According to new revelations contained in a report Friday from All Things D, gaming giant Electronic Arts will make a majority of its mobile game titles free.
By all accounts, such a move represents a drastic change of pace for the company, which has always focused on the premium games market.
“We started to see that freemium was coming in, and it took us a long time to move over,” says Nick Earl, who oversees EA’s mobile and social worldwide studios. “In all candor, we are behind.”
Earl said his company is going big by going freemium.
“We are all over that,” Earl said. “There will be a few one-time download games in the future, but they are such the exception, and the norm will be freemium games.”
“Over the last three years, we reengineered the console business,” Earl said. “There were a lot of mediocre stuff and we moved to making a lot fewer good titles. Basically, we are taking that approach to fewer, bigger and better from console to mobile and social, and adapting to freemium.”