EA Sports revealed today that 500 million online games have been played across its various franchises since it launched the 09 series of games in June 2008, reflecting the increasing importance of the online arena to the world’s most popular series of sports videogames.
500 million EA Sports games played. That’s half a billion. That’s over 2.2 million games played every day. That’s a lot of games and a lot of italicization. In fact, it’s an increase of more than 175 percent over the previous year and EA Sports President Peter Moore is well aware of how important online gaming will be to the continued success of the business.
“The massive migration to online gaming has transformed the video game landscape, and this week’s 500 millionth online EA SPORTS game highlights the radical shift that we’ve helped pioneer in the industry,” Moore said. “Online gameplay allows real-time competitions with fans from around the world who speak the global language of sports.”
EA Sports is taking advantage of the popularity of online gaming with the release of games like 3 on 3 NHL Arcade and NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition as digital downloads. The FIFA 09 Ultimate Team downloadable game mode, meanwhile, has driven “the highest online activity for FIFA 09 in the lifecycle of the product.”
Continuing with the impressive numbers, six EA Sports games have over 500,000 registered online users, including Madden NFL 09 and FIFA 09 which have over 2.4 million users each. More than four billion minutes of EA Sports games have been logged since last summer, the company said, and gamers currently play the equivalent of 35 years of games every day.
And you wonder why the Madden NFL series won’t die?
