EA is entering the eSports scene with a new competitive gaming division led by Peter Moore

midian182

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The popularity of eSports is growing at an incredible rate. Competitive games such as League of Legends, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are regularly the most played games on the PC platform, and those who are good enough can win prizes reaching into the millions of dollars by playing them professionally. This has meant more publishers are looking to jump on the eSports bandwagon; the latest being EA, which has just announced a new competitive gaming division.

The new section will be led by Peter Moore, EA’s chief operating officer since 2011, who will become the company’s executive vice president and chief competition officer. Moore will keep his current position until the end of the fiscal year.

Moore will be joined by company veteran Todd Sitrin, who will serve as the senior vice president and general manager of the competitive gaming division. Sitrin will work with EA's internal studios to "create an exciting competitive platform in our games," said CEO Andrew Wilson.

"We’re already very engaged with our development teams around the world to make sure our games have got modes that lend themselves very well to competitive gaming, built-in from the get-go. Not as something that’s put in as an add-on mode or a last-minute afterthought,” Moore told IGN.

The move will likely see franchises from EA’s stable - such as Madden, Battlefield, and FIFA - become more visible on the eSports scene. Expect to see a number of live events featuring EA games, as well as new competitive features and options appearing in the company’s upcoming titles.

Moore added that the creation of the new division might result in some of the less popular elements from certain EA games being removed in favor of something competitive that will keep players’ interests for longer.

"There are things you don’t need anymore that are going to be replaced by eSports modes. And I’m not saying you’re cutting things out of the game. But our dev teams look at engagement every step of the way, and there are things that just don’t get played […] The data doesn’t lie. So you eliminate that, and you put whatever resources were against that, and put them toward something people are going to engage with,” Moore said.

EA is following in the footsteps of Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publishers Activision Blizzard, which formed its own eSports division headed by former ESPN and NFL Network CEO Steve Bornstein back in October.

Expect to hear more details about EA’s competitive games division over the coming months. Does the move mean that the next Mass Effect and Dragon Age games will include competitive modes designed to become eSports? Unlikely, but here’s hoping.

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Why don't they revive Medal of Honor back in the WW2 era and make it fully an esport game? Pretty much all the franchises they own are established for the casual market.

Or better bring back Generals 2... there was huge interest into the free Red Alert 2 on Origin. Even busted their servers...
 
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Just what eSports needs, a developer which will push games out the door full of bugs that make them unplayable on a non competitive level, you can only imagine competitive gamers are going to flock to a game that is full of game breaking bugs but still gets pushed by corporate dollars to be played competitively.

And don't forget the mandatory DLC, there has to be at least $40 of DLC sold before the game is even released, on top of the soon to be standard $80 price tag for the base game. I'm sure everyone will be looking forward to what EA releases in less than 6 months.
 
I look forward to seeing EA fail horribly.



Someone's always gotta push that "proper sport" button don't they? Times be changing
I take you're not into real sports and that's OK, not everybody is physical, but computer video games should never be classified as a sport. Playing professionally and making money from computer games is fine, but it should be classified under the arts & entertainment category. But as a proper sport? C'mon man, gimme a break.
 
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It's absolutely no different than Golf or Racing or sport shooting, hunting, fishing. We consider those sports. These people use 'tools' to compete their sports, golf clubs and race cars, guns, fishing poles. Gamers do the same, they use their tool, the computer, to compete in their sport. I agree its not physical like the big 4 sports, but golfing, racing, shooting or fishing aren't really that physical either.
 
It's absolutely no different than Golf or Racing or sport shooting, hunting, fishing. We consider those sports. These people use 'tools' to compete their sports, golf clubs and race cars, guns, fishing poles. Gamers do the same, they use their tool, the computer, to compete in their sport. I agree its not physical like the big 4 sports, but golfing, racing, shooting or fishing aren't really that physical either.

Someone who has obviously never raced. It is extremely physical and also a team sport. Golfing takes skill although I don't care for it myself, but to me it's a game, not a sport. Shooting I'm very good at and enjoy but also wouldn't go so far as call it a sport, but it's in the Olympics. Fishing... That's what I do for food and when I'm bored to Zen out. With the exception of open water sport fishing. That's physical as heck but I still wouldn't call it a 'sport' in direct context. But Racing is so very physical. Even more-so in longer racing circuits (Nascar Sprint Cup, Baja, etc.) Handling the G forces and staying focused after a few hundred miles isn't for the out of shape and making capable vehicles to take the abuse takes an impressive team work.

Still, I'll be ignoring anything with EA on it as I currently do. Plenty of other options in the gaming waters.
 
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Not for me thanks, I'll stick with proper sports. Gaming to me is just a hobby and nice time waster.
If you are playing any "proper sport" professioanlly then only you can call gaming a hobby and time waster.
Just think if you aren't earning money for playing any sport then it is a time waster.
 
If you are playing any "proper sport" professioanlly then only you can call gaming a hobby and time waster.
Just think if you aren't earning money for playing any sport then it is a time waster.
You don't have to earn money playing sports, in fact most people play for fun, games too. Professional video game playing shouldn't be listed as a sport as I alluded to in an earlier post, it should be an art.
 
Even these popular eSports games like CS:GO and LoL are buggy as hell. CS is random as hell and it has a lot of glitches especially as of late and LoL is famous for it's sphagetti code. They had to ban a couple of meta champions in their biggest tournament cause they broke the game in certain situations and it was unfixable.

Now imagine EA coming in all of this.
 
Even these popular eSports games like CS:GO and LoL are buggy as hell. CS is random as hell and it has a lot of glitches especially as of late and LoL is famous for it's sphagetti code. They had to ban a couple of meta champions in their biggest tournament cause they broke the game in certain situations and it was unfixable.

Now imagine EA coming in all of this.

half the esports tournys will just be "Error connecting to server", "You are banned by punkbuster for 99999Minutes", "Game has crashed"
 
It's absolutely no different than Golf or Racing or sport shooting, hunting, fishing. We consider those sports. These people use 'tools' to compete their sports, golf clubs and race cars, guns, fishing poles. Gamers do the same, they use their tool, the computer, to compete in their sport. I agree its not physical like the big 4 sports, but golfing, racing, shooting or fishing aren't really that physical either.
Playing video games is not a sport, it's entertainment, and should be categorized as such.
 
It's absolutely no different than Golf or Racing or sport shooting, hunting, fishing. We consider those sports. These people use 'tools' to compete their sports, golf clubs and race cars, guns, fishing poles. Gamers do the same, they use their tool, the computer, to compete in their sport. I agree its not physical like the big 4 sports, but golfing, racing, shooting or fishing aren't really that physical either.

You made me laugh! If sitting on a chair playing a game is exactly the same as playing real life sport, then you got a warped sense of reality.
Did you grow up playing nothing but computer games? Ever played sports at school at least?
 
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