PS4 TRADE GUIDE: PATRICK SÖDERLUND, EA
EA: We want to be voted the
For most companies, the next generation is about blockbuster brands and the future of games. But for EA, it’s also about fixing its poor relationship with fans. Christopher Dring speaks to EA EVP Patrick Söderlund
BACK in April, EA was voted the worst company in America for the second year on the trot. And you’d expect a games publisher as big as EA, with execs as bullish as Andrew Wilson or Peter Moore, to simply brush that off. After all, EA isn’t exactly supplying guns to dictatorships or promoting tobacco to kids. It’s just a company that’s responsible for some bloody good games. But as it turned out, being voted the worst company hurt EA deeply “I don’t believe for a second that we are the worst company in America, but I do believe when something like that happens, you have to sit down and ask yourselves ‘Why are people saying these things?’,” says Patrick Söderlund, EVP of EA Studios.
“We did that and we started to realise that we are doing things that people don’t like.”
That, says Söderlund, is part of EA’s next-generation vision. Sure, it wants to cement its position as the world’s No.1 games company. But it also wants to be respected and, most importantly, trusted.
“We looked at something as simple as the Online Pass,” he adds. “People were telling us they didn’t like that. So we weighed up the pros and cons and went ‘Ok. We will remove it.’ These decisions need to be driven by what consumers want and tell us, and that is where we may have faltered a bit in the past. “If we continue to do those types of things, then we will earn people’s trust and respect. We don’t want to
be bad, we have no desire to be voted the worst company in America. On the contrary we want to be voted the best.”
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That’s a big ask. Especially when you consider the number of gamers playing The Simsor FIFA. They can’t please everyone all the time. “Well you are bound to make mistakes, but when you do, just be clear to communicate that you agree it was a mistake, and you are
Not a single person or company will do everything perfect. There is no such thing as perfect.
Patrick Söderlund, EA
taking the appropriate actions to fix them,” answers Söderlund. “Not a single person or company will do everything perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect.”
NEW EA, NEW GENERATION This is certainly a more humble EA compared to the cocksure games giant we’re used to. But then this is a new EA.
When we last spoke to Söderlund in August, he was in
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