EA on longer game life cycles: MMOs, DLCs, Spore 10-year plan

With their strong library of annual franchises, Electronic Arts has gone out on a limb to say that games have longer lifespans today. To prove their point, EA talked about MMOs, DLCs, and their ten-year plan for the upcoming game, Spore (PC, Nintendo Wii, DS,  Mac, Mobile). More details after the jump.

Electronic Arts believes now is the best time to own games because they have longer life cycles these days. In an age where attention span is shrinking drastically, that’s really some claim.

But with big-time, mainstream game franchises churning out titles at a yearly clip, EA may just have the right stuff to back it up. In an interview with MTV, EA North America‘s publishing head Jeff Karp shared the reasons for their optimism.

First off his list are EA’s classic massively multiplayer online games, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot. Both are MMO grand-daddies in their own right, having been released in 1997 and 2001 respectively, yet they still have a large fanbase to speak of until now.

Downloadable content has also been an integral part of EA’s longevity. After all, if you want to last long, you have to make them keep coming back. Burnout Paradise is a glaring example with its free islands.

However, Karp maintains that it’s important to plan these DLCs. To drive home his point, Karp lets us in on some sneak info for the much-anticipated Spore. He reveals that Spore‘s downloadable content has already been planned to last for ten years, ranging from new levels and building blocks to innovative ways to play Spore.

EA seems really determined to stay around for a long time. If they happen to absorb rival Take-Two Interactive (and its sports franchises), EA’s insights on longetivity just might turn into gospel.

Via MTV Multiplayer