Persistent EA profiles "not far away"

By Robert Purchese Published 8 April, 2011

To span games and platforms, says Moore.

EA wants to unify all of its games under one persistent player profile, EA Sports boss Peter Moore has revealed.

"Today we're looking at a seamless experience across all our franchises," he told an MI6 audience (not the British intelligence agency) - a speech watched by Joytsiq.

"Regardless of where you are, what platform you have, what game you're playing, that you're constantly connected. [Future EA Sports games will be] connected experiences that recognize users and reward them for playing multiple games."

"We recognise [players] - that's the persistence - and their presence there gets its achievements and carries them from iteration to iteration."

Moore added: "It's no longer 'buy Madden 11 and then buy Madden 12 and start from scratch', it is 'take everything that you've done and migrate it and move it along'."

Peter Moore teased that these persistent player profiles are "not far away". "It's certainly within [our] grasp," he said.

"This is how we envision the future of our industry, and this is how we at EA Sports individualise and personalise this as the future of our brand and ultimately the future of what Electronic Arts as a whole is going to do across all of its titles," declared Moore.

Persistent player profiles aren't new: Microsoft arguably coined them with Xbox Live Gamertags, and the likes of PlayStation Network, Steam and Battle.net followed. Facebook profiles also do the same thing for the vast array of games available there.

Furthermore, EA studio BioWare began testing these persistent profiles with Dragon Age: Origins - a game that can be linked to the BioWare Social Network website and player statistics uploaded and displayed online. Look, here's my Dragon Age: Origins character.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Shikasama #1 1 year ago

    I bet Madden 12 will still cost 40 quid though.

  • effinjamie #2 1 year ago

    About time. I was trying to log onto mycrysis, and to be frank, the whole things a total mess.

  • AliRay #3 1 year ago

    Y'know, it would actually help things if you didn't massively undermine the value of your sports games by rolling out near-identical sequels every 12 months.

  • miiiguel #4 1 year ago

    Soon enough you'll have "persistent profiles" for a shitload of games/franchises that it doesn't feel like "persistent" at all.

  • raloB #5 1 year ago

    The future is soon here, when consoles are nothing more than gaming clients/extenders to giant gaming servers. All code will be launched serverside and delivered over built in 4G/Wimax/Wi-fi receivers HDD and DVD/Blu-ray will be redundant and all persistant data and saves will be kept in the cloud.

    This will be soon too, quite possibly next-gen if it really is 3/4 years away!

  • TeaFiend #6 1 year ago

    Ubisoft would like to say hello with Uplay stuff.

  • asphaltcowboy #7 1 year ago

    An exciting idea!

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #8 1 year ago

    if this allows you to carry your maddem \ fifa profile between 360 and PS3 that would be amazing

  • jumpdeveraux #9 1 year ago

    "recognize users and reward them for playing multiple games."

    As long as the reward is essentially cosmetic/neutral and does not give the person a material advantage in one game simply due to the fact they've played another game from the same publisher.

  • Desheep #10 1 year ago

    I can't help but feel this is just building up to another way of making us pay them for trivial fluff.

  • el_pollo_diablo #11 1 year ago

    "recognize users and reward them for playing multiple games."

    DING

    You have unlocked the 'no sunlight for a week' badge

  • peterfll #12 1 year ago

    This will be a good thing. As mentioned in the article, Xbox Live and Games for Windows do it now. Albeit in a bit of a limited fashion thanks to not having that many supporting PC games...

  • Arrit #13 1 year ago

    They need to let you combine profiles you already have. I've got my Xbox registered to one account and PC stuff to another. EA refuse to combine the two accounts. It's a bit annoying when I can't take advantage of any of the cross game content.

  • arcam #14 1 year ago

    IMO this is the beginning of locking games to a single account, kind of the natural next step to the Online Pass. Wouldn't be surprised if this eventually makes it impossible for you to lend a game to a friend.

    Or maybe I'm just paranoid ;)

  • Armoured_Gideon #15 1 year ago

    "joytsiq."

    ?

  • 32768Colours #16 1 year ago

    "Regardless of where you are, what platform you have, what game you're playing, that you're constantly connected. [Future EA Sports games will be] connected experiences that recognize users and reward them for playing multiple games."

    The reward - once upon a time - was for playing games well, not just because you've bought lots of games. I really don't need this level connectivity! It's like the tiresome "the single player game is good, but the package would be great if only it had co-op / multiplayer". Really? Contrary to most reviews for example, Torchlight doesn't need co-op to be fantastic, because I couldn't care less about it and I fail to see how another individual stealing all my loot would make the game more "fun".

    This whole profile business is just part of the same chip the industry has on its shoulder right now. Everything is about connectivity, social networks and online functions. Maybe I'm going against the grain, but I felt no benefit for having the cerbeus network in ME2, the multiplayer in 90% of games I've owned, or any other shoe-horned rubbish.

    Edit: Italic fail!
    Edited by 32768Colours at 08/04/11 @ 13:24

  • orangpelupa #17 1 year ago

    argh ..... i though what EA means is llike STEAM with steamplay.

    i buy PC i got mac version too.

    so i though i buy BF3 on PC and i got xbox and ps3 too.

  • Cronan #18 1 year ago

    So, like a gamertag, but with EA shitness and franchise-wrecking annualization built-in?

    @arcam, precisely.
    Edited by Cronan at 08/04/11 @ 12:56

  • Rack #19 1 year ago

    They'll need to work hard against the fact that I don't care who published a game I'm playing and am going to resist efforts to cram my Dragon Age profile into my Rock Band one. I'm not going to want to put my Rock band avatar into a free Dragon Age T-Shirt, and even less want to tweet I've done so.

  • swisstony #20 1 year ago

    "Furthermore, EA studio BioWare began testing these persistent profiles with Dragon Age: Origins - a game that can be linked to the BioWare Social Network website and player statistics uploaded and displayed online. Look, here's my Dragon Age: Origins character."

    Like EQ2 years ago :)

  • uknortherner2000 #21 1 year ago

    @arcam

    I would go one step further and suggest that like installation limits on EA's PC games, it's all about publisher control, requiring a mandatory always-on internet connection, even for single-player games and even blocking you from your library of games if you dare make a negative comment on their official forums.

  • HL706 #22 1 year ago

    EA can speak to me when my Mass Effect 2 DLC becomes available accross all platofrms and not just for the Xbox 360. I paid for it - now that I have a free ME2 digital download on the PC - I'd quite like to go through that *with* the content I've paid for on another system.

    For such a technologically driven industry - some of the thinking behind online services and products is woefully dated.

  • McFly55 #23 1 year ago

    stEAm

  • Lord_BeeJee #24 1 year ago

    Constantly connected to EA... no thaaanks

  • Geordiemp #25 1 year ago

    Looks like the concepts a winner then by comments.....LOL

  • metalangel #26 1 year ago

    Question 1: So why the fuck have I had to register online to play all of your shitty games up until this point? Oh, right, so you can switch servers off and disconnect me whenever you fucking like.

    Question 2: "The future of our industry"? I would have thought you see the future of our industry as paying £40 for Madden and then having to buy each player individually as DLC... the better ones cost more, and if you don't buy enough for a full team... well, you don't have a full team on the field during the game, do ya?

  • TheApologist #27 1 year ago

    I only barely vaguely care about my Steam profile, even less my PS3 one, and only then cause my friends can see my profile. Now every publishers is going to give me a profile too?

    Sigh...cannot be bothered

  • Sevens #28 1 year ago

    Certainly there is absolutey no way for this to turn out bad.

  • Inmediasress #29 1 year ago

    They released the internet to the masses and back then it was all about freedom open information whatever.
    Now they realised that you cant have that because then you don't have full controll over your sheep and that is bad because then you can't make shit loads of money with additional monthly fees and other nonsense.

  • RevanNL #30 1 year ago

    So here's the near future of videogames: persistent EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Take Two, THQ, PSN and Xbox Live profiles.

  • ruddiger7 #31 1 year ago

    dont really care for your "persistent profiles". i just want to play my games when i want to

  • 32768Colours #32 1 year ago

    I suppose the profiles will need to be signed in for me to access the data I'VE paid for already?

    @Inmediasress, I think you pretty much nailed it right there good sir!

    It's a bit like the music industry too; they spend years bemoaning and fearing the internet and when they do finally start to get their heads around it they do nothing more than exploit the hell out of it. That in itself wouldn't be so bad - I think I kinda expected that eventuality - but never did I expect it to get to the point where such a vice-like grip on entertainment would exist whilst rather insultingly dress it up as doing us all a favour.

  • Inmediasress #33 1 year ago

    @32768Colours

    Agreed it really irritates me that they make it sound like a favour that they do for us.
    Worst of all many people will believe it.
    The entertainment business became really possessive. They want everybody who plays games or likes music to become somehow pending from them so that you or me are at their mercy when it comes to price cahnges or other elements basically a kind of monopoly.
    I do agree they need some controll but their really trying to go the Draconian route and that is bad for the future of not just gameing but evrykind of entertainment.

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