For the past few years, Electronic Arts has staked their own claim on gamer attention away from Electronics Entertainment Expo with EA Play, just before E3. EA is at it again in 2018, and has a lot to prove.
This year, the mega-publisher is hosting EA Play, their show separate from the rest of the industry's centralized location, on June 9 - 11. While EA has not said exactly when their usual conference-style show will be, the hours for Saturday start at 2:00 PM, which implies the conference should be just ahead of that.
Like previous years, EA Play is open to the public in the form of tickets, with demo stations and entertainment for anyone going. This year, EA says that Bioware's anticipated shooter Anthem will be playable to the public, as well as the as-of-yet unnamed Battlefield title scheduled for this year.
Tickets for the show will be available in Spring, so if you're in the L.A. area or you're going to E3 and are landing in L.A. a few days early, EA has an event for you.
Our Take
This is the first year since the Battlefront II controversy, so I imagine EA wants to put on a show to distract from if not outright ease concerns. The first question out of everyone's mouth upon seeing Battlefield or Anthem again will be about lootboxes and microtransactions, so I imagine they will want to answer that question themselves first.