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One of the more intriguing statements from CEO John Riccitiello during EA’s FY11 analysts call was that the publisher is going to ‘become a platform’.

Now, we live in what buzzword aficionados like to call ‘disruptive’ times, and many previously rock solid industry terms are evolving. But, for EA to be a platform? That’s going to require a shift in definition.

Inevitably, many pundits nodded along regardless to this latest pronouncement, but did anyone know exactly what Riccitiello meant?

The core of us being a platform is us trying to enter into a direct relationship with the consumer as best we can," European senior VP Jens Uwe Intat told MCV. "We have our own distribution platform, we have our own EA Store, but outside we are also building relationships.

Consumer relationships in the old world meant us doing advertising and driving consumers to stores to buy the game and they would have a relationship only with the retailer.

"Now we have more relationships with more consumers, through different devices and different games and the aim is to aggregate that into one relationship between us and the consumer.”