A New Peggle Game Is Still Coming to Your Phone

During a conference call with investors yesterday, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson referenced a "much-anticipated new Peggle game" that is in the testing phase. EA confirmed with GameSpot today that the game he was speaking about is the mobile title we heard about earlier this year.

Back in May, EA launched a version of a new, free-to-play Peggle game on the iOS app store in markets like New Zealand and Singapore. It's a common occurrence for mobile games to be released earlier in smaller markets before launching worldwide. In this case, it was done to test the game during development, hence the reason we have yet to get our hands on it elsewhere in the world.

"We've released [a] very early version of a mobile Peggle game in select markets as a way of bringing players closer to our development process and getting real feedback from our fans," an EA spokesperson told GameSpot. "This new Peggle game is still in development, and we're making lots of changes during these test releases to make sure we bring our community the best, most enjoyable Peggle experience. We'll have more information on this new version in the coming months."

When the test version of the free-to-play Peggle was released, we learned a few details about how it worked: Players have a limited number of lives, and running out means having to either wait for more or paying to get some immediately. It's possible this structure will change prior to its release, but that model is not an uncommon one for free-to-play mobile games. Another free-to-play mobile game from EA, Dungeon Keeper, was widely criticized following its release earlier this year, a reality which EA executives have acknowledged on more than one occasion.

The new direction that Wilson has outlined for EA is to make the company a "player-first" one. Part of that entails getting player feedback earlier in the development process and not releasing games until they are "great." Just yesterday, the company announced it would delay Battlefield Hardline until early 2015 in order to craft a better game.

The most recent Peggle game is Peggle 2, a timed exclusive for Xbox One and Xbox 360. Plans for its release on non-Xbox platforms have yet to be announced. We've requested an update on this, but we're unlikely to get any concrete details as the timed exclusivity no doubt entails keeping such information under wraps for now.