At the E3 conference in Los Angeles on June 15th EA Sports announced the launch of a  revolutionary new feature for console sports games, which will debut in their upcoming fighting game MMA. The feature is called "Live Broadcast" and it does exactly that; in-game events will be broadcast live by EA Sports on consoles as well as on the game's website. Players will be able to create "hype videos" for those events that will be aired before the matches, to give them a chance to talk smack to each other before a fight. Then, once the stage is set, the fights will be broadcast live for all to spectate with real commentators analyzing every move. EA announced that the participants could even receive actual prizes once the game hits the stores on October 19th.

During the EA Sports MMA demo event "Worlds Collide" that was held at the E3 conference, two matches were aired live (a full screen recording can be seen above). The first match was between EA Sports Creative Director Jason Barnes vs. MMA fighter and STRIKEFORCE light heavyweight champion Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal, who was playing as himself in the game. The second match featured two EA Sports members, giving MMA fighter Jason “Mayhem” Miller, who was a commentator on this event, the chance to witness and comment on his virtual loss against Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza in the game. Thousands of fighting game fans were watching the event live on http://www.easports.com/mma/broadcast.

Fi was brought in to this project by EA Sports at a very early stage. While the game team knew that they were going to pursue the concept of a live spectator mode, the overall concept of this was still very much in flux at that point. Together Fi and EA Sports then decided to make the game's website a focal point of the live broadcast. Not only will the events be streamed live on the website now, the site as a whole will be tied in incredibly close to the game and become an essential tool in becoming the star and champion of the EA Sports MMA community.

The EA Sports MMA site is a perfect example for the direction computer games are heading into, where websites are tightly integrated into the gaming experience. Websites will offer more and more functionality that influences the experience in the game and essentially become a part of the gaming experience, rather than just serving as a marketing tool. We at Fi are proud to be among the pioneers in that field and are looking forward to more EA Sports games to utilize the Live Broadcast feature in the future.