Should video games be released annually?

As fans and critics become less tolerant of minor changes and overhyped developments from yearly releases, is it time we asked whether the practice should be scrapped?

Take the poll and tell us what you think: should some video games be released annually?

EA recently announced that it would not be releasing its major title Battlefield on an annual basis. According to IGN, EA Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen asserted that the company did not have the resources to release the game annually without an accompanying drop in quality, arguing: “The challenges are you’ve got to most likely do it out of two studios because it’s hard.”

Speaking at the UBS Global Technology Conference on 19 November, Jorgensen stated: “Battlefield takes us about two years to develop and so you want to make sure that you’re sharing talent across studios… You also want to be really careful that you don’t destroy the franchise along the way.”

See below for the IGN video announcing EA’s decision not to release Battlefield annually:

How are mobile devices shaping the gaming industry?

Smartphones and tablets have revolutionised the way many of us live. When it comes to gaming, the changes are profound.

Check out The Next Level Gaming’s introduction to mobile gaming:

The rise of the smartphone and its tablet cousin has been remarkable. Google’s Our Mobile Planet research suggests that 62% of UK adults own a smartphone today. What’s even more amazing is that this has more than doubled in just two years. Meanwhile, Yahoo has reported that by 2015, the number of people worldwide who own a smartphone is expected to rise to two billion.

But this isn’t just about the numbers. In just a few short years we have gone from seeing our phones as just that – phones – to so much more. Nowadays, we send emails, we browse the web, we listen to music. The term ‘phone’ almost feels redundant.