We have the passes and we're hitting some sessions today. It's early here in CA, so not much going on except a lot
of donut eating. You can look forward to Vlad blogging a session about developing for the Playstation 3 later
today.
The sense here is that there won't be too much in the way of breaking news. But once the floor is open (and the
keynotes are given) we'll see about that. The Unreal 3 peek and the possible Zelda clip are on the tips of everyone's
tongues.
The EA address by John Batter was interesting. A lot of mobile game developers I've spoken with are wary of the
company's entry into the space. Why would EA get into a market that barely makes enough money to register on their
financial reports? Sure, it's growing but it's nowhere near the size that would usually interest a company as large as
EA. Do they know something the rest of us don't know? Perhaps new streaming media services like Verizon's VCast are an
indication that the tech is about to arrive. Maybe the 3D hardware for mobile is almost "there". Perhaps EA sees that
most of the content in mobile is sorely lacking from a non-casual gamer's perspective. And perhaps not…
Most likely, EA is just going to make a bunch of licensed titles. Batter said as much in the address, though we hope
for more. Cheap to make, fast to play and readily available is a pretty potent strategy. It's too bad it probably
doesn't mean better quality games. "It's not about genre," Batter said, "but about building a community around a
franchise consumers are passionate about." The pessimist in me interprets that as "It's not about the game, it's about
the franchise."
