Social Features Are a Focus for All Future Electronic Arts Games

Video game publisher Electronic Arts says that social gaming elements, from in-game chat to shared content, user-created levels and stat tracking, are set to be one of the main features of all the titles that it plans to create and launch in the near future. Frank Gibeau, who is the president of the EA Games division at the publisher, has said that social elements are “a primary design pillar” and that they are “part of every design that we put in a console and now also our PC games.”

To Gibeau, the social side of gaming is one element that can help sales, mainly because it allows peer pressure to work better and will lead to groups of friends picking up certain titles together.

He added, “If I can post something about what I was doing in a game and tell my friends that, they will take notice. It helps facilitate the spreading of that game. Word of mouth plus the network effect is driven by social.”

The first big push for social elements was included in the Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit reboot, created by Criterion, with the Autolog feature.

It allowed players to stay in permanent contact with friends, seeing their times, their performance and encouraging ad hoc competitions.

The feature has since been used in the Shift 2 Unleashed Need for Speed release and also appears to be a big part of Need for Speed: The Run, the video game that will be launching later in 2011.

The Battlefield 3 first-person shooter, which is also being prepared for a launch during the fall, is set to get its own system, called Battlelog.

Reports from developer DICE suggest that all the features that Activision Blizzard plans to include in the Call of Duty Elite subscription service will be included for free in the Battlelog.

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