Change at EA Sports? So says Peter Moore

What’s this? EA Sports is going to change? Fo’ reals? Well, Peter Moore apparently doesn’t want to rest on his laurels, and for that, I hold him in high esteem. We’ve heard before of his big plans for bringing EA Sports to a worldwide audience, but he’s got even more sweeping transformations in mind. He revealed his ideas to Next Generation in a lengthy interview, which touched on topics like EA’s famous “It’s In The Game” slogan; merchandising and promotional deals; year-round brand extension; and exclusivity. But I was most interested in his thoughts on drawing in sports fans who don’t play sports games:

“What we’ve got to do to grow the market is bring in the football fans, that own high def TVs, that love football, and yet don’t enjoy our games because they see them as too hard. Now the strategy we have here is to maintain our core consumer, but we’ve also got to go out and captivate the masses.

“You do that by having easier menus, more intuitive gameplay. People are intimidated by the controller. They walk past the TV and if you say ‘hey, do you want to play’, they say ‘No, I just don’t want to make a fool of myself’.

“There are too many buttons and triggers and d-pads. We’ve got to break a lot of that down.”

The article also mentions Moore’s respect for what Wii Sports has done; it seems that he wants to do some of that with EA Sports’ games. Of course, he makes sure to note that hardcore sim fans won’t be left behind while the controls are simplified:

“They’ve been with us for decades in some instances. To be able to grow the market you cannot lose that consumer but you need to invite more people in with an experience that is different from the one that the core enjoys and thoroughly enjoys.”

Here’s my take: bully for Moore and EA Sports if they want to widen their audience. There’s certainly a lot of money to be made by enticing non-gaming sports fans to play videogames. Like, you know, your beer-swilling couch potato of a father who hollers at the TV when the Mets blow a 7-game division lead with 17 left to play in the season. But as far as I’m concerned, if they want to do that, they should separate it entirely from their complex sports sims. Bring back Mutant League Football or something, but don’t dumb down my Madden controls just to pander to the casual gamer. What do you guys think?

[via Next Generation — thanks, Justin!]