During Electronic Arts' E3 2008 press conference we finally got some info about the publisher's recent purchase of Rupture, the gaming-oriented social networking technology company that was co-founder by Napster creator Shawn Fanning. Fanning came on stage to address the press event and talked about how their technology will work in upcoming EA games.

Rupture will help to form a social networking platform that will apparently be able to cross platforms on the PC, consoles and even mobile phones. EA will create what they call a "Nucleus" which will list a player's likes and dislikes, stats and more. They will also be able to handle microtransactions for upcoming games like Spore and Battlefield Heroes. Rupture will have what Fanning called "social achievements." A gamer can set up his or her own achievements for their friends to try. Game developers will be able to set up their own achievements in their titles.

While we don't have a lot of info yet, we are guessing that Nucleus and Rupture are going to give EA ways to handle things that Valve's Steamworks and Microsoft Games for Windows Live do for PC titles. We hope to get more info on these projects and how they differ from Valve and Microsoft's efforts during E3,