Peter Moore: EA's Origin is Much More than Steam

Peter Moore is a Liverpool fan, an ex-Microsoft man and for the last seven weeks he's been Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts. Although he's still getting to grips with having his "fingers in everything" but he's sure about where he sees the company: BIG.

During an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald he talks Origin (having been heckled, "Origin sucks!", at a recent event in Sydney):

"I think in its broadest sense they (customers) think it is just EA's answer to Steam, and it is much more than that. Like any great content provider, you want to provide yourself with a platform to talk directly with your customers."

But surely a Steam for EA would mean alienating the console platform holders? Not according to Peter:

"We love our business with Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo and with Apple and Facebook, all of which have platforms that we develop games on, and all of which have revenue sharing situations or royalties, but at the same time we love to be able to talk directly with our consumers and build a platform that other publishers can take advantage of.

"That's exactly what Origin is all about. And I don't think anyone begrudges us doing that. The console first parties understand what we are doing. I think the fans, the people that have to use it in the early going, are the ones that get it last in regards to what we are trying to do."

In the interview he also states that, "I think what we have done is redefine what a publisher in interactive entertainment means in the modern era. We're closer now when we look at the industry to being a peer of a Facebook, or a Google, or even an Amazon, or in our world a Comcast, which is a major distributor of content by cable, than we are a publisher of video game discs sold through retail."

Source: SMH