EA's Schappert Admits To Mirror's Edge, Dead Space Failures

John Schappert, chief operating officer at Electronic Arts used his time at DICE to talk about 20 years of technology transitions in the gaming industry. Aside from the obvious technological advances, Schappert says that one of the big changes is the number of gaming platforms and the difficulty in tracking data on such a fragmented marketplace.

NPD information, one of the biggest tools that analysts and companies rely on, is largely incomplete. It doesn't track big-box retail sales or online sales, leaving huge gaps in the data. That leads to negative (and inaccurate) headlines in mass media and the gaming press. Schappert says that the gaming industry is in the midst of a transition, and that the industry has survived them in the past. It doesn't make it any easier, he says, but it's something that the industry can prepare for. He then provided some suggestions and commentary.