The Berrics, a Los Angeles-based skate park and website, launched a campaign last week with the goal to make EA Skate again.
The singular mission of the campaign is to get EA to make a sequel to their acclaimed Skate franchise.
“Friends, skateboarders, lend me your ears,” reads a post about the campaign on the Berrics website, invoking Shakespeare. “We want a fourth edition of EA’s much-loved SKATE series—and we want it yesterday.”
To carry out the campaign they launched the @MAKEeaSKATEAGAIN Instagram account. Playing off Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again,” the page encourages supporters to spread the message.
Using faux political photos that read, “We Want More. We Want Four,” and other modern political iconography, the page contains all the hallmarks of a modern American political campaign, right down to invoking the classic red, white and blue motif.
Since the launch of the page one week ago, the channel has garnered over 29,000 followers
The Berrics, founded by professional skateboarders Steve Berra and Eric Koston, aren’t the only ones clamoring for a new Skate game.
Back in January of this year, every post on the official EA Instagram page was flooded almost exclusively with comments about Skate 4. Whether the post was about the recently announced EA Play, a fresh screenshot of Madden or Star Wars Battlefront, the people voiced their desire for Skate.
The trend continued into the year, and this new campaign only helped to revitalize the fervor. Posts going back months now carry the #MAKEeaSKATEAGAIN call sign of the effort.
The Skate series was known for its more realistic take on skateboarding in video games, as opposed to the over-the-top arcade swing of the Tony Hawk games.
Despite finding moderate success after three releases, EA never released another entry. However, in 2014, YouTubers like PewDiePie propped up sales of Skate 3 after a series of “Let’s Play” videos. The result? Skate 3 entered and remained in the UK Top 40 sales for much of the year. EA even reissued copies of the out-of-print game to meet demand.
Between the critical bomb of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 in 2015 and the resurgence of interest in the Skate series, it could be the right time for EA to fill the digital rail-grinding void.
