While an examination of Electronic Arts can provide insight on nearly any aspect of the industry, the company is an especially worthy subject for the second part of GameSpot‘s look at the business side of innovation. After all, the case can be made that the company is practically the antithesis of innovation (pioneering the annualized franchise phenomenon with Madden and relying heavily on sales of sequels and licensed properties), or even one of its champions, having released some of the most innovative and influential titles of the last decade (The Sims, Ultima Online, Black and White).

As general manager of Electronic Arts‘ Los Angeles studio, Neil Young is no doubt more partial to the latter view. As he explains it, there are two types of innovation: franchise innovation (taking a new concept from scratch, as with Will Wright‘s upcoming Spore) and feature innovation (tinkering with an existing franchise, like putting the quarterback vision feature into Madden NFL 06). Looking forward, the emphasis at EA is primarily on feature innovation.

"We want to make sure that all of the franchise businesses have the right level of innovation inside them and I think that we have been guilty of not doing that historically in certain areas of the business," Young admits, referencing Medal of Honor as an EA series in need of a change. "So a focus for us right now is, how do we get new, innovative features that take the existing franchises and move them forward in interesting ways? And then I think what you‘ll see is a couple of--you know a couple might be the wrong term--but some very focused bets at doing really innovative and different things."

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