Electronic Arts (EA) has unveiled an ambitious growth strategy focused on expanding its online communities and boosting user engagement. This article examines EA’s plan to scale its business over the long term.
EA’s Strategy: Core Elements
EA’s strategy rests on three fundamental pillars:
- Building Games and Experiences for Massive Online Communities: EA aims to create engaging online experiences that foster active communities around their games.
- Crafting “Engaging Narrative Experiences”: EA remains committed to developing high-quality, immersive single-player games (AAA titles) that engage players with compelling narratives.
- Developing Strong Communities: EA recognizes the importance of building robust communities within their games, around their franchises, and beyond the traditional gaming space.
EA’s Reach and Franchise Strength
EA boasts impressive figures that highlight its reach and engagement:
- Player Base Expansion: The player base has doubled since 2016, and EA aims to double it again, reaching over 1 billion users in the next five years.
- User-Generated Content (UGC) Engagement: 50% of EA’s audience actively engages with UGC, presenting the creative potential within their communities.
- Top-Performing Franchises:
- The Sims: 500 million lifetime players, 1 billion gallery downloads, and 210 million hours of content watched.
- EA Sports Player Network: Over 265 million users, with plans to attract Gen-Z sports fans (estimated at 1 billion globally).
- Madden: Strongest year for unique players, net bookings, and monthly active users (MAU). EA Sports College Football achieved the largest new console launch in North America in 2024.
- American Football Games: Projected to surpass $1 billion in net bookings in FY25.
- Star Wars: Generated over $5 billion in net bookings through the Lucasfilm collaboration. The Jedi series surpassed 40 million players globally, with a final game in the trilogy under development.
- Apex Legends: 170 million players life-to-date.
- Battlefield: Players spent 250 million hours across Battlefield games in the past year.

Expanding Beyond Games: EA Sports App
EA is expanding beyond traditional gaming with the EA Sports App. This app, soft-launching in Spain this fall, aims to connect real and virtual sports fans through features like newsfeeds, social messaging, challenges, and interactive events.
Projected Growth
EA projects outpacing market growth through FY27 and beyond. This confidence stems from their strong pipeline of upcoming games and initiatives.
Expanding Core Franchises and Online Communities
Focus on Massive Online Communities
EA plans to cultivate six massive online communities over the next three years:
- EA Sports FC
- American Football (Madden + EA Sports College Football)
- Apex Legends
- Battlefield
- The Sims
- Skate

Market Opportunities
EA recognizes the significant market potential in Action RPG (ARPG), Shooter, and Simulation genres:
Genre | Estimated Market Revenue |
ARPG | $20 billion |
Shooter | $11 billion |
Simulation | $9 billion |
EA aims to increase its market share in these genres by expanding its live service franchises and developing new single-player AAA games.
The Sims: Transforming the Franchise
Instead of creating a new Sims game, EA is transforming The Sims 4 into the foundation of the franchise.
- Project Rene: Previously perceived as The Sims 5, this will be a multiplayer expansion with enhanced social features.
- My Sims: A “casual” spin-off offering a unique Sims experience.
- The Sims Project Stories: A standalone mobile game.
All these projects will be interconnected through The Sims Hub, featuring a shared gallery, marketplace, UGC experiences, and social media integration. EA aims to double The Sims’ net bookings in the next five years and is also working on a film adaptation with Amazon MGM Studio.
Applying Generative AI for Development and UGC
AI-Powered Development and User Experiences
EA believes that generative AI can significantly enhance its efficiency, empower development teams, and revolutionize user experiences.
A demonstration showcased how users could generate playable maps with characters and assets from existing EA games using natural language descriptions. This “Imagination to Creation” technology, powered by EA’s vast proprietary data set (3D assets, code, gameplay data, telemetry), highlights the potential of AI in content creation.
Transforming UGC
While still experimental, EA envisions AI transforming how players create and interact with UGC. They believe that their strong IPs, creative talent, production capabilities, and AI-powered tools will unlock unprecedented levels of user-generated content and engagement.
Technology and Collaboration
EA is investing in proprietary technology to drive this transformation.
Central Technology Platform: Manages over 100 machine learning and large language models.
Frostbite Engine: Provides shared tools and workflows to foster collaboration between development teams.
“Script to Scene” Initiative: Employs LLMs and other tools to create characters and digital worlds from text descriptions.