EA's focus is on Origin and the importance of change

Frank Gibeau, Head of Development at EA, says the future of the company is with its online Origin system.

On top of that there is a big push to further its free-to-play games but to also maintain commitment to the current generation of consoles and physical game discs, even in light of growing download sales.

In an interview with Gibeau at The Verge, he went into what EA are going through, and what it's preparing for with the approaching Windows 8 launch. "EA has transitioned from a content-only company to a content/platform company."

"I think that three core growth drivers in the interactive business is going to be mobile, PC free-to-play, and console," Gibeau said.

"All I can say is that we're multiplatform and we publish on everything," he said. "Where it makes sense for us, we'll do it and when it doesn't make sense, we won't. We're building an Origin store, an Origin platform, an Origin social network that works on the PC. So you can see where we are going with it. Apple has a store... to me (the launch of the Windows Store) is just a fact."

"I feel like the next five years are going to be largely defined by the battle of the ecosystems. It's important for us to have our ecosystem. If you look at attributes of an ecosystem, it's: How many users do you have? How good are your relationships with them? Do they perceive it as a positive experience? Do they tell there friends about it? How viral it is?"

Further to his previous comments on customer preference, he sums up the balance EA is after with in-game purchases. "People get p**sed off when they are required to buy something in order to be competitive," Gibeau said. "So there's this classic ebb and flow between older consumers and younger consumers that I see right now in our telemetry. Younger consumers have more time than money. Older consumers have more money then time."