Electronic Arts is dropping the familiar concept of opening up to indie titles (even though Josef Fares and his studio Hazelight proved with It Takes Two, after A Way Out, that there is a demand for niche games).

In 2016, EA Originals was created to release games from indie partners by Electronic Arts. Jeff Gamon, EA Partner’s general manager, told Gamesindustry: “We’ve discovered a desire for bigger, better, and more innovative titles that complement the EA portfolio. So where we started with more little indie games. We are graduating to independently-created games of all shapes, sizes, scopes, and budgets. We are moving away from niche and towards bold and audacious. And we are attracting a lot of positive sentiment from the press and consumers. We are riding high on the success of It Takes Two, but even the other titles we’ve released in our history have been critically very well received.

We trade on our reputation. I think EA Originals is unique in how we partner with studios. Everything that we do is in collaboration with the studios we work with. We open the doors to all the resources and talent that any of our internal studios have and channel that into our partner studios. All the while, we shield them from the enormous EA corporation and make sure to protect their creative freedom. We are making games on a bigger scale, but we are also still partnering –, and we have one or two in the pipeline — on more minor games as well. Those fundamental values still stand. The structure of any deal is entirely bespoke. The opportunity is there for any small or large partner studios to access the same resources as our internal studios. It’s like a menu. It depends on what they want and when they need it,” says Gamon.

Bigger games are coming, such as Wild Hearts and Immortals of Aveum, which are more significant than Fe or Unravel. In addition, Rustheart (co-op action RPG from Glowmade), announced at E3 2019, will also be published by EA Originals. And in these, too, Denuvo will be found, which is a hindering factor in the preservation of games…

Source: WCCFTech