EA’s Peter Moore wants to transform esports jocks into mainstream stars

Electronic Arts wants to be a part of the esports market. It just doesn’t like calling it that.

While most of us call it esports, EA likes to use the term competitive gaming. Chief competition officer Peter Moore thinks of esports as the top tier of a pyramid, the elite players of any game. EA wants to make stars out of all of its players. It’s about appealing everyone, not just the professionals. But he and moderator Geoff Keighley of The Game Awards at our GamesBeat 2016 conference in Ranchos Palos Verde, California, acknowledged yesterday that EA has some work to do in the market — one research firm SuperData expects to reach $1.23 billion by 2019.