Justin Bailey, CEO of Fig, at GamesBeat Summit 2017.
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Fig CEO Justin Bailey offers the cure for ‘sequelitis’

The statistics are telling. In 2008, Electronic Arts published 60 games. In 2016, EA published just eight games. And that means that a lot fewer of those games are original titles.

Justin Bailey, the chief executive officer of equity crowfunding company Fig, pointed to this statistic as an example of “sequelitis,” or the risk aversion that is resulting in big bets on established intellectual properties. And he wasn’t just picking on EA. Square Enix, another huge company, is making games like Final Fantasy XV. They’re making big bets on sequels that players come back to over and over.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.