EA CEO Andrew Wilson dishes on ‘players first,’ Star Wars: Battlefront, and a new Mass Effect

Above: Mass Effect leaves our galaxy.

Image Credit: EA

GamesBeat: So you’re hoping “Game of Thrones” episodes are not very good.

Wilson: Or we’re understanding that as part of your life, you’ve gotta watch Game of Thrones. How do we enhance that? How do we give you something as a lead-in to that? How do we make sure you’ve got something to do right as Game of Thrones finishes? Before you start thinking about the next TV show you want to watch.

Interactive entertainment is no longer a discrete experience. When I grew up, you would decide that you were going to play a game. You would go somewhere and sit down and boot it up. I had a Commodore 64. You’d have to run, go, press play on tape, enter—it was 30 minutes just to get a game started. Now games, by virtue of the evolution of technology, permeate our lives, in much the same way digital music does. Whether it’s on our mobile phone, smart TV, console, or internet-enabled fridge, more and more games are going to be part of our lives. We’re trying to help players find content that’s new and interesting and entertaining to them. Curate that player journey.

GamesBeat: Is there any particular trend in the game industry that makes you happy?

Wilson: Yeah! More people playing more games more of the time. That’s awesome. I firmly believe games are the best form of entertainment. When you measure games against any kind of metric, value over time—you can buy a $60 console game and play that thing for 100 hours without blinking. You connect with your friends.

Think about fulfilling needs. Once you get past air, food, water, shelter, you get to the sense of belonging, social connection. Games are one of the best ways on the planet to connect with your friends. Then you get to self-esteem. We build self-esteem by overcoming challenges, challenge and achievement. That’s games. Self-actualization, leaving a legacy, creating in this world. That’s games.

It’s really cool that more people are waking up. When I started in this industry, gamers had a real stigma. If you were a gamer you were a particular type of person. Now I love that you can walk down the street and young people, old people, men, women, everyone’s playing games. It’s a better world.

GamesBeat: Is there anything you know about Mass Effect that could get a tremendous number of readers interested in our story?

Wilson: Yes. But we’re not gonna talk about it.

GamesBeat: What kind of ships might be in there?

Wilson: I’m gonna speak abstractly. What I would say is, I saw Mass Effect—the first time I saw it was probably a year ago. They have a particular creature in that game that is unlike—I actually tried to get it into the demo, because I thought this thing was so awesome. I saw the demo and said, “Hey, where is this?” Because I thought it was one of the most awesome things I’d ever seen. They said that they’re not going to put it out yet, so I can’t tell you about it either. But know that there’s a thing coming, a simple thing, and I thought it was unbelievable.

GamesBeat: It must have felt good to have cheering like that at the press conference. You don’t always get franchises that people go that crazy about.

Wilson: No, you don’t. I was overjoyed with the reception.