Rocket League
Psyonix’s design director Corey Davis reveals that the studio's smash hit title Rocket League was pitched to EA in 2011, but was turned down. Psyonix

At E3 2016, EA announced EA Originals, a brand new publishing programme designed to support smaller developers from marketing to publishing and help showcase indie games "that are unique, gorgeous, innovative and memorable".

According to EA Studios EVP Patrick Soderlund, the initiative is about finding titles like the popular soccer-meets-cars game, Rocket League - a game that the studio, ironically, reportedly turned down in 2011.

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"Would I want to be the guy that found Rocket League?" Soderlund said in an interview with IGN. "Yes. Would I want that to be an EA property? Of course I would like to. That's [the idea behind EA Originals].

"For us to be able to find these people and help understand what they're building and help push it to market. For us to find something else."

Psyonix design director Corey David, however, took to Twitter to reveal that the game was in fact pitched to EA back in 2011, but it ultimately turned it down.

Since its release in July 2015, Rocket League has generated a whopping $100m in revenue and sold over five million copies with an install base of more than 15 million players.

These sales do not include the copies downloaded for free when the game was a PlayStation Plus title during its debut month last year.

The first title unveiled by the EA Originals initiative is Swedish developer Zoink Studios' 'Fe' (which means "fairy" in Swedish) - a pretty, 3D platformer described as "a personal narrative about our relationship with nature".

Rocket League is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

Rocket League E3 2016