Speaking to the Wall Street Journal at the Dow Jones Newswire event (via VentureBeat), EA's chief operating officer John Schappert has labelled the current social gaming trend as a bubble, comparable to the mobile gaming hype of a few years previous.

"Social games have attracted a lot of eyeballs," says Schappert. "Venture money is pouring into it. Is it sustainable or is it a bubble? There are a lot of parallels to mobile."

Given that this is an area that EA is not only very active in, but something of a market leader, Schappert's comments might not have been too favourably received by his colleagues.

However, it seems his purpose was more about protecting and promoting the good name of boxed retail games - an area of the industry that's certainly not a bubble, as it's struggling to stay afloat.

"For those who say that packaged goods games (sold in retail stores) are going away, they are a little ahead of themselves," he adds.

But he did acknowledge that despite retail games still apparently blazing trail some of its primary franchises have failed to perform this year as consumers turn away from premium console games in the wake of global recession.

Indeed, he seemed to send very mixed messages. Retail games are the core of the industry, yet are struggling badly, and he answered this problem by saying single player games must evolve to include multiplayer elements and regular additional content - all of which sounds to fit the social gaming model far more closely that the traditional retail system.

He also issued a warning to the social gaming companies that they'll soon be coming down to Earth because of their inability to cater for multiple platforms - again missing the point that many of these social games are reaching out across a vast number of static, online and mobile platforms.

"There are still a lot of barriers for startups," he concludes, when asked about the talent leaving EA to form their own mobile, iPhone and social studios. "There are a lot of risks."