The future of gaming: key trends transforming the industry

Laura Miele, Electronic Arts Chief Studios Officer joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss how women are transforming the video game industry and the surge in video games amid the pandemic.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: Let's shift over to another sector here that did catch a big boost in the pandemic. That, of course, would be gaming. As a lot of people were cooped up, we saw some big demand among the big game makers there. Today, though, giving a bit of those gains back, as people start to think about reopening and what it could mean for the sector.

And for more on that, I want to bring on our next guest. Laura Miele is Electronic Arts' chief studios officer and one of the foremost minds here among the female. People might think differently about the gaming sector, but a lot of female there. And I know a lot of people, Laura, on your team are actually female as well.

When we look into this, though, I'll start just on kind of the gaming trends that we have been seeing here in 2020 and 2021. Because some people might be looking at these moves today and say, all the gains that you saw in gaming might unwind as people return to normalcy. Talk to me about what you're seeing as we reopen the demand for games out there, as you see it, in 2021.

LAURA MIELE: Well, hi, and thanks for having me. Happy International Women's Day. It is great to be here. And what we are seeing are a lot of people playing a lot of games on many platforms all over the world. So, we are incredibly encouraged by the level of engagement that we're seeing in our games. I think that the pandemic really pulled the future forward in how people lean on games to connect with other people.

So, there is something that we have always known about games. They're actually good for you, if you can believe it. They make you smarter. They help with critical thinking. They help with judgment. They make you a better collaborator. And so we always have known this.

In the middle of the pandemic, the World Health Organization-- the World Health Organization came out and said and recommended that people play games as a coping mechanism to get through the pandemic. Because it helped people who felt isolated and alone to socialize with people and feel connected to other people. So, there you have it. The World Health Organization says games are good for you, so let's play games, everyone.

AKIKO FUJITA: I can see a lot of teenagers probably pointing to that and say, look, I should be allowed to game more. I want to get back to what you said, though, about the fact that you think this pandemic has really pulled the future forward-- I think that's the word, those are the words you used. And what does that future look like? There's been a lot of debate within the sector about whether, in fact, consoles are the future, everything is moving online, whether software is the way to go. How do you see the dynamics shifting?

LAURA MIELE: I think the future of gaming is-- means ubiquity. Gaming is going to be on so many platforms. With cloud and streaming, people will be able to game on most devices in their home, which is pretty exciting. I was at CES last year, and I was walking through the smart refrigerators and smart toasters. And I thought, aha, we have to come up with a solution for these devices.

But no, seriously, the gaming is in everyone's hands around the world. And so I think that having access, being able to play your games, your single games, on multiple devices is definitely our path forward, as well as I think we're going to see more sophisticated social engineering happening for people to come together and connect together through video, through voice, and through their game experiences. I think the pandemic punctuated just that need that gaming serves and that need that gaming hits for not just teenagers, but for all ages of people playing games.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, what's interesting, too, is, you know, kind of the way that we consume gaming. A lot of people might think of Xbox or Playstation and doing it at home maybe in the basement now. Interesting to see EA recently come out with that $2.1 billion acquisition of Glu Mobile to focus in and really boost those efforts on the mobile gaming side.

I wonder how much of that maybe stems from this idea that if you do have gamers really leaning into that in the pandemic, as they kind of get commutes back onto their schedules moving forward, that mobile gaming, just by that nature, becomes much more important, what do you make of maybe the changes, the increasing role of mobile gaming, as we open back up? I mean, kind of walk me through the expectations of what could come from that partnership.

LAURA MIELE: Yeah, gaming-- mobile gaming is massive. And if you think about over half of the world's population-- so half of the world's population have phones in their hands that we can bring games to. So that is a massive addressable market for us to continue to engage with. It also helps us with reach with emerging markets.

The Glu Mobile acquisition is going to be a really great strategic partnership for us. They're an incredibly well-ranked company. We have some incredibly strong mobile brands. We have some of the most downloaded mobile brands, such as "Plants versus Zombies," "Real Racing." Of course, we have our FIFA and sports games. So, to match up with Glu Mobile, they have their "Tap Sports Baseball," which is a great mechanic for sports, and so we're going to partner with them on that. And they have "Design Home" and "Cut It Fashion," which is also a great match for our Sims business.

So we think this is going to be a really strong multiplier for the two companies to come together. And we're incredibly optimistic about what the future of mobile gaming means. Because, as you said, people are on the go-- will hopefully be on the go soon and getting out in the world a little more. And they will have their phones with them.

AKIKO FUJITA: On the issue of mobile gaming, we've seen a lot of big tech names really double down on the gaming space, whether that is Google. Of course, Amazon owns Twitch, Facebook as well. To what extent do you see them as competitors? Or do you see significant partnership opportunities there?

LAURA MIELE: Well, we are partners with the majority of the companies that you listed. Electronic Arts has always been platform agnostic. We have a broad breadth of franchises and brands. We have our sports brands. We have Apex Legends now, which is an amazing live service. We have Battlefield, the Sims, Need for Speed. So we have this really broad variety and diverse range of games and brands for players.

We also have been focused on the aggregation and bundling of content. So we have a subscription, actually, that sits on many of those partnership platforms that you mentioned. So we have our EA Play subscription, which has 13 million subscribers on Microsoft Xbox service, on Sony, on Stadia, on Steam, on Epic. So we think it's going to be a strong way for us to expand the opportunities for us to get our games and as many hands as we possibly can.

ZACK GUZMAN: Well, we didn't have time to get into it, but 50% of your senior leadership team is female, something I wanted to note here, as we talk about and highlighting on International Women's Day, all the different jobs out there and sectors we're spotlighting. Gaming was one that I don't know if a lot of people expected us to be highlighting here, but appreciate you coming on here to chat with us. Laura Miele, Electronic Arts' chief studio officer, thanks again for the time. We're going to take a quick break here on Yahoo Finance Live. We'll be right back after this.