Megafactories E.A. Sports: bonus content!
This comes from my own “Vault-tec”, E.A. artefacts from the past which cover three different periods of the brand. On the left you’ve got a promotionnal magazine in French, circa 1992, with the original E.A. logo on the upper right. It advertises games such as Road Rash, James Pond 2 Robocod & Power Monger, all for the 16 bits era Genesis/Megadrive system. And the interview of a young, all jeans clad, Peter Molyneux about delivering Power Monger, the “sequel” to Populous. Sports is heavily present with American football, golf and “EA Hockey” games, which I believed were very important at the times on the american market. If you look on the cover, you may recall how the games were sold for the teen market. It was stylishly equivalent to shows like Parker Lewis Can’t Lose. The eternal teenager is now gone as we entered the age of the “adult kid”, first generations who were born within the gaming/anime era, passing it on to younger gen. Specialized french press from the 80’s and 90’s died mainly from not recognizing this demographic shift and facing web competition. This document was kept all those years by my best friend Alex, and gave it to me a couple of years ago.
In the middle comes FIFA 97, the Sega Saturn edition. The game is rendered in three dimensions already but in a low resolution, far from what is achieved today with the latest tech and flat TVs. Back then we were all playin on tube televisions with a limited rez. Past FIFA games, as well as many sports games, because of their annual release schedules, don’t get a high price tag on the second hand market. Well King of Fighters games for the Neo Geo do, but that’s another “cartridge” story. I got this along a second hand Pal Sega Saturn for real cheap. The CD tech allowed brands like E.A. to integrate the first real live audio comments by professionals journalists. Which was impossible on the former space of the more limited cartridges.
On the right you have a recent, 2009 era, “E.A. Mag” business publication. The rejunevating of the dying Need For Speed franchise, with the Shift series, go along the release of FIFA 10, and advocates for a brand who sees itself as the ultimate in sports products. That’s where I got that Brutal Legend and Saboteur were on the same page of the former Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge entries, as ambassadors of a core gamer oriented brand. This was given to me by the lovely Camille, who welcomed me as a student in Marseille for the Euromed school annual media conference. She was then to integrate an internship working along E.A. so I fixed her a special “Video games/EA 101” dossier as a matter of thanks.
TheNightShift
25.02.2012
TheNightShift 