EA Responds To PUBG's Massive Success, Teases "New And Innovative" Modes For Its Own Games

Electronic Arts has responded to the phenomenon that is PUBG. During an earnings call today, EA CEO Andrew Wilson praised PUBG for offering something new in the FPS space, adding that EA is "respectful and complimentary" of what that game has achieved. Battle Royale experiences like PUBG and Fortnite are "clearly" something the global FPS community wants, Wilson said, but will EA follow this trend by adding a Battle Royale mode to one of its games?

Wilson did not rule out adding a PUBG-like mode to Battlefield (GameSpot's Aaron Sampson thinks that would be a good idea). But EA's wider focus, Wilson said, is to think about "new and innovative ways to play" across all of its games.

"I think what you discover in this industry is that there's a lot of great vectors that drive player engagement, and one of those is just innovation in the core gameplay mechanic," Wilson said about PUBG. "What the team with PUBG have done is really delivered a new level of innovation that changed the way people were playing first-person shooter games. And we're very respectful and complimentary of what they've been able to do. We've seen that continue with Fortnite. It's clearly a mode of play that the global FPS population is interested in."

"And given that we have some of the best shooters in the marketplace, you might expect that we're also thinking about new and innovative ways to play," he added. "And that doesn't mean just kind of [making] PUBG replicas inside the Battlefield universe, but it does mean that our Battlefield teams--and I talked a little about this in the prepared remarks--are looking at how they innovate in every aspect of the game, including core gameplay and map design."

In PUBG and other Battle Royale games, players are dropped into an environment and compete until only one is left standing. It's basically like The Hunger Games. PUBG is a huge success; having sold more than 30 million copies and exceeding 3 million concurrent players on PC alone. One of the other popular Battle Royale games, Fortnite: Battle Royale, recently passed its own massive player milestone.

For more on EA's latest earnings report, check out the linked stories below:

• BioWare's Anthem Officially Delayed Until 2019 On PS4, Xbox One, And PC
• Star Wars: Battlefront 2 Underperforms, Microtransactions Coming Back