This week is a big one in the video game industry as the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, takes place in Los Angeles over the next few days. E3 has traditionally been the epicenter for annual mega announcements with the major publishers announcing their future plans while the media struggles to cover everything and the consumer is treated to more news than they are able to process. For those of you who don’t know much about gaming (and I realize that is not many as MMA and games have a pretty large demographic crossover) the statistics that have been thrown around the past few years put it approximately equal in size to the movie industry. That is to say, games are big business.
This is why it is a big deal that Electronic Arts has announced their entrance into the MMA gaming world. EA is the largest independent developer in the world, they rival Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo in size. The pivotal aspect of why this is major news to the MMA world in addition to the gaming world surrounds the fact that gaming giant EA is doing this sans UFC and instead is making a game that will need to draw upon the considerable non-UFC talent in the world to make up its roster. The while the impact to the MMA business could be virtually nonexistant, it could also turn out to be something of a game changer, particularly to the free agent MMA fighter. This is obviously speculative, but it wouldn’t be wise to doubt the potential impact of the company that brings us Madden year after year and the influence it has had on professional football.
