Imagine someone formed a new company that joined well over 2,000 of the industry's best game makers. Imagine that they established 11 studios in four countries – Canada, U.S., Sweden and U.K. And imagine that they announced that in one year, they would release 59 skus on six platforms including:

The highest-rated skate boarding title (Skate)

The highest-rated music game (Rock Band)

Three insanely innovative shooters (Army of Two, Battlefield Bad Company, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames)

A genuinely scary SciFi Horror (Dead Space)

An MMO that could rival World of Warcraft (Warhammer)

The hottest racing game on the PS3 (Burnout Paradise)

The hottest driving game across all platforms (Need For Speed ProStreet)

The winner of multiple awards for best RPG (Mass Effect)

A visually stunning, technical achievement (Crysis)

A really funny game (the Simpsons)

And one of the most anticipated games of the decade (Spore)

Crazy? Possibly. But for someone as passionate about video games as I am, you're talking about my dream job. When I wake up every morning, this is what excites me about coming to work. And I am fortunate to work with the most gifted and diverse group of artists, designers, story tellers and producers in the interactive entertainment industry.

Last year, EA's new CEO John Riccitiello reorganized the company into four highly-autonomous Labels – EA SPORTS, EA Casual, The Sims, and EA Games. The EA Games Label is the most diverse group of studios and individuals in the industry and includes BioWare, Blackbox, Criterion, DICE, EALA, EA Montreal, EA Redwood Shores, Maxis, Mythic and Pandemic.

Each studio has its own unique culture and creative process. My job is to make sure it stays that way. We use the City/State model that encourages each location and franchise to develop their own identity. Each studio is responsible for its own culture, studio brand, and output – each is responsible for contributing to the overall economic vitality of the label. The talented team members of the Games Label have a maniacal focus on quality, and gamers have a lot to look forward to this year as we debut some of the most creative titles in the industry with the highest standards of excellence.

We are committed to making the most entertaining games – games that capture the core audience and draw in many more. The games that our studios are creating – whether it is the Simpsons, Need for Speed Pro Street, Mercenaries 2, Spore or Burnout Paradise – have the ability to blow away core gamers and reach out to more mainstream players with their stories, graphics and social play modes.

This creative and cultural autonomy is the key to unlocking the magic that moves a game from good to great, from fun to legendary.

With tremendous potential comes some very real challenges. We need to foster efficient and profitable production without compromising each team with one-size-fits-all solutions. We're committed to stripping out the bureaucracy and speeding the decision process. We emphasize efficient pre-production, smaller teams and planning a longer development cycle that assures the highest possible quality.

Our highest priorities are quality, innovation and listening to the ideas of our own people. Today we have more than a dozen original intellectual properties in development including Army of Two, Warhammer Online, Dead Space, a series of games in development with Steven Spielberg, and Spore from the mind of Will Wright.

EA Partners is a division of EA Games, which fosters the creativity of independent studios and gives them a solid publishing partner. Our partners are a veritable Who's Who of the greatest studio talent in the industry including id Software, Valve, Flagship Studios, Harmonix, Crytek and MTV/Harmonix. We're always looking for new partners and we're eager to prove that nobody, no other publisher can market and merchandise a game all over the world like EA.

We're also shaking things up and moving out of our comfort zone when it comes to reaching new customers. With millions of people shopping, playing and consuming media online, bringing the games to gamers instead of making them come to us is a big priority.

Looking out over the next several years, it's difficult to overstate how online features will change how people purchase and play games. Asian markets are leading the way with broadband penetration, digital downloads, tournaments and the sheer number of people who go online to play games. In Asia, Europe and the Americas EA Games will help usher players into an exciting online world of premium downloadable content, mid-session games based on some of our biggest franchises and massively multi-player games like Warhammer and BioWare's unannounced Austin project.

It has only been a few months since the formation of the EA Games Label and we already have a lot to be proud of. In 2007, Skate blew away gamers with incredible, realistic gameplay that knocked the competition off the charts. Rock Band is doing the same – sweeping the nation one song at a time. The Orange Box is the best value of the year and one of the best rated games of all time. The Simpsons Game broke the "funny" barrier and showed everyone that EA has a sense of humor and can make fun of itself. From Need for Speed ProStreet, Hellgate: London, Crysis, Orcs & Elves, and Medal of Honor Airborne to C&C 3 Tiberium Wars, our Label line-up rivals any studio in the industry.

So what's next? We've got a lot of surprises in store for 2008. But most of all we're going to focus on developing the quality, innovation and unique creative leadership in each of our teams. That's what's best for the people who make the games and, most of all, the people who play them.