Interview: Peter Moore on EA Sports' Rising Brand

IndustryGamers: I'd like to start by gauging your reaction to the new motion sensing technology from Microsoft and Sony. From the EA Sports side, I'm sure you could envision some very interesting software...

If it's in the game, it's in Peter's head.

Peter Moore:  Yeah, we already are. Both companies are obviously great partners and they've shared their plans [with us] well in advance so it was no surprise to us... You could fully comprehend the excitement of sports [when thinking about these technologies]. Both companies came to us, asking 'what are your ideas for this?' Anything where you're moving around in sports, and particularly the fitness element of what we're doing certainly ties well into what both Sony and Microsoft are trying to do now in taking a little bit of the action that Nintendo's clearly had for themselves so far.

You need a company like [EA Sports] to be inside thinking through these things... It's a huge opportunity for sports, we're already working on it, we're expecting dev kits to be arriving very soon. Both are different technologies – one obviously has a controller and the other one your body is a controller. I think there's already a lot of learnings we have right now with our Wii [products] and certainly there's stuff with EA Sports Active that we could apply to both platforms. Fitness is a huge play for us and will continue to be a huge play for us, and this just makes the opportunity bigger, to say the least.

IG: Since the PlayStation motion technology does make use of a controller in your hand, which is more similar to what EA Sports has been doing on Wii, does that make it an easier transition?

PM: I think both of them are going to demand and deserve new experiences and not some sort of port from the Wii to PlayStation controller. ... In both instances when we get the dev kits we're looking at what new and interesting experiences we can bring. They're both different, and in some instances I think some people would say depending on what you're doing with your body, in sports in particular, if you're swinging a bat or shooting a basketball, do you need that sensation of something in your hands? Once we can really dive into the technologies and get the dev kits... you can believe that we'll be there alongside both Microsoft and Sony with this.

IG: Were you disappointed that we still didn't get that price cut on PS3?

PM: Well, they will cut it when they feel ready. That's their business.

IG:  I know as a third-party now you'd love to see the market share between the big three split into a third, a third, a third...

PM: Yeah, and alternating every week! You want balance, but then it isn't right now... You see us obviously trying to do a lot with the Wii, but boy we love our core gamer. I think we're building very strong relationships with all three [manufacturers]. I like the balance in our portfolio now; it feels very well balanced and we're focusing on the attributes of all three different platforms. 

IG: I've heard you talk before about EA Sports becoming a sports brand like an ESPN or Nike, and not just a video games brand. How far along to that goal do you feel EA Sports is now?

PM: I think we're making a lot of progress. It's interesting – EA Sports Active, whilst it requires a console, it's not actually a game. It is starting to move into the personal fitness space; it's done it very quickly and aggressively. At first we worried “Can the EA Sports brand extend itself outside of the core simulation, licensed sports games? Can it talk to women? Can we build marketing plans that include Ellen and Oprah rather than ESPN SportsCenter? Can we have endorsers that are Alison Sweeney and Bob Greene and not Troy Polamalu and Larry Fitzgerald? I think we've proven with all those that it's “yes.” ... And our products are in sporting goods stores now, so I think we're going a long way if you look a distribution as one metric. All of a sudden we're in places where Nike is;  Dick's Sporting Goods is diving into our products. 

For Virtual Playbook we got an Emmy award – we're a video game company, how did we get an Emmy? Because we applied cool broadcast analysis tools to our friends at ESPN using the Madden engine. We're also into youth training sports aids through our IMG deal with Toy Island, and as you can imagine we're on the brink of other licensed deals that will bring the brand into other places. So I think we've made great progress and will continue to, but we're starting to think about how we extend our core business on other platforms; Tiger Woods Online is a great example. How do we talk to sports fans now, not just video games? Tiger Online is not necessarily aimed at a hardcore gamer that has a 360, PS3 and Wii – it's me at a departure lounge at the gate and my flight's delayed 45 minutes, so I'm going to play five holes of golf. And with wi-fi rolling out on the flights themselves, there goes all my e-mail time! I'm playing Tiger all the way over!