Welcome to Peter Moore's Official Blog

I hope you had a chance to watch some of the Strikeforce broadcast on CBS last Saturday night. It was proof-positive of the rising popularity of mixed martial arts that CBS gave a coveted primetime 9pm Saturday slot to the sport. The highlight of the card was of course Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers, and the action certainly lived up to the advance billing, with Fedor eventually dispatching Rogers, but only after surviving an early cut nose and a spirited fight into the second round.

We're delighted to have announced that Strikeforce will be featured as a premier league in EA SPORTS MMA, and we used Saturday's big event as a chance to release our first gameplay video from the game.  EA SPORTS MMA is making big strides in development at Tiburon and we're confident this is going to be one of the most anticipated games of 2010. 

If you missed it, be sure to check out the new video here and let me know what you think.

While at Microsoft, one of my responsibilities was oversight of the Japanese market. A fascinating country and culture, I thoroughly enjoyed my time over there. It is the cradle of our industry, and despite some recent ups and downs in the fortunes of Japanese developers and publishers, some of the most creative content in games still emanates from Tokyo and Kyoto.

Having said that, one of the frustrations of being an American company attempting to do business in Japan is the insularity of the industry that defends locally-made content and looks down on games from abroad. I appreciate this is a unique culture that has very different tastes in entertainment.  But while western movies and music can be extremely popular with younger consumers, foreign-developed games (or yoge, as they are called) have an extremely difficult time breaking through with Japanese gamers.  This has frustrated American and European publishers for decades.

In the past, we've pointed to things like genre preferences, game play mechanics and character art as issues in breaking through in this culture. But with simulation sports games, these issues would seem much less relevant - it's typically about the gameplay.  So you can imagine my disappointment every year as we struggle to break through in Japan with our outstanding FIFA franchise (which, I should point out, is a game made by developers from more than 20 different countries, including Japan). This year's tour de force has been universally-acclaimed as the best iteration ever in the long history of the franchise, garnering a number of perfect scores from reviewers and averaging a metacritic score of 91. So imagine my delight to see Famitsu award the game a platinum rating (36/40), a score only enjoyed by the cream of the crop of games released in Japan. That score obviously caught soccer gamers eyes over there, as the game debuted in the top 10 this week, much to our delight.

Having said all of that, it is clear we still have work to do in Japan to more fully understand what drives that gamers attraction to sports titles. Let me be clear on this. I recognize that there are many factors that contribute to a gamer's decision to purchase (or not) a particular game, I'd just hate for the gamers in Japan to not get as much enjoyment as the rest of the world out of the best sports game of this console generation.  Also, we'll continue to do our part to try to better understand the Japanese consumer - with market research, focus groups with gamers of all ages, and feedback sessions with journalists - and continue to improve on the best soccer game in the world.

Earlier this week, we made an announcement that may have barely even made your radar, but I think is extremely meaningful during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  We have launched two initiatives that we hope in some small way will help support the goal of curing breast cancer.

- We've launched an exclusive breast cancer awareness apparel package for EA SPORTS Complex on PlayStation Home. The limited edition apparel sells for $2, it will be available through November 11 and all proceeds will go to Drew Brees's Dream Foundation charity.

- Meanwhile, our EA SPORTS Active team has partnered with Susan G. Komen for The Cure to sponsor various Race for the Cure events around the United States this month and has launched a special edition EA SPORTS Active "Pink" package, available throughout October.

As someone who has been personally impacted by this terrible disease, I would urge all of us to learn more about how we can help contribute to learning more about early detection and treatment. Go to www.komen.org for more information.

I thought of both of these initiatives this past Tuesday night when I joined nearly a thousand others from our industry here in San Francisco for the annual Nite to Unite black tie event.  While making and selling great games is our core mission in being a successful company, I'm also grateful to the people at EA and throughout the industry who recognize the need to give back, and in particular to children's causes. As a past co-chair of the event, I take great pride in what the industry has accomplished philanthropically over the past years.

For those of you not familiar with it, Nite to Unite - for Kids (NTU) is an annual dinner hosted by the ESA and supported by members of the association (companies like ourselves at EA and other publishers and related companies) and the interactive entertainment industry to raise funds for the ESA Foundation, which helps to make a difference in the lives of America's kids. To date, NTU has raised more than $10 million benefiting various organizations, and from the look of the activity around the auctions this year, it seems like we will be adding handsomely to that amount with this year's contribution.

Both the work our teams are doing to support breast cancer awareness as well as the support shown across the industry for NTU are proud examples for an industry that is all-too-often the brunt of unfair and unwarranted criticism surrounding the supposed negative impact we have on the social lives of young people here in the US and around the world.

On a lighter note, we've been thrilled with the launch of FIFA in Europe and I'm obviously anxious to see how the North American launch goes next week (Nov. 20).  As we have throughout this summer and early fall, we continue to learn a lot about the changing habits of EA SPORTS fans and their voracious appetite for online content - so much so that sometimes it threatens the integrity of our robust online servers.  We asked "How Big Can Football Get?" throughout our FIFA 10 marketing campaign, and consumers in Europe quickly overwhelmed even our most optimistic projections, shattering online records that we had just set two months ago with Madden.  We're thrilled with the interest and I'm glad our teams have solved many of the capacity issues that plagued some of you in the first few days out of the gate. 

Heading to London next week to support the NFL's continued international expansion program. New England Patriots vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Wembley. Go Pats!!!   

As FIFA launched throughout Europe this week and hundreds of thousands of gamers began competing from London to Madrid, Barcelona to Frankfurt, I want to send my congratulations to our FIFA development and marketing teams in Vancouver and Geneva.  In fact, I had a friendly little wager with FIFA producer Dave Rutter (the terms of which will remain between he and I) about rewarding the team if the game was above 90 for its average review scores on launch day...and here we are on October 2 with the highest rated sports game of this console generation at a 92...well done team.

It's always a challenge to improve on an already universally-acclaimed game, as was the case with FIFA 09, but the team at EAC continued to innovate and add polish to the jewel. I had the pleasure of meeting with them in Vancouver this past week, and passed on my thanks and admiration on behalf of all footie gamers from around the world.

We asked "How Big Can Football Get?" when we recently launched a brilliant new TV campaign in the UK, and we're all anxious to see the answer to that question over the coming weeks.  I'd love to hear what you think of the game - please let me know.  And for those of you in North America, you just have to wait a few more weeks to join in.

Should be an exciting sports weekend - today I'll be in Berkeley to see if the Cal Bears can rebound from an abysmal performance in Eugene when they host USC. If Kevin Riley can regain his confidence and complete some passes early, maybe we will be able to get Jahvid Best going and put the Trojans on the back foot. If not, we'll be hearing that annoying USC fight song all evening long... And on Sunday, Liverpool plays Chelsea. Up early to watch that one, and looking for my Mighty Reds to rebound from the poor showing in Florence in midweek.  I'll actually be at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea's home stadium in London on Wednesday delivering a keynote address to executives from across the world of football, so let's hope they welcome me still if Liverpool takes the win. The speech focuses on how sports marketing is rapidly evolving, using FIFA 10 as a best practice case study.

I couldn't be more excited by how well NHL 10 has been received, the overwhelming interest in FIFA's big launch this week in Europe, and the quality of NBA LIVE, which hits stores next week here in North America ready to put up a fight against what is always stiff competition.

Titans or Steelers.  What do you think?  As interested as I am in tonight’s opener, I’m more worried right now about the Cardinals.  I selected Larry Fitzgerald in the first round of my fantasy football draft Tuesday night, and then added Kurt Warner as my starting QB in the second.  I guess I know who I’ll be rooting for this year (in addition to my beloved Pats).  

Feels like just yesterday that I was watching Super Bowl XLIII, and here we are seven months later with another season upon us.  Of course, we went on to put both Troy Polamalu and Larry Fitzgerald on the cover of Madden this year, and as the presenting sponsor of NFL Kickoff weekend, we couldn’t be more excited to see the start of the NFL season finally upon us.

Madden continues to bring in a record number of gamers competing online, we're very pleased with the great critical acclaim for a product we're quite proud of, and yesterday we expanded the franchise to the App Store for the first time.  Now you can play Madden on your iPod touch and iPhone.  It's Madden, so of course you have all the NFL players, teams and stadiums, along with full control over team depth charts, cross-team trading, modes like Play Now or Season, and John Madden coaching tips.

Hopefully you also saw that we've just re-launched EA SPORTS Football World (available in English, French and German) and also our new Game Face tool.  It lets users upload photos of their face to EA SPORTS Football World and EA SPORTS.com to create their virtual likeness on the sites.  Players can then download their Game Face to be their Virtual Pro in FIFA Soccer 10 like I did.

Game Face takes player creation to the next level in FIFA with unrivalled physical likeness and, in my case, makes my dream of playing for my Mighty Reds of Liverpool finally possible.  And talking soccer, delighted to see England booking their tickets to South Africa with the surgical dismantling of Croatia this week (including two goals from Stevie G). Could this be the year??? 1966 is such a distant memory now...

Few other thoughts:

- Springboks - thanks for your posts about rugby. Right now, we have no plans to develop and publish a rugby game.

- Red Sox continue to splutter their way towards the play offs (hopefully). A season that started looking like we had more pitching than we knew what to do with is finishing with only Jon Lester as the only reliable arm in the rotation. Unfortunately, the Yankees look unstoppable this year...

I trust my employers here at EA will allow me the indulgence of reminiscence and nostalgia on this day, 09/09/09, the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Dreamcast here in North America. It certainly doesn't feel like a decade has gone by since this innovative console ushered in the era of online gaming, albeit through a 56K modem, and thus changed the face of interactive entertainment forever. The memories of course are bittersweet - we all know how this movie ended - but I was fortunate to have worked at that time with some of the most amazingly dedicated individuals, all of whom were galvanized around a single goal : prove the naysayers wrong, launch the console with a bang, get to a meaningful installed base within the first twelve months, and keep the momentum going in the face of the upcoming stiff competition.

With the Dreamcast's online capabilities, we coined a phrase "We're taking gamers where gaming is going". In our heart of hearts, we worried that we would not be there for the entire journey, but it was with great pride that with our Sega Sports games in particular, that we ushered in the era of connected interactive entertainment. I don't think it is an overstatement to say that the Dreamcast and it's online network laid the ground for what we all take for granted today - online game play, linking innumerable gamers from around the world to play, compete and collaborate, as well as enabling new content to be delivered in addition to that which was delivered on the disc. As rudimentary as those first dial-up game play experiences were, we proved that it could be done, and that gamers were clamoring for competition that extended past whomever was sat next to you on the couch at the time.

Over the years, I have been asked many times whether EA's decision not to develop and publish games for the Dreamcast was a major contributing factor in its early demise. That we will never know. But it is hard to argue with EA's rationale at the time and the ultimate outcome - get in position for the impending arrival of the Playstation 2, deploying all resources against the newest version of Sony's already wildly successful video game platform. You can't argue with the results. EA came out of the blocks strongly in support of the PS2, and enjoyed tremendous success throughout the key years of that console's life cycle. If there was one irony to come out of this, it was necessity of investment in a sports label to bolster the Dreamcast lineup. Conventional wisdom in that period was that the first party should have a sports brand (Playstation had 989 Sports and Xbox would have XSN), and the Dreamcast was no exception.  Thus was born Sega Sports 2K - named after the Y2K phenomenon that had us all paranoid that our computers were about to burst into flames on 01/01/00...

And what a launch line up we had. 18 titles was probably 3 or 4 too many, but we had all genres covered, featuring classics such as Soul Calibur, Sonic Aventure, NFL 2k and Ready 2 Rumble. All were brought to glorious 3-D life through the Power VR graphics chip. The "biggest 24 hours in retail entertainment history" occurred on 9/9/99, with day one sales totaling just under $98m To support this outstanding portfolio of games, and  the need to explode out of the blocks at launch with the console, we knew we needed a disruptive, attention-grabbing campaign that would get gamers talking and drive anticipation. Thus was born the "It's Thinking" campaign, where we urged you to "Not think out loud, it might hear you" informed you that "Outsmarting it will only make it smarter" and warned you that "You know it's alive. Worse. It knows it's alive" Quirky and slightly dark, the ads generated more PR than the media spend - always the metric of a successful campaign...The media plan came to a crescendo on launch night as we debuted "Apocalypse" during the MTV VMA's, still ten years later one of the more dramatic and lavishly-produced video game commercials. My eternal thanks will go to the teams at Foote, Cone and Belding, our advertising agency at the time, and Access Communications, the PR agency who were in our corner for every round of this enthralling and exhilarating fight.

Allow me this forum to correct one misconception about the final days of the Dreamcast. As we emerged from the Christmas selling season of 2000 and collated the sales data in the following January, it was evident that we were falling short of the critical mass target we had set ourselves for continued investment (read: ongoing losses) in the hardware business. Sega of Japan had rightly set sales goals for the North American market for that critical period, and as strong as our numbers were, they fell short of where we needed to be to continue. The decision was made, from Japan, to pull the plug and begin the transition to becoming a multi-platform third party developer and publisher. We at SOA, while disappointed, were in full agreement that this was the only real course of action, and it was with a heavy heart that I hosted the conference call on January 31st, 2001, announcing that Sega was ceasing manufacturing of the Dreamcast console. The call on the decision was made by SOJ. The conference call to announce the decision was conducted by SOA.

Many saw the Dreamcast as a spectacular failure, a last-gasp effort by a once-powerful player in the industry to remain relevant (and solvent). If measured by longevity and the ultimate financial outcome, they were right. But the Dreamcast had a profound and lasting impact on the world of video games. Isao Okawa, the Chairman of Sega Enterprises and the driving force behind the Dreamcast, tragically passed away two months after that fateful January conference call. He had a vision that a game console, combined with the power of the internet, could bring people together in ways that were previously unimaginable. He didn't live to see that vision come to fruition, and his beloved Dreamcast couldn't survive to play a role in the powerful world of connected gaming we all enjoy today, but it certainly lit the spark, and that we should never forget...

I'm back from an excellent trip to GamesCom.  Having shifted this year to Cologne, the organizers of this year's event and participating publishers and hardware manufacturers should be applauded for presenting such a compelling showcase for our medium.  The combination of great games, big announcements and flawless logistics, complemented by a perfect August window, made for an event that certainly rivals E3 now as the most important milestone on the game industry calendar ... just ask any of the nearly 250,000 people who were in attendance (yes, this was a consumer event after trade-only on day one).

Aside from our demos and news around FIFA and EA SPORTS Active More Workouts at EA's Tuesday press briefing, the biggest headline of the show had to be from Sony.  As I told a number of people last week, Sony's price drop is coming at the perfect time, it's great for gamers and I'm optimistic that it can mean very good things for us at EA SPORTS, where we know titles like Madden and NCAA Football have always had a very strong base of fans on Sony hardware.

Bottom line - this was a great inaugural effort from Cologne, and I left the show energized and optimistic, both for the industry, and for introducing EA SPORTS to more PS3 players.  

As exciting as it was to see how popular FIFA was in Europe, I also watched with delight as reports came in about Madden's success out of the gate in North America.  Madden has its highest critical acclaim in five years, and online engagement continues to show extraordinary growth year over year within EA SPORTS games.  In the first weekend alone, Madden became our first title to ever hit 100,000 peak simultaneous users - nearly 10,000 more people than can fit in the NFL's largest stadium. And...more than 5.6 million online games were played during the opening week; the equivalent of over 21,000 NFL regular seasons!

While we are still cautious about worldwide economic conditions, this type of continued growth in our online experiences makes us feel very strong about where we're placing our bets right now in development and as a business and it makes us optimistic with the trends we're seeing with Madden.

Congrats to our passionate and hard-working team at Tiburon who should be applauded for listening to Madden Nation and delivering the product fans have been begging for.

Before I go, two final items on GamesCom:

  *If you missed the video we released last week, please check it out here then go to the poll on Football World and let us know what you're most excited about with the new game.

  *We were happy to welcome World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Wladimir Klitschko to our booth during the show.  I was delighted to see how big a fan he is of our industry and of Fight Night Round 4.

After a busy week in the UK, culminating in the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, I returned home to San Francisco for the weekend to support our latest announcement regarding EA SPORTS MMA. And what a blockbuster announcement it was, welcoming 5-time World Champion Randy Couture to the growing roster of fighters that will be featured in the game, which will ship in 2010. Hot on the heels of our recent announcement of Fedor Emelianenko,

Randy's addition to the team gives us two of the greatest fighters in the sport today, and a solid platform upon which we will continue to attract more of MMA's best talent, thus furthering our goal of growing the sport through marketing investment and the creation of a world-class game experience.

That evening I was thrilled to be able to attend the Strikeforce event at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, of which we were a co-sponsor and had three fighters on the card wearing EA SPORTS branding on their shorts. There were particularly impressive outings from Gegard Mousasi and Gilbert Melendez, but of course the main event was the bout between Gina Carano and Cris "Cyborg" Santos. Much to the disappointment of a passionate crowd, the fight didn't get out of the first round, as Cyborg overpowered Gina from the opening bell...

I am now back in Europe, having just finished my section of the EA press conference here at GamesCom in Cologne. Dave Rutter, producer on FIFA 10, showed the latest developments on the title as we ready for the October launch. Just to make sure I wasn't suffering from any lingering effects of jet lag, Olympic Gold Medalist and 4-time World Champion Figure Skater Katarina Witt put me through my paces on EA SPORTS Active More Workouts, the latest iteration of our top-selling interactive fitness product for the Wii...

 

Finally, it was a disappointing weekend for me sports-wise, with Liverpool getting off to a dismal start to the new EPL season with a loss to Tottenham Hotspur with a lackluster display that only served to underline how weak our squad now is with the loss of Xabi Alonso. To add to the misery, the Red Sox slipped out of the lead in the AL Wild Card race with a series loss to the Texas Rangers, looking almost disinterested in the process...

Will post latest updates from Cologne as the week develops.

As excited as we all are about the launch of Madden at midnight tonight, I'm actually thousands of miles away in the UK, where I gave a keynote this morning at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival.  My speech focused on the evolution of EA SPORTS over the past two years, while I also participated in an entertaining Oxford-style debate in the afternoon about the power of blockbuster games in our industry. With Madden in stores Friday and FIFA not far behind in October, you can guess which side I was on.  

As for Edinburgh, this is my first time in this beautiful city, and in addition to the Interactive Festival, there are a myriad of other celebratory events taking place during the month of August. Most prominent is the Military Tattoo, which takes place in the evenings against the backdrop of the 14th century castle which still dominates the city skyline today. I was fortunate to be able attend the event on Tuesday evening, and what a spectacle it was...  

Next week, I'll be at GamesCom in Cologne, where we'll be showing a number of our upcoming fall titles, including NBA LIVE 10, Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online and NHL 10. FIFA is obviously our headliner for the show, and we'll have a number of announcements about both FIFA as well as EA SPORTS Active next week.

Even from across the pond, I've enjoyed following all the anticipation for our 21st Madden launch.  I'll be in bed and won't be able to watch tonight's preseason game with the Steelers and Cardinals, but I've read plenty of commentary the past few days on the product.  I loved GameDaily's, "If you're a football fan and you don't have this game, well, guess what? You're not a football fan.", and I'd encourage you to let me know what you think.

Of course, the conversations will be happening across various pages on the new easports.com, where you can talk to development team members and ask questions as you play, get tips and tricks from the dev team, check the online play and online franchise FAQ and even post your favorite highlights.  Enjoy the game...

Cheers,

Peter

August is certainly a great time of the year, as NFL Training Camps open and we near the launch of Madden.  On Aug. 14, Madden hits stores, and you may have started seeing some of our TV advertising as we approach launch.

As I wrote yesterday on the PlayStation.blog, I love to see how "training" for Madden launch has become just as important to gamers as NFL Training Camps are for NFL players.  These great new TV spots, created in collaboration with our good partners at PlayStation, clearly make that point!