EA Exec: Games Aren't "Mass Market" Yet

[null_pointer]

It's very clear to me that the executive made these remarks with absolutely no knowledge of the technical side of things. Ever heard about a viral SmartTV app? How about a major SmartTV development firm? I certainly haven't, and with good reason: With the current software and hardware paradigms in the television industry, there are no smartTV applications that provide any kind of feature, service, or experience that is not already available without the technology.

I've taken a look into developing SmartTV applications, because I wondered about the possibility of the emerging technology becoming a widespread idea, but there are a lot of factors working against it.

-No platform interoperability: Wikipedia lists 13 current vendor-specific SmartTV platforms as notable. Every one of these companies has their own methods of developing an application for use on their system. Why should I have to design 13 versions of a program in order to saturate the market, when I can make 2 versions of an app (for Android and iOS) and have access to most of a wider market?

-Cost prohibitive: SmartTV's are still a luxury item. And with the technology/platform still in its infancy, many of the people who are able to afford one of these may not be able to use it to it's fullest extent. Everybody knows at least one rich asshole that buys every piece of new technology because they can, without actually knowing how to use any of it. That's the kind of person buying SmartTV's right now. And none of these people are going to trade in their $1,200 Samsung for some cheap Chinese piece of shit because EA (or anyone else for that matter) told them to.

-Limited client-side processing ability: Televisions, even SmartTV's, are not given powerful processors in the traditional sense. That means that most data processing would have to be done server-side. And if there's one thing that SimCity taught us, it is that EA cannot be trusted with servers.

-Input Device Inconsistencies: TV remotes are generally nonstandard, and in many cases, don't have the response time or sensitivity that any game other than a point 'n click would require. I'm not saying it would be impossible to design a better input system, or that it would be impossible to write a fun game that could use the current remote and be fun. But to do either of these would require a lot of time and effort, and from a business standpoint, there's very little profit to be made.


EA may be treating their developers better lately, but from articles like these, and the SimCity incident, it's pretty apparent that none of the executives actually LISTEN to the development staff. While development itself is a complicated process, these ideas are pretty simple.


TLDR: EA still doesn't have a clue.

 

[FalloutJack]

EA: We're just throwing anything at the wall and seeing what sticks!

 

[Atmos Duality]

He's exactly right...

Uhh, no. He's not "exactly" right.
Gaming is very much in the grip of mainstream, mass-market culture right now.

It's a very large, multi-billion dollar industry that is widely distributed industry with (effectively) global appeal.
Why he's trying to compare it to TV, I have no fucking idea except as a very awkward segway into his pitch.

As for all who are just saying they're dumb and that TV isn't a market for games: Think on this, mobile phones weren't a games market until very recently either, now they're become a multi-million dollar driving force for many studios/developers. Same with facebook before that. New markets develop based on accessibility to the masses. Television is already being tapped into through consoles, and no one here is foolish enough to state there is no market in consoles.

That's something I'd contest, because the Smart TV/Internet TV isn't really a new venture; but two old ones duct-taped together.
Not helping is that one ("Smart/Internet/Connected") is growing at the expense of the other ("TV"). Offline TV viewership is in decline in favor of online streaming sites and services. Which can be accessed by a huge number of devices in service already.

To be fair, we MIGHT see TVs adopt Connected/Smart as a standard feature waaaayyy further down the line, but right now, no. It's a fairly niche and redundant device.

That's not dumb, tv's are everywhere...

If you're talking about existing TVs, and not the kind he's talking about expanding into (Smart TVs/Internet TVs) then yes, it's dumb. It's incredibly dumb. Because those TVs are NOT AT ALL capable of delivering the kind of content EA is talking about expanding into right now.

If you're talking about Smart TVs, I'd say that's a questionable venture right now. It could work, but I'm not seeing this massive market appeal right now. He talks about people going to their TV when they put down their phones, but that is changing due to the increasing popularity of online streaming sites over traditional TV programming.

More people are going to their computers, instead of their TVs, and are treating their TVs as an expanded monitor more than anything. Hell, I could reach over and plug this laptop into the non-smart TV in front of me via HDMI right now, and get the same benefit. I have no interest in a smart TV, because it offers nothing more.

So again, I don't see the appeal he does; especially when home computers and portable media devices are already so widely distributed while providing the same access to streaming content already.

 

[likalaruku]

EA doesn't want to be bundled in with a bunch of has-beens and never-was in some subscription package, where the duds drag down sales for everyone else. "They've cheapened my product by comparison," says Hilleman, "and they haven't allowed me to create unique value for that customer."

Ah yes! 'Unique value' for the customer!

Presumably with tons more 'unique value' that can be purchased and added to the game in the form of handy microtransactions?

I can't tell if he's laughing or crying.