Electronic Arts has performed relatively bad in 2008 and its stock price fell to its lowest point in seven years. The company's COO, John Pleasants, gave the attendants of Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet conference a thorough explanation for the reasons behind that.
"The biggest thing was that we didn't make hits," he said.
Facing the economic crisis as well as an increasingly tough competition from Activision-Blizzard, EA plans to trim jobs in almost all divisions, with the notable exception of marketing.
"The game-development process has evolved, so the marketing should as well," he said. "It's less about 'We have an idea, we go away for 24 months and spend USD 30 million working on a game, then put a little buzz out there and hope it works.' We need to have a dialogue with the audience, take a longer lead time and make sure we have the right mix of digital and traditional."
EA also plans to cut down the number of titles released annually by around 20% because "you can lose your way on basic execution when you have too many games."
