It's interesting you mention that - we've talked about shaking up up the business model with gaming. What is your view on this potentially far off innovation?

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It may not be as far off as it used to be. There's netbooks, browser-based games, games without a client, or a thin client. That's already out there. We have a small games group, so we did an title and we're interested in browser games. But we're also developing a traditional in the universe, a really rich diverse experience, and there is a couple of games we're showing here, one is sci-fi the other fantasy. We've got a lot of diversity in the portfolio, but we're also interested in smaller games.

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With regard to the Dragon Ages release this winter, why is the version delayed slightly compared to the and version.

It's all about quality, and making sure it's just right. Giving the fans the experience they want and deserve on every platform, and making sure the SKUs are as good as possible.

I notice you're releasing some tools with Dragon Age...

Yeah, the user content creation tools.

How important is that side of the game?

Really important. The post-release content download plan is the most ambitious of any game we've ever worked on, with Dragon Age. User content creation tools are part of that, where we let users make content too. We've identified and learnt a lot of things from our first deployment of content creation tools and we've learnt who some of the best content creators are, there are a lot of new ones too. There is a lot of thing they've given us feedback on, which we've taken that to heart, and started a beta program for content tools. We've brought some of the content creators in house, and it's in their hands and they are building content. I think there is going to be great day one content created by the fans.

The game isn't going to have any as part of it. Is that true?

Yeah, we have a simple disk check on the SKU.

But you've deliberately avoided anything more heavy duty?

We have.

Why is that? Are happy with that?

Well, we are EA [laughter]. We're very happy about it. EA is very supportive. It's a philosophy that we're building a game, with Dragon Age, that is such as great value to price ratio, and we have such an ambitious and valuable, to fans, downloadable content plan that we trust our fans. We're releasing a game we think they are going to see is really useful, valuable and high quality to price ration that they are going to pay us for that, because it's evident that the game is good game. It's a long game, a lot of content. The post-release content is going to motivate people to register with us and become customers long term. It's all optional, but we're confident enough with the quality of the offering that we know our fans will be loyal and support us. It's about trust - we trust our fans. We're counting on them to keep us in business. We ask them to consider that, to not pirate, and to support us and in turn we'll be very, very supportive of them.

With your narative-heavy RPGs, how close do you think we are getting to mainstream acceptance of game storylines you might see in films and TV. I'm thinking elements of romance, mature content... violence... that isn't just warping childrens' minds.

We're very interested in having extensions to our games in other media. We already have a couple of novels for and Mass Effect, and we're very interesting in moving our idea to other media, in fact we're exploring a number of those.

Dragon Age will be released in the winter...

November 3rd in North America on PC and 360 later in November for PS3, November 6th in on PC and Xbox 360.

Thanks! Have you thought about the story beyond Dragon Age already?

Yeah, well we see both and Dragon Age as franchises, so we have a long term plan for developing new versions of those games, and supporting them through interations and downloadable content. Very ambitious plans.

Do you have any new IP plans?

Beyond those? Yeah, in fact we're already working on some.

Exciting!

Definitely, definitely.

You founded 14 years ago...

A little before that actually. We were working in 1991. We were incorporated in 1995, but we were working on Shattered Steel in 93-94 and working on medical educational software before that. We were trying to make entertaining content back in 1991-1992.

Has your vision of a perfect game changed over the years? Did you foresee where we are today?

No. We never really had an exit or plan for any of that. We just like making great games, and having fun doing it. There wasn't a lot of thought put into it beyond that in the early years. We're never done because each game is better than the last. There is no end because you can always make it better. There is no point where you're done and it's perfect - you can always improve the story, the craft, the narrative, the characters, the emotion and I think that's an ongoing goal. I like that, it's nice to have something to aim at, a direction rather than an endpoint.

Do you think that being part of a bigger company like EA helps you build your ambitions.

Yeah, it's nice to have partners, it's nice to have people to bounce ideas off. It's nice to be a publisher, because we're built around a publisher now. We do our own marketing and work directly with the force. It's great to hear their opinions directly on what we should be doing from what they are hearing from retailers and fans. It's great to be part of a large, stable company with a great history and a lot of potential.

You've dipped your toe in the iPhone world. How is that going... and do you have more plans?

Yeah, that's just one things our small games group does. We've got a title, the iPhone game, I'm interested in browser games. Lots of interesting things, they are smaller content pieces that can be extensions of our franchises, or marketing things. I think we're just learning as we go, but they are good fun.

Very interesting. Thanks for your time, Ray!

By Luke Guttridge