{"id":604625,"date":"2023-02-01T23:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/01\/how-ea-plans-to-compete-with-fortnite-and-roblox-in-the-metaverse\/"},"modified":"2023-02-01T23:01:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T05:01:00","slug":"how-ea-plans-to-compete-with-fortnite-and-roblox-in-the-metaverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/01\/how-ea-plans-to-compete-with-fortnite-and-roblox-in-the-metaverse\/","title":{"rendered":"How EA plans to compete with Fortnite and Roblox in the metaverse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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February 2, 2023\u00a0\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u00a07 min read<\/span> | By Alexander Lee<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\tIvy Liu\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Electronic Arts\u2019 Q3 2023 earnings call on Tuesday was a mixed bag<\/a> for the gaming giant \u2014 but \u201cThe Sims\u201d was a bright point. As marketing dollars flood into platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite, EA sees its popular simulation game as its way to secure a piece of the metaversal pie.<\/p>\n

Gaming platforms are currently the closest thing<\/a> to a truly immersive and persistent digital world, and brands have taken note. As games like Fortnite<\/a>, Roblox<\/a> and Minecraft<\/a> transform into full-service metaverse platforms, marketers have spent millions of dollars partnering with in-game creators to build bespoke virtual brand experiences inside them.<\/p>\n

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EA didn\u2019t use the word \u201cmetaverse\u201d a single time during its Q3 2023 earnings call \u2014 but the game developer has clearly taken note of the revenue-generating potential of virtual platforms powered by user-generated content<\/a>, or UGC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt in my mind that \u2018The Sims\u2019 will be [as big as Fortnite and Roblox] at some point,\u201d said Samantha Ryan, an svp and general manager at EA who oversees studios including Maxis, the developer of \u2018The Sims.\u2019 To learn more about EA\u2019s plans to crank up the UGC capabilities of its games, Digiday spoke to Ryan for this annotated Q&A, supported by observations from EA\u2019s Q3 2023 earnings call.<\/p>\n

This conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cFor my studios, I have Maxis, which is the guardian of the \u2018Sims\u2019 franchise, and Full Circle, which is the guardian of the \u2018Skate\u2019 franchise, and those studios are both working on future projects that are very \u2018game-out.\u2019<\/p>\n

Game-out is about making sure that the game elements and features that people know and love are respected, and are delivering everything that they would want to keep them highly, deeply engaged. And then around that we put a layer of in-game tools that our players can use directly in the game, merging and using them with outside tools as well, so it\u2019s easy to take things from the \u2018out\u2019 and put them into the game. It\u2019s not a surprising strategy, because it is similar to what some of these other companies are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2014\u00a0Ryan<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that Ryan zeroed in on \u201cThe Sims\u201d in her answer to this question. It\u2019s one of EA\u2019s most popular series \u2014 if not the most popular \u2014\u00a0and \u201cThe Sims 4\u201d boasted a total player count of 33 million<\/a> in October 2022, six years after its initial release. (33 million, while a relatively high player count for any game, is still dwarfed by the 173 million<\/a> and 400 million<\/a> users respectively enjoyed by \u201cMinecraft and \u201cFortnite.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sims\u201d is a series that is based on the construction of virtual worlds and virtual people to populate them, much like Roblox and Minecraft. Still, as it currently stands, \u201cThe Sims\u201d is more of a simulation game \u2014\u00a0not a true metaverse platform. While users can share their creations with each other, they cannot co-create simultaneously. In Roblox and Minecraft, socializing with other players in-game is practically necessary to keep things entertaining; in \u201cThe Sims,\u201d the core gameplay loops are mostly single-player.<\/p>\n

On the specific changes that will bring games like \u2018The Sims\u2019 closer to metaverse platforms<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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\u201cWe are working on the next \u2018Sims\u2019 game \u2014 \u2018Project Rene\u2019 is its code name right now \u2014 and we did an apartment customization test where they were testing how multiple players would build together. Historically, in \u2018The Sims,\u2019 you have not been able to do that. But it is something that our players have asked for. They actually hack it in there \u2014\u00a0there are mods out there where two people can build an apartment together. So if the modders are already doing it, and it\u2019s really hacky and hard to use, then of course we should be putting it in a future game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0Ryan<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

The planned changes to \u201cThe Sims\u201d outlined above by Ryan show how the game\u2019s developers at Maxis are well aware of the inherently social nature of today\u2019s leading metaverse platforms. Taking cues from game modders is also important for EA to ensure that the final product lines up with the community\u2019s expectations, and EA has recently started to test prototype versions of its games with select group of players, sometimes under NDA, before rolling out the final release.<\/p>\n

Another key change that EA has made to bring \u201cThe Sims\u201d closer to its metaversal competitors is the series\u2019 recent switch to a free-to-play, live service model. \u201cThe Sims is also evolving and growing as a live service,\u201d said EA CEO Andrew Wilson on Tuesday\u2019s earnings call. \u201cIn Q3, we took the base game free-to-enter and welcomed over 10 million new players into the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the scale of EA\u2019s UGC audience<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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\u201cThe great thing about EA is that Maxis, and to some extent \u2018Skate,\u2019 have already been working in this space. The \u2018Sims\u2019 franchise is 23 years old, and user-generated content has been in that franchise since the very beginnings. \u2018The Sims 4,\u2019 which we operate right now, has over 88 million total uploads into the \u2018Sims 4\u2019 gallery \u2014\u00a0I mean, that\u2019s a lot of content, and we do about 200,000 downloads daily from that same gallery.<\/p>\n

We also just announced a partnership with Overwolf to create a destination to download mods and custom content, to ensure it\u2019s a bit more moderated and curated. That is one of the challenges with this type of content: that people are often afraid to access it. So that\u2019s \u2018The Sims 4\u2019 today, and most of those mods that are out there, they\u2019re creating them with in-game tools, but it\u2019s not super easy to access them. So in the future, we hope to make it even easier for people to create and even easier for people to access.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2014\u00a0Ryan<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

EA\u2019s partnership with Overwolf is another reason to believe that the company views Minecraft as a serious competitor. Overwolf owns CurseForge, the largest online game-mod-sharing platform. Millions of users visit CurseForge every month to download Minecraft mods \u2014 and now they are also served \u201cSims\u201d mods whenever they navigate to the CurseForge home page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that UGC is the future of gaming. Gamers get more content, mod authors are recognized and rewarded for their creations and publishers can outsource content creation in a way that is safe, while fostering engagement,\u201d said Overwolf CEO Uri Marchand. \u201cOverwolf\u2019s partnership with \u2018The Sims 4\u2019 marked a significant step toward unleashing the community\u2019s creativity and making UGC more accessible to the entire ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the formation of a brand\/creator economy in EA\u2019s corner of the metaverse<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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\u201c<\/strong>We have already done branded packs with \u2018The Sims 4.\u2019 We\u2019ve done clothing brands, we\u2019ve done big brands, we\u2019ve done community collaborations. We will do more over time \u2014 we\u2019re just dipping our toes in now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The Sims 4\u2019 is going on 10-plus years, so if we have that same kind of thread, then yes, the genius of our players will inspire new things to be created. And then we, as a development studio, can decide, \u2018hey, do we want to professionalize that? Do we want to allow them to become sort of semi-pro modders, as others have done in the Minecraft and Roblox communities?\u2019 There\u2019s a lot of things we can do to really keep these games humming along for many years, with players at the center. It\u2019s a self-sustaining wheel that goes around, and players are driving it \u2014 and when we see something that we can support, we\u2019ll jump in and we\u2019ll do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2014\u00a0Ryan<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Platforms like Fortnite and Roblox are full of branded experiences created by independent creator studios without any involvement on the part of the platforms\u2019 developers. In contrast, most brand activations in \u201cThe Sims 4\u201d are the result of direct partnerships between EA and the brands. If EA truly wants to compete with today\u2019s leading metaverse platforms, it will have to support the development of a more robust creator economy that allows brands to activate inside the game with minimal involvement from EA itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future of entertainment is interactive,\u201d said Wilson on Tuesday\u2019s earning call. By pushing titles like \u201cThe Sims\u201d and \u201cSkate\u201d into the metaverse using a game-out approaching, EA is betting big on the continued rise of interactive, immersive and virtual media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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