EA says Skate 4’s announcement was its most successful Twitter post ever

Electronic Arts has revealed Skate 4’s surprise announcement broke its Twitter engagement record last week.

The EA Play Live announcement video has been retweeted more than 44,000 times and liked over 141,000 times.

Commenting on Skate’s social performance, CEO Andrew Wilson told investors on Monday: “Certainly there is a lot of demand for that product and we’re excited for what that can be.”

He later teased advancements for the game itself, saying: “There’s a whole new world that we’re going to unlock with Skate, that goes well beyond just creating a skateboarding game.”

In the same call, Wilson said he believes EA can grow the appeal of the Skate series by focussing on industry trends around user-generated content, open-worlds and community.

Despite a decade passing without a new instalment, Skate has enjoyed a cult following due to its unique control scheme and entertaining rag doll physics.

In 2014, Skate 3 appeared to enjoy a sales resurgence on the back of its growing popularity with influencers.

And following the announcement of Activision’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 & 2 last month, tens of thousands of users worldwide made mention of Skate 4 – an unannounced sequel – in their tweets, causing ‘Skate 4’ to trend worldwide.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz following EA Play Live, EA’s studios boss Laura Miele said the Skate series revival was a result of listening to what the fans were asking for.

“One of the things I did in the first 100 days of my role as head of studios was to spend time with our community leaders for some of our biggest franchises,” she said.

“I asked them straight up: give me your best advice on how we can be successful for you. The biggest theme was: please listen to us about the content we are asking for. It’s not that complicated.”

Miele added: “[Skate 4] was just revealed at the end of EA Play, which has been the most significant request from fans for the past decade. We are listening.”