth. We are up 250-percent in our audience level year over year”, Gibeau Said. VideoGame Users’ Transition to Mobile Devices as their VideoGame Playing Platform of Choice has Allowed EA to Respond Better to their Needs and Desires. ”The beauty is, if you see something really working in one game, you can go deep into it, because you can see that it’s working in real-time. In the console business, what you launch with is what you have. The transition to mobile is really liberating as a developer”, Gibeau Noted. With Significant Growth in its Hands, Where does EA Go from here in Terms of Building its Mobile Platform ? ”We are going to continue to add new intellectual property and brands to our portfolio. We are going to grow our network. Mobile devices are becoming extremely powerful. The new devices have more power than a PS3 or XBox 360. Soon, they’re going to be as powerful as a PS4 or XBox One. As the computing and graphic power increase, we’ll bring out higher experiences than we’re building right now”, Gibeau Explained.