Why does EA's internal engine Frostbite have a public-facing brand?
Electronic Arts today announced a rebranding for Frostbite, its internal game development engine. It's the first new logo for the tech in nearly a decade.
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz about the rebranding EA's Frostbite GM Tim Cowan addresses our question of why an internal game engine needs a public-facing brand in the first place, much less one that gets periodically refreshed.
"Frostbite's had a long history of being a public brand," Cowan says. "It's something our gamers know about…
"I think you see in a lot of cases where when you're talking about a game, you also talk about the technology that powers those games. And Frostbite is something we believe is unique. It has unique capabilities and the technology powering those games is going to help us build unique experiences that gamers are going to really like."
Beyond giving players an idea of what to expect from games built with Frostbite, Cowan acknowledges there's a recruiting angle to it as well.
He believes there is an appeal for developers to work with an engine focused on making games instead of one that does double-duty being used for movie production or as its own business licensed externally to other companies.
Cowan also says it's an attractive opportunity to work on an engine team that truly understands what a game's development team is trying to achieve, creating "a level of partnership, support, and collaboration that knows no boundaries."
"We can bend this engine to our will and make it do the things we need it to do. We fundamentally feel like we get a ton of value out of that aspect of an internal engine. We can direct it and take it where we need to take it for our games, and we can move fast and quickly without any boundaries on that
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