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Electronic Arts made over $39 million in just three months off FIFA 12's Ultimate Team DLC last year – a 69 percent increase from the same period the year before – but it also created a lot of headaches for consumers (and us) with what came to be known as the "FIFA hack."
"We learned a lot from the experience. A lot of companies are suffering from this right now. There's a lot of sophisticated hacking happening in the gaming industry and it's a continuous battle," EA Games president Frank Gibeau told us during Gamescom. "We take it very seriously, put a lot of resources on it. The learning from the FIFA example last year has been incorporated this year. There's some incremental and additional things. I don't want to get too detailed because I don't want to tip our hand. Rest assured, we take it very seriously."
Gibeau said that EA did hire someone from Microsoft to add layers of security precautions and other anti-hack methods inside the publisher's products.
"You're never going to win this battle," said Gibeau, recognizing the company can only go so far. "The moment you declare victory, somebody will walk in and show you didn't. So you have to continuously stay on top of it and, most importantly, keep account integrity the first and foremost issue."
So, should consumers feel more confident this year that they won't be hacked?
"I hope that they do, and I think our performance will have to make them feel that way." He concluded, "We can promise it, but we have to actually show it."
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