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EA Sports Served 1 Billion Online Games In 2009
Electronic Arts’ CEO John Riccitiello recently disclosed a staggering statistic, saying that EA Sports has hosted more than one billion online matches in 2009. Speaking to PBS’ Nightly Business Report, he pointed to the figure in explaining how dramatically the games industry has shifted over the past few years.
“Once upon a time, our games felt more like things or products,” he said. “It was on a disc, and that’s all there was. Today, virtually every one of our games is played online. They’re played with dozens, hundreds—sometimes thousands—of other players, and the data and services behind it are the most dynamic part of it. This year alone—just the packaged goods business of EA Sports, one part of our company—we’ve hosted over a billion online game. A billion online games. That’s a staggering number. These are where people are playing one hour, two hour, three hours. It’s the productivity of a small nation wrapped up in just EA Sports online.”
EA Sports brands include popular franchises such as Madden NFL Football, FIFA soccer, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and NBA Live. To put that in perspective, it took Bungie’s Halo 3 one year, five months and some change to reach the one-billion-matches-played mark all by its lonesome.
Any way you look at it, though, one billion matches is a staggering impressive. Congrats, EA!
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