Video Games

EA CEO thinks generative AI use can make players spend up to 20% more money on games

Andrew Wilson outlines plans for AI in game creation

Marco Wutz

EA CEO thinks generative AI use can make players spend up to 20% more money on games
EA CEO thinks generative AI use can make players spend up to 20% more money on games /

Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts (EA), stated at a tech conference that his company was “embracing” the use of generative AI in game development. He called this era “the most exciting yet” and outlined his thoughts on the technology, which revolves around “three core vectors,” as Tech Raptor reported. These are “efficiency, expansion, and transformation.”

Citing an internal study across EA’s studios, Wilson said the company found that around 60% of development processes have a high likelihood to be “positively impacted by generative AI” when it comes to efficiency. As an example, he mentioned that creating a stadium for one of EA’s many sports sims took six months in the past and now takes around six weeks. He said that it’s not unimaginable that the process can be further cut down to six days in the next few years. His overall goal, he stated, is to make development around 30% more efficient with AI use.

Electronic Arts logo on white background.
EA's CEO is aiming to make the company more efficient and profitable with the use of AI / EA

Touching on the expansion vector, he named EA Sports FC 24 as an example. It contains 1,200 different running animations for athletes to use, whereas its predecessor, FIFA 23, had a dozen. Generative AI made this increase possible. Wilson said that such expansions of the experience would attract more players in the future – up to 50% – and make them spend between 10 and 20% more money due to “real personalized content” made with the help of generative AI.

As for transformation, Wilson’s thoughts appear to be a little vague and sound like he wants to create a Fortnite-like platform that EA owns and on which users make their own content thanks to AI.

EA recently laid off around 670 employees and canceled several ongoing development projects, including a Star Wars game that was being worked on by Respawn Entertainment. It also plans on halting the active support on a few mobile games in its portfolio.

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Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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