EA plans to fund beautiful indie games with new EA Originals initiative

By Imad Khan Published June 13, 2016

EA took the stage at this year’s E3, and the company plans to double down on beautiful and engrossing indie games. There is now a name for the new initiative, too: EA Originals.

Executive Vice President of EA Studios, Patrick Söderlund, got up on stage to give details on the new push. After referencing last year’s Unravel announcement, he laid out the three core pillars of EA Originals. First, it’s about taking unique, gorgeous, and innovative experiences and bringing them to the masses. Second, it is about supporting small developers and helping them with development, marketing, and publishing. And third, EA wants to offer a level of security by giving all profits back to the developers.

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After Söderlund stepped off, Klaus Lyngeled of Zoink! Games in Gothenburg, Sweden jumped on to introduce Fe. It’s an open world game that about our relationship with nature. There are no words, but music will undertone emotions and themes. You’re a cub who awakens in an unknown world to discover extraordinary creatures that communicates with songs. As you learn songs, you can connect to the forest. Like Metroid style games, the more songs you learn, the more of the forest you can unlock. There’s also the looming menace of the Silent Ones, who with each step silence the forest.

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It’s a very personal experience. There isn’t one set path for the game, and Zoink! wants every experience to be unique.

EA’s foray with EA Originals should serve the publisher well. To help fund beautiful projects by small teams without asking anything in return is unprecedented. It is uncertain what EA’s long term goals are with EA Originals, but one thing is: those polls showing EA as the most evil company in the America may change.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Imad has been a gamer all his life. He started blogging about games in college and quickly started moving up to various…

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As a result, this summer is a lot more chaotic than previous ones. Big reveal streams and press conferences that would usually take place in a tight four-day span have spun out into their own independent events. Summer Games Fest, Microsoft + Bethesda Showcase, Ubisoft Forward, Nintendo Direct, Square Enix Presents … you’re going to need a roadmap to navigate it all.

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We learned this week that 2022 will be the second year since 1995 to not have any kind of E3 expo. While the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) says E3's physical and digital cancelation this year enables it to "devote all our energy and resources to delivering a revitalized physical and digital E3 experience next summer," it also raises questions regarding how game announcements will happen this summer. Companies like Microsoft and Nintendo often tie big reveals to E3, so what is the industry's plan now that E3 2022 is officially canceled?
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Outside of E3, we also know that EA won't hold its yearly EA Play Live event this summer. Typically, the publisher has its own events outside of E3, but chose not to this year because "this year things aren't lining up to show you everything on one date." That means that if we get new information on titles like the Dead Space remake or the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect, it won't be at an E3-adjacent event.
What is happening
There are still some major gaming events that will take place this summer. This June, the biggest one is Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest. The creator of The Game Awards plans to hold a Summer Game Fest Kickoff Livestream full of new trailers and announcements. Last year's event featured the release date of Elden Ring, so there are certainly high expectations surrounding the showcase, especially as E3 won't be drawing away any reveals. An indie-focused Day of the Devs presentation and other Summer Game Fest-branded events are also expected to take place this June. Keighley tweeted that Summer Game Fest festivities "will be less than one month this year."
IGN confirmed that its Summer of Gaming event would also take place in June and feature exclusive trailers, gameplay, and interviews. Bethesda has also teased that it will show Starfield this summer, and we're supposed to get another look at Final Fantasy XVI soon.
As for in-person events, a couple of them are happening later in the summer. Gamescom, a European gaming expo equivalent to E3, will happen in person in Cologne, Germany. In Japan, the Tokyo Game Show will be the final big in-person summer event between September 15 and 18. While E3 might not be happening, it's clear that some digital showcases will happen this summer and that events outside of America are still on track to take place in person.