Gibeau: Social Now A 'Primary Design Pillar' For EA

Social features such as in-game chat, stat tracking and the ability to share content with others are as important as gameplay and graphics, and will be a primary focus in all EA games going forward. That's according to EA Games president Frank Gibeau, who discussed the company's philosophy in an interview published Tuesday. According to Gibeau, the implementation of social features is "a primary design pillar" for all of the company's games in development, and is "part of every design that we put in a console and now also our PC games." Social features will "absolutely" help the publisher sell more games, he said, through its use as a discovery tool. "If I can post something about what I was doing in a game and tell my friends that, they will take notice," said Gibeau. "It helps facilitate the spreading of that game. Word of mouth plus the network effect is driven by social." In addition to the social features provided by its new Origin digital storefront, EA will also continue to offer individual networks for its titles, including a network called Battlelog for this year's Battlefield 3.