Peter Moore: ‘Casual’ is not ‘dumbing down’

Speaking to hardcore consumer mag Xbox 360 World, Moore said that EA was focused on bringing in new consumers to its brands.

“Time is being compressed and people have less time to play games, so we have to create game experiences that are catered to them,” he commented.

“We're not dumbing down the experience; segmentation such as Freestyle allows us freedom to explore outside of the core EA Sports brand. 'It's In The Game' is still about testosterone and competing against each other, which is what we're good at, but that business is not going to grow as quickly as the market for new consumers coming in.”

When asked if casual gaming was the future of the industry, Moore added:

“Well, look at Rock Band. It really came home for me when we were in Munich for our global marketing meeting and we took over the Hard Rock Café for the night and had a Rock Band competition.

“There were a hundred of us and it was like a real rock concert. It was a blast. I stood back and I thought that this was an incredible cultural phenomenon.

“The crowd were going wild, but all we were doing was playing on toy guitars, toy drums and singing badly into a microphone.

“Now the beer might have had something to do with it, I don't know, but it was a great social thing. And I said, ‘Boy, this product is going to change the way we think about games.’”