Games may become outdated term, says EA Casual boss

The head of EA’s casual and mobile games business Kathy Vrabeck has forecast that interactive entertainment may evolve to the point that it is now longer referred to as ‘games’.

Next-Gen.biz reports that Vrabeck added user-generated content and personalisation of games worlds will become ‘everything’ to consumers.

Vrabeck was speaking as as part of a debate on what role games will play in 12 years time, at this week’s MI6 marketing conference in San Francisco.

Vrabeck said: 12 years ago the games market was almost exclusively about unconnected consoles and PCs. In the intervening time, the market is now about 30 per cent connected, which still leaves 70 per cent. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that in the next 12 years that number will change a lot.

Younger consumers are completely connected now and don’t know anything else. They expect to be entertained online. That has enormous implications for how we deliver and market our games. The cost of acquiring those consumers is on us as publishes instead of on retailers.”

She added: If you look at the social games played by tween girls, very little of the activity is actually games playing. Mostly it’s about the social connections. But they are in a games world. They just don’t see it that way. Many of the games we make in 2020 won’t look like games and maybe won’t even be called games.”

It also means that user-generated content and personalization becomes even more important. In fact, it’s everything.”