Edinburgh Interactive Festival: Peter Moore Keynote Speech
Peter Moore is a very well liked guy. There are many reasons for this, and it’s testament to his character that not even pulling the plug on SEGA’s Dreamcast nightmare could dull the gaming community’s continued admiration. It’s not often that they take to a boardroom suit in such a way, though to be fair this isn’t a description befitting of the man himself. His popularity owes in no small measure to his uncanny knack for talking the talk and walking it too; he’s the kind of guy that can turn a fiscal projection into something worth listening to. Moore knows games and - more importantly - the people who play them, and when his current position as President of EA Sports was revealed two years ago there was nobody more suited to the job than the former PE teacher and Microsoft Games Division Vice President.
It’s here at Edinburgh Interactive Festival that he took to the stage to deliver the keynote speech yesterday, covering the tasks he’s faced since joining EA: namely the total restructuring of the sports division, or, given its proper title, “The Challenge of Reinventing the Iconic Sports Game”. He kicked off by describing the situation he was thrust into when he arrived at the company. The division was on “the burning platform”. They had exhausted their brands in their current form and were looking for a new direction to capitalise on emerging business opportunities, most of which were heavily linked to the unstoppable juggernaut that is the internet. Community networking, digital distribution, microtransactions and constantly updated game data (more on that later) were the key elements of this.
EA Sports were always pushing for realism, but with future prospects flagging it was necessary to make “some very painful business decisions”. Moore, referencing his Microsoft background, claimed that he “Control, Alt, Deleted” the company’s aims in the marketplace.
“The dynamic has changed with the launch of the Wii” he continued, highlighting just how much of an impact Nintendo’s little white box had on the industry as a whole. “We didn’t even have arms any more”, he exclaimed as a Wii Sports Bowling screenshot slid into view. Instead of stat saturated simulations, this new audience was looking to just “get off the couch and play”, and Moore conceded that EA Sports had struggled somewhat with the concept initially; they fell back on bog-standard PS2 ports and assumed that the audience would settle for the same thing yet again.
Obviously, this wasn’t working for them. Their core sports business was “falling flat”, and when Moore came on board he decided to predict where the market was going and pursue that trend. Thus, the “testosterone fueled brand of EA Sports” underwent a reinvention that would cater to all tastes. They’d struggled to appeal to women in the past, but weren’t willing to “sacrifice the core”, who Moore described as “the ones that got us where we were”. Additionally, though he viewed iPhone was an interesting opportunity, he decided against shoddy App Store versions of key franchises because this could tarnish the reliable name and solid branding that has been in place for, in some cases, up to twenty years.
Following a major rethink of the company’s structure and a reshuffling of staff, four main areas were outlined. Moore told us he looked at “Authenticity”, “Innovation”, “Competition” and “Lifestyle” and grew the EA Sports brand in each area. Naming EA the “world’s leading sports entertainment brand” he asserted that between two and three million multiplayer matches were played on their servers each day, amounting to approximately thirty five years of time – or three hundred premier league seasons. Moore claimed that the label was well on its way to becoming not just the go to guys for sports games, but sports coverage and involvement in general, citing a recent partnership with broadcasting giant ESPN as just one of the ways in which he hoped to achieve this.
A feature like NCAA Football 10’s “TeamBuilder”, he said, was one of the ways in which to engage core players, in this case allowing them to create their entire outfit from scratch. Extending the lifespan of the product and tempting the user to keep it in their disc drive several months after release through online efforts is a major part in the label’s ongoing search for new revenue streams. Of course, in recent years all of the games within the brand have seen a marked increase in quality, with Moore using Metacritic as a barometer and informing us that it’s another large – if obvious – part of their plan.
He also wishes to evoke the intrinsic emotion and thrill of the sports within each game. Part of increasing the authenticity and ramping up that rollercoaster ride is the new technology EA Sports has developed named Dynamic DNA, in use, for the moment, in the NBA Live franchise. Players’ form, preferences, status and hundreds of sub-factors are analysed each time they play a match in real life, and this data is uploaded to the boxed product’s servers every night. Team DNA is also used to simulate the ever-changing mechanics of entire sides based on how individuals perform. It’s a shining example of the committed approach Moore is taking going forward.
The division is going online in a big way to realise what Moore calls “365/7/24”, which effectively translates to constant interaction with the community and updates to the game. From creating buzz with Twitter and Facebook, to comical YouTube Tiger Woods videos, to daily development v-logs that are there to “humanise the brand”, there’s not a stone unturned in their quest to harness the power of the internet.
Work on the Wii has also taken a dramatic shift since Moore took over at EA Sports. No longer are the sports games for that audience half-baked port jobs, but “built from the ground up”. He seemed genuinely excited about the prospects of Nintendo’s recently launched MotionPlus peripheral: “we want to take advantage of the authenticity it provides”. The reception of EA Sports properties Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods 10, both supporting the device, speaks for itself. Moore also claims that given its incredible capacity to shift units – 1.8 million in the first month alone - EA Sports Active is a platform in itself. Despite the fact it “kicks your ass” according to Moore, it’s a great way to finally reach out to the female audience, and the label sees it as a very viable revenue stream.
Moore concluded by reiterating his vision of breaking down the barrier to entry, whilst creating different levels for those who wish to go deeper. It’s an ambitious goal, but on this evidence he’s well on the way to crossing the finish line. Though in possession of a great business mind, the overwhelming impression one is struck by is that this is a man who would never let his customers down. His five long term goals are to “expand the brand”, “globalise”, “digitise”, “captivate the masses” and “captivate the core”. A ballsy proposition, as that combination of priorities can only be construed as “please everyone all the time”. If anyone can do it, it’s Peter Moore.
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