Riccitiello: There are one billion gamers

By Tom Bramwell Published 9 December, 2009

Plus: EA Sports host a billion sessions.

EA boss John Riccitiello has said there are at least one billion people playing videogames in some form worldwide.

"Conservatively, if I add up mobile users who play games, social network people who play games, people who play PC games online in Asia, all this stuff, this audience, there's at least a billion people gaming today, compared to a couple of hundred million just five years ago," the silver-haired fox told PBS (thanks Kotaku), having already factored in "a couple of hundred million" playing on consoles.

"So we have five times the audience we've ever had, and it's growing in leaps and bounds."

Indeed it is growing in leaps and bounds, and perhaps more so than even Riccitiello expected, since he was busy telling Reuters at E3 that we might break the billion number "in a year or two". Clearly you can't stop the signal.

Gamers weren't the only billion Riccitiello mentioned in the PBS interview, either. Referring to EA Sports' online features, he said: "We've hosted over a billion online games. A billion online games. That's a staggering number. And these are where people are playing an hour, or two hours, or three hours. I mean, it's the productivity of a small nation wrapped up in just EA Sports online." He didn't say how many were DNFs.

Meanwhile, lower down the food chain, EA Sports community manager Alain Quinto has said that the product family may welcome a new arrival very soon. "Just heard the execs at EA Sports will announce a new game sometime in January. I wonder what it'll be?" he tweeted yesterday.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (4) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • nuanimal #1 2 years ago

    Conservatively, if I add up people who drink smoothies, cafes who sell smoothies, people who make their own smoothies at home, all this stuff, this audience, there's at least a billion people drinking smoothies today, compared to a couple of hundred million just five years ago

  • GamerG #2 2 years ago

    Bet January's game is Fifa World Cup 2010
    Edited by 1 at 09/12/09 @ 10:39

  • Distributor #3 2 years ago

    For some reason yet unknown to me, this Riccitello guy is making my blood boil. All his pictures together with his comments make him out to be a complete tit. Blabbering stuff that any 5year old could say and so on. EA being in the position it is in, THIS CEO should start to show some real humbleness and pipe down. Get back to basics and stop talking about billions of gamers. There are billions more with hair, start selling some shampoo bundled with EAs back-catalog for example. For crying out loud.....
    Edited by 1 at 09/12/09 @ 20:43

  • YourMessageHere #4 2 years ago

    There's supposedly a bit over 6 billion people in the world. Nearly one sixth of the world's population plays games? I think not.

    Also, your point is...?