"As a marketer for many years, I've asked myself the question: Where has my target audience gone?" said Mr. Riccitiello. "They've migrated to gaming."
But gaming is a different sort of medium. While consumers often use the web or mobile devices while watching TV, gaming seems to keep more of consumers' attention. From self-reported media habits, EA found consumers don't text message, surf the web and watch TV while they're gaming. "People don't really do anything else when they're playing games, they're focused on it," Mr. Riccitiello said. "Multitasking is almost nonexistent while gaming."
By hours spent, gaming also trumps most major web properties. U.S. consumers spend 15 million hours per week gaming vs. 9.5 million hours on AOL.
The gaming industry started to go mainstream 10 years ago and, as a marketer, that's when EA began to run mass TV campaigns, Mr. Riccitiello said. "That's when it turned from a niche into something short of a mass market," he said. "It felt like a real industry, something that really mattered."
But that growth is skyrocketing now, largely thanks to exploding smartphone sales, which put a gaming platform in millions more consumers' pockets. "Anyone with a phone can play a game," he said. Gaming is the No. 1 category in the iPhone, iPad and Android app stores. It's also the top app category on Facebook. Even the first game offered on the grey-screened Kindle outsold the top book.
http://adage.com/article/special-report-digital-conference/ea-ceo-riccitiello-gaming-mass-media/226832/
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