EA Chooses Live Gamer For Microtransactions

Electronic Arts has selected Live Gamer's online monetization platform Elements to power its global microtransactions-based projects and help accelerate its online gaming strategy. Elements offers online game developers and publishers access to payment gateways, virtual goods merchandising functionality, analytics capabilities, virtual item gifting, support for in-game currencies, item storefronts, catalog management, cash-in flows, and more. EA plans to integrate Elements with its global IT systems to "augment its existing ecommerce capabilities" for the publisher's studios around the world. The company didn't name any specific titles that Live Gamer will support, though it's free-to-play catalog includes several existing releases such as BattleForge, FIFA Online, and Battlefield Heroes. This marks the third major deal Live Gamer has announced in the past seven days, having announced last week a partnership with social gaming platform GameHouse Fusion and a deal with THQ that includes Company of Heroes Online and future online titles. Live Gamer says its arrangement with EA further indicates the industry's move towards the microtransaction-based model. The company's microtransaction solutions support more than 83 million users in 23 countries through online games from publishers like Sony Online Entertainment, Funcom and NHN USA. "EA is synonymous with some of the most popular video games of all time," says Live Gamer president and co-founder Andrew Schneider. "EA has also embraced and innovated new business models in the game industry since its pioneering efforts in online gaming and now extending to their entrance into social gaming." Schneider continues, "We are honored to be part of EA's efforts to further evolve the industry and offer gamers new and exciting online experiences."