DICE defends EA’s track record of innovation

The perception that EA does little more than pump out mass-market sequels is unjust, owned studio DICE has argued.

"EA is actually very prone to try out new things," Magnus Troedsson, the general manager of EA-owned studio and Battlefield creator DICE told Gamasutra.

"And I have to say that sometimes I think we get too much crap for not being innovative.We do release new IPs, and we do take care of IPs that have been out there. And perhaps not so successful, but we try to get new things out there as well.

"Now, that might sound strange coming from me, working onBattlefield. We’ve been around for 10 years, and we just keep doing more of the same, but being innovative in that space.

The movement, or part of the movement, fromMirror’s Edge, [was] put intoBF3, for instance. That’s a typical example. And there are those examples that have gone into big products that people don’t really know about, but they actually came from smaller, other, more innovative test experiments inside of DICE."
It’s true that EA certainly went through a period of aggressively pushing new ideas and new IP.

In 2007 boss John Riccitiello raised eyebrows by claiming that sequels were ruining the industry. And while many fingers point at EA as being the worst culprit, the publisher stayed true to its word.

2007 saw the introduction of two new IP – Skate and Crisis. 2008 brought an even greater bounty in the form of Rock Band, Dead Space, Spore, Army of Two and Mirror’s Edge, with Dante’s Inferno following in 2010.

Of these there have been some great successes – Crysis, Dead Space and even Army of Two power on, and while the long-term future of IP like Spore, Skate and Rock Band is uncertain, it’s fair to say that they were successes in their time.

In fact, only two of the games – Mirror’s Edge and Dante’s Inferno, failed to establish themselves, though the former was a big hit with critics and calls for a sequel remain abundant.

But what of EA’s upcoming slate? That’s slightly less glowing, with Insomniac’s reworked Fuse (formerly known as Overstrike) and the mysterious new title from Respawn Entertainment the only new IP on the forward release schedule.