EA's Generative AI Gamble: A Risky Bet at Winning Gamers Back

Electronic Arts (EA) has been in the news lately and not for the reasons you’d expect. The CEO recently came out and praised Artificial Intelligence (AI), indicating that the company is keen on making use of the technology to “bolster” and drive “efficiency” in their game development pipelines. This is against the backdrop of a relatively underwhelming year of releases from the publisher, with most of their titles in the past few months receiving lukewarm reception on launch.
Some in the community attribute this to the same copy-paste, formulaic gameplay which hasn’t evolved all that much since the 2000s. Others point the finger at predatory microtransactions in their most popular titles such as FIFA, Madden, and so on. There are also complaints that the company adopts a “launch first, fix later” mindset with their titles, resulting in poorly optimised games on launch week, drastically hurting the player experience.
All valid criticisms - don’t get me wrong. However, it seems that the head honchos at EA didn’t get the memo. This is evident in their reasoning for wanting to embrace generative AI technology, as a means to to cut down on development time to produce more content more quickly.
I believe this is missing the point, as people started growing out of love with EA’s games not because they didn’t have enough products being pushed to market - but rather because these games simply don’t seem worth playing (Save a select few titles). This video is a short commentary on EA’s decision to embrace Generative AI and discusses some of the implications of the technology on the company’s outlook along with how it’ll impact the employees working at EA.
Credits:
Trailer footage for FIFA, F1, and Wild Hearts.
Music:
‪@ImRuscelOfficial‬ - Grasswalk and Moongrains
‪@insaneintherainmusic‬ - Pigstep (Minecraft) Jazz Arrangement
‪@DomPalombiMusic‬ - Balatro Main Theme, Funk Fusion Cover