Video game giant, Electronic Arts has an exclusive licensing agreement with Disney for any new Star Wars video games. The company recently revealed that they will not be releasing games based on the upcoming movies in the franchise. EA did say that they do plan to take the franchise in “many different genres across multiple platforms.”
I’m not sure if I should be relieved or irritated. On one hand, we won’t be seeing any terrible movie adaptations. On the other hand, Disney closed down long-time Star Wars developer, Lucasarts, who most recently were working on the epic Star Wars: 1313.
EA’s CFO Blake Jorgensen had a presentation this week at the UBS Global Technology Conference in California this week where it was revealed that EA’s licensing agreement to develop will cover the next decade.
Jorgensen said that Star Wars was such a broad and open franchise that a movie tie-in would be uninspiring.
“The beauty of the Star Wars franchise is that it’s so broad and so deep, you don’t have to do a movie game, you can do a game that’s very focused on the world that’s been created around Star Wars.”
Jorgensen said that the partnership between the two companies was a good thing, explaining that EA plans to use Disney’s extensive marketing to its own advantage. DICE, The studio behind the Battlefield and Mirror’s Edge franchises is currently working on an installment in the Star Wars: Battlefront series, due out in 2015.
