Interview: EA Partners Goes Digital With Hothead and Klei

EA Partners today made two significant announcements, signaling an increasing interest from the division to bring more digital games to the market. EA Partners will bring Klei Entertainment's Shank and Hothead Games' DeathSpank to digital platforms like Xbox Live and PlayStation Network (and PC in Shank's case). 

Some great looking Shank artwork

DeathSpank was developed under the vision of The Secret of Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert, and the game “blends a story filled with Gilbert’s unique humor and wit with classic and addictive action RPG gameplay.” As for Shank, the game is a brawler with a “unique art style inspired by graphic novels and golden age comics” and it “blends the intensity of classic 2D side-scrolling action games with a gripping and mature storyline.” Shank is also a finalist for “Excellence in Visual Art” at this year’s Independent Games Festival and will be featured at the IGF Pavilion during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week. Shank is due out this summer while DeathSpank has a more vague 2010 release date.

IndustryGamers asked Jamil Moledina, Outreach Director, Business Development at EA Partners, if these two deals mean that EA Partners is looking to do more digital now and less retail as Electronic Arts continues to transition to digital overall. 

“I wouldn't say it's a substitution for our existing business; we see the packaged goods business as being continuously robust and being the dominant way people buy games. And EA and EA Partners feels it's in a really good position to fund and field some of the best games in the industry at that level,” he said. “At the same time, the services that we offer and the talent that we see in the downloadable space is something that's extremely interesting to us. Our charter is not necessarily make giant games; it's to make great games. Really, the degree of talent and creativity that we see in Klei Entertainment and the game Shank – these are things that would be foolish for us to ignore. The opportunity is strong both on the direct level and long-term basis. Our strategy in partnering with talent is about forming relationships, being a great partner... and a trusted companion on the road to making great games. So we'll be there when Klei is interested in doing additional titles on various scales. It fits in quite well with our existing MO.” 

Hothead's Deathspank

Moledina also countered reports that EA Partners has been scaled back: “[There's been no change] whatsoever. We're functioning at the same high level, and our strategy is still to partner with the best games out there. I think in the earnings comment, you were hearing a very frank statement about the fact that our distribution revenue was slightly down simply because we hadn't re-signed our Rock Band agreement, but that doesn't change our overall charter that David DeMartini has us directed toward, which is to find the best games and talent.” We followed up to ask if EA would like to renew the Rock Band agreement and Moledina answered, “Sure we're interested... but I can't actually update on that just yet. We've had a fantastic relationship with Harmonix and MTV Games and we're very excited about what they offer to the market.”