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A squAre peg in a round hole

A squAre peg in a round hole. Four Years Building Cutting-Edge Online Games at EA Ben Cousins, General Manager, Easy (EA). four live titles almost ten million registered users Profitable This year’s Net Revenue in eight figures, Doubling next year. Console games. Core PC Games.

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A squAre peg in a round hole

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  1. A squAre peg in a round hole Four Years Building Cutting-Edge Online Games at EA Ben Cousins, General Manager, Easy (EA)

  2. four live titles almost ten million registered users Profitable This year’s Net Revenue in eight figures, Doubling next year

  3. Console games Core PC Games We are here Free-to-play Social games Kiddy MMOs

  4. Too many externalities

  5. Free to play games make good moneyData and benchmarksStructuring a live teambuild an item cataloguemarketing and pr

  6. Ask for forgiveness, not for permission

  7. Three massive mistakes I made

  8. Didn’t understand web development Outsourced platform development Naïve about service operations

  9. Didn’t understand web development

  10. Outsourced platform development didn’t want to be a web developer Decided to use a central-ea option from top It company Project too big, ambitious Dropped the tech, built our own

  11. Naïve about service operations Hosting, customer service, payment instruments, store management, marketing, community management EA studios used to only spending money on developers In the end we hired a (too small) team and expanded it

  12. Ea learning to do online

  13. Over-emphasizing technology In packaged-goods, distribution, payments, marketing are solved problems. Tech gives you a quality advantage In free-to-play, ea needed to build an infrastructure before pushing tech

  14. EA bosses EA infrastructure EA studios

  15. Disruptive innovations can hurt successful, well managed companies that are responsive to their customers and have excellent research and development.

  16. Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half

  17. Senior producer Lead designer Art director

  18. You can’t plan for discovery

  19. I’ll be there on the 9th January 1909

  20. Should be done by 4th of June, 2015

  21. Expect some skepticism… …except from the guys who had the initial idea, who will really love you… …be careful if you could be used to make more money elsewhere in the organization You know nothing to start with Because you know nothing, just assume everything will be very hard and very expensive Be nimble, roll your own stuff or grab cheap stuff. Don’t look for a magic solution There are no external experts Stay on target! You can’t plan for discovery Get great people

  22. ? bcousins@ea.com (I am not intersted in using your online payment methods)

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