Electronic Arts chief financial officer Eric Brown has resigned from his position at the company, Gamasutra reports. He’s only been with the company for under three years but Friday, February 17th will be his last day. The following Tuesday he will start his new role as both the CFO and COO of communications company Polycom. Current chief accounting officer and senior vice president Kenneth Barker will serve as CFO for EA until they find a new official replacement. Some are saying that Brown is leaving the sinking ship they have dubbed the “TORtanic” before it is too late but is this departure really evidence that something is wrong at the company? It’s important to look at all the facts when making such an accusation. First, Brown has a history of coming and going- with EA as well as with other companies. He first joined EA in 1998 but left for…
Eric Brown
SWTOR to Model WoW for Launch Strategy
The delay in SWTOR launch is based in part off of Blizzard’s launch of World of Warcraft. Gamasutra explains in an article with quotes from the Citi 2011 Tech Conference. SWTOR has an intended launch with a strong focus on the initial player base. They would rather limit this number and give better service to a smaller demographic than try to reach too many people at once, this diluting the experience overall for everyone. “”We’ve actually studied WoW pretty carefully,” CFO Eric Brown said at the Citi 2011 Tech Conference on Wednesday. “”We spent a lot of time studying the first twelve months or so of WoW, and just to be clear here, when they initially launched, they did not launch in dual geographies. They went North America only.”” Gamasutra covers more from Brown on the topic: “”We really want to make sure that the first group of users into…
TOR date set to be announced later this month or sometime in October
Battlefield 3 pre-orders hit 1.25M: During the Citi 2011 Tech Conference on Wednesday, September 7, Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown announced that Battlefield 3 pre-orders have hit around the 1.25 million mark, and are tracking ahead of previous Battlefield games. “To date we have about 1.25 million preorders on Battlefield 3, so it’s still well ahead of its predecessor title, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, in regards to preorders in the same number of weeks till launch,” he said during the conference, which was listened to by Gamasutra. “So it’s doing very well.” You can read more details in this article on VG 24/7. More exciting news from the Tech Conference: Star Wars: The Old Republic is still aiming for a Q4 release, but, as the firm mentioned earlier in the year, it is prepared for a possible slip into Q1 2012. “We have a date set internally, with a lot…
1.5 million interested in Star Wars: The Old Republic beta
As we reported yesterday Chief financial officer Eric Brown reviled that around 1.5 million gamers have registered their interest in being part of a Star Wars: The Old Republic beta. … We’ve got well north of a million, million and a half ready to test for free,” he said of Star Wars the Old Republic beta. “We’re not that concerned about generating initial demand. For us it’s about creating the right experience, expanded beyond the tier one and the tier two users. You’ve got people that have never played an MMO before but are interested in Star Wars, to engage and give it a try. What’s really important to us is striking the right balance so that we serve the needs and demands, requirements of the core, pre-existing MMO subscribers. “They demand a lot of content, a lot of community, guilds are very important, special group activities, raids and things…
SWTOR will not launch before July 1, says EA
During today’s Lazard Capital Markets Technology and Media Conference, EA CFO Eric Brown said that the firm would not release Star Wars: The Old Republic during the firm’s FY11. At the same time, he reconfirmed that it will be released sometime during calender 2011. “So we said it’s going to launch sometime in calendar, but not within Fiscal 11. So that basically pens down between you know, April 1st and December 31st of this calendar year. It’s also reasonable to infer that it’s not in our Q1 guidance. We gave Q1 Fiscal 11, Fiscal 12 non gap revenue guidance, minus 39 minus 44 cents and I think it’s not unreasonable to infer that it’s not included in that 90 day period.” So it looks like March-June is likely out, leaving a release date of July 1 at the earliest. Personally I belive it will be out some time this fall….