• by Aaron Baar , August 10, 2009

Gamers are heading online for more than just information these days. They're also looking for a place to connect and compete with others. To that end, Electronic Arts has relaunched its official Web site, easports.com, as a central gathering place for sports gamers.

The relaunched site combines the news and information from the previous EA Sports site with the social connections from EASportsworld.com. The new site allows fans and gamers to interact with EA Sports game producers, and to get the latest news and information as well as show off their own stats and highlights from their own games.

"We wanted an environment to give them a place to show off their skills, to create a truly immersive experience," Ian Sharpe, producer at EASports.com, tells Marketing Daily. "We're moving from more of a brochure-ware site to more of a social network."

The revamped site includes information about upcoming games with traditional preview videos and blogs from producers (and EA Sports President Peter Moore) within the company. It also includes information about tournaments and tournament sign-ups, and allows gamers to showcase their own stats, setting up a "leader-board" of sorts for the games.

"We wanted to do more than just show screenshots and trailers," Sharpe says. "We wanted to show off the experiences that will get [consumers] playing the game for months after they buy it."

Gamers also have the ability to upload their own photos and game highlights to show off among competitors and other fans. The site also includes EA's Photo Game Face feature, which allows people to put their own images in the games. Eventually, gamers may be able to build their own fantasy teams to use in online tournaments.

The site upgrade is a way to capture the emotion (and trash-talking competition) of real-life sports in the world of gaming, Sharpe says. "There is no win like a sports win," he says. "This enables you to capture the emotion of a great win."