EA Founder: App Stores Are Too Crowded

The Wooster

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Jul 15, 2008
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EA Founder: App Stores Are Too Crowded


Trip Hawkins reckons developers need publishers to promote their products on digital distribution platforms.

"When Apple launched the iPhone, when Facebook launched their app API, when Android and Google Plus followed suit, you started to see all these offers where 'Hey, if you're a developer, just come to me. You don't need a publisher,'" he told BigWorld Technology. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6BlIfk_i0o]

"I think that honeymoon is ending now because if you have a million apps in an app store, just because your app is in an app store, it doesn't mean it's going to be discovered," he continues. "So you've got issues about how you're going to bring traffic to it."

After leaving Apple back in 1982, Hawkins went on to found Electronic Arts, which you might have heard of. He later left EA to form 3DO, which managed to secrete Escapist editor, Susan Arendt's, "favorite mistake," [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.263414-292-My-Favorite-Mistake?page=2 ] and an assortment of truly terrible games before finally going under in 2003. Hawkins then formed Digital Chocolate, which is currently busy churning out casual titles for mobile platforms.

"Retailers in the old days not only solved the distribution problem, they solved the discovery problem," Hawkins continued. "In the very beginning with iPhone, with Android, with Facebook, they also solved the discovery problem because there wasn't much there. As you got up into the thousands and thousands of things that are there, they're no longer solving the discovery problem."

I can't say I disagree. Though in theory freedom from the traditional retail model means developers are free to experiment without being beholden to a horde of corporate suits, the reality is that without publishers acting like a barrier to entry, any yahoo with a PC and a handful of cash can produce a game. That sounds wonderful, but the end result is that looking for quality games on platforms like the Apple App Store feels akin to bobbing for apples in an ocean of horse urine.

Hawkins went on to criticize platform holders, claiming they weren't earning their 30% cut of game profits, and that developers may instead have to rely on publishers to handle their advertising.

"I think for developers increasingly, they're going to have to try to then figure out, 'Well how do I get my discovery problem solved?'" he said. "If they can't finance it themselves, then maybe they need to partner a publisher that's good at it."

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UnderGlass

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Jan 12, 2012
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So, gentle and understanding (and totally not knee-jerk reactionary) internet denizens - shall we aid this poor man remove the foot from his mouth first or the head from his entitled, casual chum-making arse?
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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"Hey guys, stop flooding the market. That's our job!"

DVS BSTrD said:
If this man were running for office I don't think I could trust what he says any less.
What if he promised to put a colony on the moon No, actually, you're probably right.

Captcha: too many cooks.
 

DustyDrB

Made of ticky tacky
Jan 19, 2010
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Looks like Christian Shephard. How's heaven? Or whatever that was...

EA: You're being Debbie Downers. "Your brand is tired. Your store is crowded. This beer isn't exactly the right temperature."
What I'm getting at is this: You're sooo not invited to my birthday party.
 

drthmik

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Jul 29, 2011
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I'm sure that whatever the solution to these problems is,
it most certainly is not EA


and he looks nothing like Cave.
 

Antari

Music Slave
Nov 4, 2009
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Grey Carter said:
That sounds wonderful, but the end result is that looking for quality games on platforms like the Apple App Store feels akin to bobbing for apples in an ocean of horse urine.
Funny, I feel the same way about the games industry these days. And as an "industry leader" guess who I'm pointing at EA.
 

Revnak_v1legacy

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Mar 28, 2010
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You guy realize this guy does not work for EA anymore. Hasn't for over a decade. Wow, you must all really just want to talk down EA rather than actually address the point. I know we're all supposed to think they're the devil and all that, but do we seriously have to start villainizing people who have nothing to do with the company anymore?

I agree with him. There are just so many games out there right now that it can be quite difficult to find something worth buying.

Edit- and damn is that a handsome man.
 

infinity_turtles

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Apr 17, 2010
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Revnak said:
You guy realize this guy does not work for EA anymore. Hasn't for over a decade. Wow, you must all really just want to talk down EA rather than actually address the point. I know we're all supposed to think they're the devil and all that, but do we seriously have to start villainizing people who have nothing to do with the company anymore?

I agree with him. There are just so many games out there right now that it can be quite difficult to find something worth buying.

Edit- and damn is that a handsome man.
Couldn't agree more. Currently it's very difficult to discover good games on any of the app stores.

Also, had no idea Digital Chocolate was founded and run by one of EA's founders. The company makes some decent mobile games.
 

Saulkar

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Aug 25, 2010
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This is a double edged sword. Discovery is shwag'en'all buuuuuuuuuutt, the almost exclusivity of over bureaucratic, profit driven mentality of publishers these days tend to fuck things up for the developers for a variety of reasons that are all too familiar to users on the Escapist.

-I hope my syntax was correct.
-CAPTCHA: silver bullet
-Eh, probably not.
 

octafish

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Apr 23, 2010
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Trip, bube, they're called programs.

I love the EA bashing. If Trip here knows anything it is failure to penetrate a crawded market from his time at 3DO.
 

lancar

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Aug 11, 2009
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Publishers are not the ones to solve the discovery problem. That's the job of the gaming media.
 

Albino Boo

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Jun 14, 2010
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lancar said:
Publishers are not the ones to solve the discovery problem. That's the job of the gaming media.

So its the job of movie critics to to discover 1 of 10000s of people waiting tables to be the next big film star? Or do they get the break by having a good agent. Of all the 1000000s of singers on youtube the only one that has made it big is Justin Bieber. In the last 5 years or so how many other singers have come to fame from the old fashioned route of A&R men and agents. The discovery problem isn't unique to games on mobile platforms. In other creative industries this problem is solved by the guy that can make to phone call to the casting director/A&R man, why is gaming somehow going to be different.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Sep 8, 2011
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Nice try. The thing about app developers is that they don't need a fuckin' publisher. You don't have to ruin everything you greedy bastard.