The cost of war
is high at Electronic Arts, but the rewards are even higher.
Battlefield 3, the company’s answer to industry juggernaut Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, has burst out of the gate by selling 5 million copies in its first week alone. That’s a record for EA and enough to make it the industry’s best launch this year — though it probably won’t hold that title for long.
Electronic Arts has 
snatched away bragging rights for the year’s biggest video game launch as the company’s much anticipated ”Battlefield 3” has sold more than 5 million units in its first week, making it the fastest-selling game in the company’s history.
The big bow unseats Microsoft’s ”Gears of War 3,” which boasted first week sales of 3 million copies in September — but it’s likely to be a short-lived victory. The launch of ”Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” is expected to set entertainment industry launch records, as the series has done for the past two years.
The supposed war 
between EA’s Battlefield 3 and Activision’s Modern Warfare 3 is not a zero-sum game — both publishers can come out as winners, says Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris.
And so it begins. After months of sniping, posing and stare downs, Electronic Arts and Activision officially went to war Tuesday, with Battlefield 3 hitting store shelves, hoping to knock the Call of Duty series from its king of the hill position in the action shooter genre.
That’s how the story has been set up, at least. The battle of titans makes for a great headline, after all. And as we all learned from the movie Highlander, there can be only one, right? Poppycock.
There has never 
been a lot of love lost between Activision and Electronic Arts. The two video game publishers fight over just about everything.
But with Tuesday’s launch of EA’s “Battlefield 3,” the clash is taking on a particular sense of importance. At stake: The supremely profitable shooter genre – and possibly the fate of EA’s long-in-the-making turnaround.
Reality shows are entering the video game world.
Bunim/Murray Productions, creators of “The Real World” and “The Challenge,” have announced plans to team with CBS Interactive division GameSpot to launch “The Controller,” an online show based on Electronic Arts upcoming action shooter video game “Battlefield 3”.
Electronic Arts, which 
has struggled with its basketball titles for the past couple of years, now has another hardwood woe: One of the game’s all-time greats.
Former Boston Celtic center Bill Russell has sued the company over the use of his likeness in its “Tournament of Legends” feature in the NCAA basketball franchise.
We certainly have no 
problem getting caught up in the fun of playing games, but the people who create them have their pocketbooks to worry about, too. In this column, finance expert and GameSpy contributor Chris Morris guides you through the tricky corridors the gaming industry’s financial side, touching on big-time business decisions and how they matter to the common gamer.
Not too long ago, publishers tended to turn their noses up at social games. Mafia Wars? Poker? Sure, they were mild distractions to entertain people in-between status updates… but a viable economic force? No way! Then FarmVille took off — and the bubble began growing. Big-name developers and executives began defecting. And publishers began investing. Flash-forward to today: No one’s foolish enough to say social (or mobile) games are going to replace console releases anytime in the foreseeable future, but at the same time, no one’s foolish enough to consider the field an afterthought anymore, either.
Electronic Arts, of course, is the biggest publisher to immerse itself in the social network gaming waters. Between its 2009 acquisition of Playfish (which consisted of a $300 million offer with an additional $100 million earnout) and its buyout of PopCap earlier this year (for $750 million and additional earnouts that could ultimately push the price over $1 billion), EA’s not taking the new casual gaming movement lightly.
While the Xbox 360 
and PS3 versions of Tiger Woods 12: The Masters have been received fairly warmly, the PC version is in the rough. The thick stuff.
Graphics are subpar. The features are lacking. And fans, who have been waiting for a new PC version of the game since 2008, are livid. Now it appears that publisher Electronic Arts is trying to soothe the angry masses.
Gamasutra editor-at-large 
Chris Morris looks at two traditional publishers — Activision and EA — examining how the packaged game giants will square off in the emerging social media space.
EA and Activision, despite their ongoing war of words, tend to swim in the same waters. Both like the military shooter genre. Both used to like the music genre. And both want to own the MMO market.
To date, that rivalry hasn’t extended to the social gaming and mobile space. While EA has substantially expanded into both fields, Activision has been content to sit back and view the fray from a distance. That could be changing before too long, though.
The first regular season 
kickoff won’t take place until a few minutes past 8:30 pm on Sept. 8, but for gamers, the NFL season really gets underway on Aug. 30.
That’s the day Madden NFL 12 hits store shelves. It’s also the day HR departments hate, as a disproportionate number of workers will curiously call in sick after staying up to buy the game at midnight. But as the venerable football series enters its 23rd year, how does publisher Electronic Arts plan to keep it fresh?
Chris Morris: Journalist 