EA's Tascan promises innovation

EA Montreal's Alain Tascan - infamous for his recent claim that Gears of War lacked innovation - says that his Canadian studio, and EA at large, realises the importance of new intellectual property and aims to cultivate it.

Speaking to Gamasutra, Tascan admitted that Army of Two - EA's first original title for next-gen formats - "better be good, otherwise people are going to kill me after my comments about Gears of War". The studio is also producing SSX Blur for the Wii and "another new IP".

But it's Tascan's comments on the direction EA is looking at taking which will draw most interest: "EA has realised that what we need now to stay number one and keep that edge is really to focus on creating new IP," he claims.

"I mean, we just did Superman Returns and all the sports, but we feel that we are now ready to take big bets on new IP, and not bet the farm on the established titles. And we think this is something that people are going to react well to, because EA is not known for this.

"I mean, if you look at the comments of people on some of the things I've said and they say, 'how can you dare talk about innovation?' And that's what we want to prove that as a company we can do it."