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00:00We spoke about a year ago to the day at the height of the pandemic lockdown when everyone was gaming for entertainment for socialization to just escape. The question is can that kind of demand keep up. Well thanks for having me. The short answer is yes and we're already seeing that. I mean we we came off an extraordinary year last year as an industry and you know continue to be grateful for everything our people were able to do for our players and the fact that our players came to spend so much time with us. But you know even with such a strong year last year we got into an even bigger year this year. And so we're projecting that continued growth. And that's not unnatural because people have discovered just how awesome games are. And that's a that's a connection that made both with the content itself and their friends through that content and our expectations. That's going to continue to grow over time. So you just reported your biggest year in history. Can you do it again. Well we've got it too. You know 18 percent top line growth. During my tenure I think it's only one of the time we've guided you know anyone you know anywhere above kind of five or six or seven percent. So this is a big jump for us. And of course we've made some acquisitions with Code Mosses and Blue that are helping drive that growth. But we feel really good about the year ahead. As I said the industry is on fire. More people have recognized the value of games out. Our kind of network of players is growing. We've got great content. You mentioned Battlefield coming this year in addition to Feed For and Madden and so many other great things. Any details you can give us on battlefield. How big do you think this will be. Well again I think it's gonna be huge and Battlefield is just such a great franchise it's been a number of years since we're in the market with that game. We're going to announce next week on June 9th we're gonna kind of do our release trailer as a small snippet of consumer demand. We did just a teaser yesterday and the results are through the roof. Well it's just well it's just a teaser that we didn't so it doesn't really speak to the game itself. We're gonna do a lot more of that next week. It does speak to just how much anticipation there is in the market. We broke all kinds of records with views and read tweets and likes and that kind of thing. So I feel really good about where we're going. I love what the team is doing with the game. And now clearly this is reinforcing that there's a lot of kind of anticipation in the market as well. We're coming up on June 16th which is the day last year that you revealed the cover of Madden NFL who's gonna be on the cover of Madden 22. And when will we know. Well we're going to know soon enough. I reviewed it with a team just a few days ago. I can tell you that they've got more surprises afoot. We're going to something a little different with a couple of the show. I won't say any more than that. All that aside I'm really proud of the work the team has done both with the game with the coloring with the marketing that we're going to build around about NIKKEI man was out a really strong year last year. We've sold more plays come into Madden more plays engaging deeply with Madden we've ever seen before. And our expectation again is this is gonna be a spectacular year for EA Sports Martin. All right. We were just looking at Lamar Jackson last year cover athlete. Tell me a little bit about the gaming demographic Andrew and how it is changing. Are you seeing more kids more women more folks of an older generation gaming. Because that's what we're hearing from other gaming CEOs is that there's not just new gamers but an entirely new audience who looks and uses these games differently. Yeah I think we've seen that we've been seeing that for a while now and I started this industry up 20 years ago and really you know video games well for teenage boys and now we see it from six to 60 and beyond. And what we see is that at least half and in many cases more than 50 percent of the population are women. You know I'm watching my son who's 6 and my daughter who's 9 get into gaming. And and the the beauty of what games can bring and how I'm able to connect with my kids. And I'm hearing that more and more as this isn't just about how can I go and escape the world through games but how can I connect with my friends. How can I connect with my family. How can I connect with people around the world through this wonderful form of entertainment as interactive games. And so what we're seeing is a dramatic broadening of the marketplace. And certainly the last year is only accelerated that. Now one of the things we talked about last year was how working remotely it was a challenge for the gaming industry to innovate together but also apart. You know we've heard some CEOs put a stake in the ground saying we want everyone back to the office and others saying we can be fully remote. Will you let workers continue to work remotely no matter where they live for the indefinite future. Yeah I listen. We're a creative industry and as a kinetic energy that comes when you put creative people together. And so on balance I think that many of our people will work together in offices most of the time. But what we've also said is we've learned so much in the last year and we're going to be going to be flexible. We're going to work with teams about what makes sense for them. And you know I don't think there's going back to the same as what we were. But I also don't think in our industry we're going to see a world where everyone is remote all the time because there is that Canadian kinetic energy that comes from putting creative people together. We're going to work with that teams. And what we're hearing on balance is that most people really want to come back together and create great entertainment. Meantime there is a big controversy evolving between game makers and platforms and companies like Apple in particular. We have been following the Apple epic trial. We're now waiting for a decision from the judge there. Epic. Obviously a huge player in the gaming industry with fortnight. What's your take. Do you see someone in the right and someone in the wrong there. I would tell you we have great relations with all of our platform partners. You know one of the great strengths of electronic arts and why we are a strong and a market leader like we are today is we've been able to establish and build those relationships and go to a platform agnostic way since our very beginning. We continue to have really strong relations with Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo and Apple and Google and others who are building with stadia and Facebook and others. And our orientations continue to try and work together with our partners to ensure that we can reach as many players as possible in the best most compelling way possible and offer our players amazing entertainment at amazing value. And so I think as this conversation continues that's going to be our focus as we work with our platform partners. Now gaming is increasingly intersecting intersecting with other forms of entertainment. And we've talked a lot about the metaverse the intersection of the physical and virtual worlds. Maybe it's becoming more of a reality. What's your view on the metaverse and how are you thinking about that to to deepen the engagement within games themselves. Well you probably heard me say this before but we've seen two fundamental secular trends kind of accelerate over the last over the last twelve months. One which is the nature of social interaction moving from physical to digital. And the other is that the consumption of sport entertainment is moving from winning to interactive. And so that's only helping us as new players come into our network of gamers and enjoy the entertainment that we make. The notion of the metaverse is something is being talked about a lot. It's one of those buzz words that we hear. It's something that started I think as early as 1992. And Neal Stephenson book called Snow Crash. It's really just a three dimensional spatial representation in a virtual world that facilitates something without social connection whether that's entertainment whether it's exploration whether that's education or at some point time commercial enterprise. I think our focus right now is building amazing 3D worlds with amazing characters and amazing stories whether that's in the context of our sports business or the about entertainment business and really trying to develop those further for our players over time. And at some level it wouldn't be unnatural to expect that players will want to do more than just the core element of the game. And we of course will begin to facilitate that over time. But I think less about the metaverse and more about how to fulfill the motivations of our players in the context of the interactive entertainment that we create.

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Gaming Industry 'Is on Fire,' Says EA CEO

Electronics Art Inc. CEO Andrew Wilson discusses the company's banner year of 2020 and how the gaming industry has exploded throughout the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. The video game maker is set to debut the latest release of their popular title "Battlefield" and reveal the new cover of "Madden NFL 22" this year. He also shares his views about 'metaverse,' the intersection of physical and virtual worlds, and its role in video games. Wilson speaks to Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology." (Source: Bloomberg)

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