EA fancies a slice of the eSports market

Battlefield and FIFA publisher EA says it intends to grab itself a bigger slice of the lucrative electronic sports pie in the future.

"One of the cool motivations of why people play games is social connection and social interaction. And what eSports does either through the playing of the game or watching people play the game is really bring people together around great, creative entertainment," said EA CEO Andrew Wilson in an interview with Red Bull.

"I actually think it’s going to continue to grow," Wilson continued. "When we’ve just come off franchise reviews I looked at a number of properties that we’re doing that certainly have an eSports focus to it. As a company, we believe this is something that’s going to continue to grow."

What's EA planning to do in eSports, then? "We have some ready-made franchises for this in our sports properties, but we also have a number of other franchises that people may not typically think about as eSports opportunities, but we think there might be an opportunity in the future, so it’s something that you’re going to see more of from us."

It's certainly not hard to imagine EA investing more into the competitive side of its sports titles, such as FIFA and Madden, and rival publisher Activision has already invested millions into competitive Call of Duty tournaments.

League of Legends and Dota 2 are the hot eSports games right now, so it should come as no surprise that EA is also putting the finishing touches on its own MOBA, Dawngate, which recently went into open beta.