Organic Growth and Other Cool Moves
For all the flak EA catches about their business practices and their ummm, general aura of menace, the EA Originals program is a different story. EA’s indie division is all smiles and sincere enthusiasm. A recent interview with EVP Matt Bilbey reveals just how EA keeps the Originals program humming along.
For Bilbey, the secret of the system’s success is rooted in attention and organic growth. Each game added to the roster is connected to the larger company by a single producer. Bilbey maintains that they “don’t want to get to the point where one producer’s looking after 10 or 15 different developers because that’s when we’ll lose the real uniqueness” of the EA Originals program. The company has a similar outlook when it comes the program’s growth.
If the program gets bigger every year, it’s only because EA found more quality games. For Bilbey and the team, expansion hinges on the “quality of the opportunities from the independent development scene that we saw.” It’s a cautious approach that EA can afford to take, especially given how lucrative their main offerings are every year. While the EA Originals program doesn’t wipe clean their occasionally villainous image, it’s a big step in the right direction.