With their annual franchises such as FIFA and NBA, you’d be forgiven for thinking that EA is a studio that plays it safe in terms of video game development. Despite this, the company does also take a number of risks with new IP’s, as Patrick Bach has recently pointed out.
Speaking of Mirror’s Edge, Bach stated that EA allows its developers to take risks because there’s a lot of cushioning. Speaking to OXM, Bach had this to say:
“The reality is, you need to at least make your money back – and if you fail to do that, no one will rescue you. I think that’s also the benefit of EA today – there’s a lot of cushioning when it comes to taking a risk. Like, we wanted to do crazy shit because we are in a position to do that. That’s the benefit of the EA mentality where you understand what it means to be big. Rather than do less and less crazy stuff, you do more and more because you can – instead of thinking that if we do more of the safe stuff we will be a lot bigger and better.”
So are you convinced by the DICE studio manager’s words? Certainly, despite its reputation, EA has taken risks with a number of franchises from Dead Space to Mirror’s Edge, and now from Star Wars Battlefront to Unravel.
