EA prepping 'new social gaming platform'

Last year, Electronic Arts took a pricey gamble of $30 million to establish a foothold in the social gaming market when it bought Rupture, a gaming social-media start-up founded by the same man who made Napster, Shawn Fanning. The publishing giant is digging in even further if a job listing it posted this month is any indication.

On June 4, EA posted a job listing for a "User Experience Designer" who can "lead the design and prototyping of applications for online games, community features and e-commerce transactions" for a "new social gaming platform." The new developer would spearhead EA's new social gaming platform at its Ontario-based EA Waterloo studio.

EA's desire for a new social platform was also evident during an interview with paidContent published yesterday. In it, outgoing EA COO John Pleasants outlined the company's efforts.

"Our strategy is different now; it’s about creating a live service across a portfolio of titles, with some social aspects and a variety of business models, including microtransactions and subscriptions," Pleasants said. He added that EA was "building four social network games from the ground up, in addition to a platform that connects gameplay feeds from the consoles to a player’s social network." He added that the company was also working on improving user interfaces and microtransactions to its casual gaming Web site Pogo.com.