Here's the problem with EA, they discourage innovation in favor of the same ole tried-and-true formulas that have worked in the past. They stifle innovation within their in-house dev teams, and/or they won't take a chance on a game that is breaking the mold. Look at their library of games from the last few years, and their list of titles currentely in development, there is very little innovation. The bottom line is they make 99% of all their games for the least common denominator, which is sound business practice but in the end hurts the video game industry. There's nothing wrong w/ being succesfull or wanting to continue success, but there IS most definately something wrong w/ repackaging a game year after year while only adding one or two new features and charging full price for it ala Madden, NASCAR, NHL, MLB and the NBA games. Or pumping out tiny little content additions every 3 months and slapping an expansion label on it while charging nearly full retail price of the original game like they did with virtually every single one of the Sims "expansions". And since it's been documented extensively elsewhere, I won't go into the negative impact that their mis-treatment of their devs has on the industry as a whole. Yeah, alot of the EA hate has to do with jealously of their size and success. It's just like all the Microsoft hate. Alot of it stems from nothing but petty jealousy and Americas love for the underdog, coupled w/ the cool "rebel factor" people feel when they speak out against "the Man". But there are also many valid reasons for people to dislike EA.
Except for the fact that their old CEO retired and the new one has already spoken out against making sequels. he actually called it boring. So the fact that their new CEO doesn't agree with that style of developing and coupled with him going out and getting Bioware makes me think that EA will definitely be the place for some great original games here in the future.
The rest of your posts talked about how great EA was in the past. Making awesome innovative games every year.
If that is the case, why the new direction by the new CEO?
He didn't leave he took a position as Executive Chairman, the dude was getting old.
Its going to be the same old EA - sequels, sequels sequels. I dont believe this guy for a second.
Still have not answered how firing people is not forcing them to leave the company, with regard to Origin. Actually I did answer it. Origin themselves caused the problem and caused all of the firings. Actually your first answer was that they all left. Then you said that EA was not happy. But still maintained that the Origin team left, they didnt EA forced them out and ran every single Origin classic franchise into the ground. Based on pass practices of EA. The most likely thing to happen is for EA to push out games in the pipe for these 2 companies, develop sequels and other titles tied to the IP of the acquired companies for a few years. Most of the development teams from these 2 companies leaving in about 3-5 years. EA driving the franchise into the ground. Calling something great because it sold more copies then something else is kinda like saying knickleback is the greatest rock band of all time. A lot of great games never sold well when they first came out. Doesnt change the fact that they were great games. Actually it would be like calling The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elvis, Led Zepplin, etc great. They all sold tons of albums and were considered great. Or Britney Spears, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Creed greatest artist every based on album sales. Some great artist sell well, some don't, Some awesomely bad crap also sells well. Sales is not a good indicator of the quality of an artistic work, that is all that I am saying. For all your talk of UO being a UO project, Were you there around the time of UO launch? Because nobody viewed that thing as an EA project. It when EA peeps started running the game that it went to shit. You can trace the timeline of UO's downfall to the departure and replacement of key people in the company. Yes I was around at the UO launch I was a UO beta Tester. No one cared back then about who was running what because back then it didn't matter. That is why people didn't pay attention to who the owners were. Not until after the whole SOE thing with SWG did people really start paying attention. BS - we all cared about who was running the show. At least all my friends did. We knew who the devs were, we knew what they had done in the past. When some new dude showed up, we were always like who the hell is this guy. Claiming that you didnt notice the Origen guys leaving UO is like you claiming that you were on the titanic and didnt notice it sinking. And if some company fired every single one of my friends that I had worked with for 10-15 years, i would say they pretty much puttting up a huge sign that they didnt want me around anymore, but couldnt fire me because I had a better contact then my friends they fired. What if that company fired every single one of your friends because of you. You caused them to get fired, would you still blame yourself? Because that is what Garriot did. Thats not really how things played out and everyone knows it. Origin employees found that there projects got canceled by EA guys, everyone was forced to work on the same sequel projects or moved to other EA projects. EA slowly started to trim Origin team and it was not about mis management by Origin, it was about different priorites from EA. They wanted sequels, big money makers, less innovative (TIME CONSUMING) projects. Edit: yes I am a bitter ex UO player and I loved old most of the old Origin games. EA fooled me once with this line that they are new company, and they are going to do things different. Nope, i am not buying it this time. Bioware MMORPG = gonna be a complete rehashing of WOW with different graphics...this move just guarantees that. And it also makes it less and less likely that its a SW MMO; because no way a LA license is surviving this buyout. There wasn't much of a chance of this game being a SW MMO anyways. Why on earth would LA license someone else to make a Star Wars MMO. The first one bombed commercially and even though there are a ton of PRE-NGE fans on these boards there aren't all that many to play the game. Star Wars just didn't translate well into an MMO. Their better choice would be to make one of their own IPs into a MMO. I never thought it would be personally, but this just seals the deal that it is not.
I am done arguing here.
EA is despised by pretty much every quality development team out there.
I like valve's response to EA trying to buy them "Go f*** yourself" (thats aimed at EA not you)
These large conglomerates are not the ones making the great games of the past 20 years, they just aren't. The less indepents you have the lower the bar gets lowered on what is great because you do not have them out there competing to create the next great game. Everyone is just out there working for some conglemerate trying to make a deadline, trying to market crap.
The Gaming industry is quickly becomeing just like the movie industry. Full of suits trying to make art.
P.S. The more i think about the more i start to think back about playing the Sims, and you know what in retrospect that thing stunk too, it bored me out of my mind after a few days of play, and i love even the sim city sequels.
The rest of your posts talked about how great EA was in the past. Making awesome innovative games every year.
If that is the case, why the new direction by the new CEO? He didn't leave he took a position as Executive Chairman, the dude was getting old. Its going to be the same old EA - sequels, sequels sequels. I dont believe this guy for a second.
Still have not answered how firing people is not forcing them to leave the company, with regard to Origin. Actually I did answer it. Origin themselves caused the problem and caused all of the firings. Actually your first answer was that they all left. Then you said that EA was not happy. But still maintained that the Origin team left, they didnt EA forced them out and ran every single Origin classic franchise into the ground. Once again it wasn't EA's decisions that cost those Origin employees their jobs. EA didn't fire anyone when they bought Origin they actually gave Origin the funding to hire an additional 200 people. Based on pass practices of EA. The most likely thing to happen is for EA to push out games in the pipe for these 2 companies, develop sequels and other titles tied to the IP of the acquired companies for a few years. Most of the development teams from these 2 companies leaving in about 3-5 years. EA driving the franchise into the ground. Calling something great because it sold more copies then something else is kinda like saying knickleback is the greatest rock band of all time. A lot of great games never sold well when they first came out. Doesnt change the fact that they were great games. Actually it would be like calling The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elvis, Led Zepplin, etc great. They all sold tons of albums and were considered great. Or Britney Spears, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Creed greatest artist every based on album sales. Some great artist sell well, some don't, Some awesomely bad crap also sells well. Sales is not a good indicator of the quality of an artistic work, that is all that I am saying. Well Britney Spears, Nsync, Backstreet Boys, etc haven't sold enough records to be a drop in the bucket compared to the Beetles, Elvis, Led Zepplin, Rolling Stones. So no it isn't the same. Those bands you mentioned would be the equivalent of the hundred thousands sellers in Video Games. The million + sellers of games are QUALITY games. For all your talk of UO being a UO project, Were you there around the time of UO launch? Because nobody viewed that thing as an EA project. It when EA peeps started running the game that it went to shit. You can trace the timeline of UO's downfall to the departure and replacement of key people in the company. Yes I was around at the UO launch I was a UO beta Tester. No one cared back then about who was running what because back then it didn't matter. That is why people didn't pay attention to who the owners were. Not until after the whole SOE thing with SWG did people really start paying attention. BS - we all cared about who was running the show. At least all my friends did. We knew who the devs were, we knew what they had done in the past. When some new dude showed up, we were always like who the hell is this guy. Claiming that you didnt notice the Origen guys leaving UO is like you claiming that you were on the titanic and didnt notice it sinking. for someone who knew what was going on you keep trying to imply that UO was somehow Origin's plan only. not something they started working on and recieved funding for from EA. Which is what really happened. UO was greenlighted by Probst (the old CEO of EA) without his approval (who is a person btw that Garriot says he respects highly) it would of never been made. And if some company fired every single one of my friends that I had worked with for 10-15 years, i would say they pretty much puttting up a huge sign that they didnt want me around anymore, but couldnt fire me because I had a better contact then my friends they fired. What if that company fired every single one of your friends because of you. You caused them to get fired, would you still blame yourself? Because that is what Garriot did. Thats not really how things played out and everyone knows it. Origin employees found that there projects got canceled by EA guys, everyone was forced to work on the same sequel projects or moved to other EA projects. EA slowly started to trim Origin team and it was not about mis management by Origin, it was about different priorites from EA. They wanted sequels, big money makers, less innovative (TIME CONSUMING) projects. Once again from Garriot's own mouth: Garriott: "We doubled the size of the company from 200 to 400 that first year. We went from 5-10 projects to 10-20, and staffed those projects almost entirely with inexperienced people. It won't surprise you to learn those projects were not well managed. That was totally Origin's fault. We failed, and we ended up killing half of those products. That's probably what set up the EA mentality that 'Origin is a bunch of [deleted],' pardon my French." Edit: yes I am a bitter ex UO player and I loved old most of the old Origin games. EA fooled me once with this line that they are new company, and they are going to do things different. Nope, i am not buying it this time. Bioware MMORPG = gonna be a complete rehashing of WOW with different graphics...this move just guarantees that. And it also makes it less and less likely that its a SW MMO; because no way a LA license is surviving this buyout. There wasn't much of a chance of this game being a SW MMO anyways. Why on earth would LA license someone else to make a Star Wars MMO. The first one bombed commercially and even though there are a ton of PRE-NGE fans on these boards there aren't all that many to play the game. Star Wars just didn't translate well into an MMO. Their better choice would be to make one of their own IPs into a MMO. I never thought it would be personally, but this just seals the deal that it is not.
I am done arguing here.
EA is despised by pretty much every quality development team out there.
I like valve's response to EA trying to buy them "Go f*** yourself" (thats aimed at EA not you)
These large conglomerates are not the ones making the great games of the past 20 years, they just aren't. The less indepents you have the lower the bar gets lowered on what is great because you do not have them out there competing to create the next great game. Everyone is just out there working for some conglemerate trying to make a deadline, trying to market crap.
The Gaming industry is quickly becomeing just like the movie industry. Full of suits trying to make art.
P.S. The more i think about the more i start to think back about playing the Sims, and you know what in retrospect that thing stunk too, it bored me out of my mind after a few days of play, and i love even the sim city sequels.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Comments
Except for the fact that their old CEO retired and the new one has already spoken out against making sequels. he actually called it boring. So the fact that their new CEO doesn't agree with that style of developing and coupled with him going out and getting Bioware makes me think that EA will definitely be the place for some great original games here in the future.
The rest of your posts talked about how great EA was in the past. Making awesome innovative games every year.
If that is the case, why the new direction by the new CEO?
He didn't leave he took a position as Executive Chairman, the dude was getting old.
Its going to be the same old EA - sequels, sequels sequels. I dont believe this guy for a second.
I am done arguing here.
EA is despised by pretty much every quality development team out there.
I like valve's response to EA trying to buy them "Go f*** yourself" (thats aimed at EA not you)
These large conglomerates are not the ones making the great games of the past 20 years, they just aren't. The less indepents you have the lower the bar gets lowered on what is great because you do not have them out there competing to create the next great game. Everyone is just out there working for some conglemerate trying to make a deadline, trying to market crap.
The Gaming industry is quickly becomeing just like the movie industry. Full of suits trying to make art.
P.S. The more i think about the more i start to think back about playing the Sims, and you know what in retrospect that thing stunk too, it bored me out of my mind after a few days of play, and i love even the sim city sequels.
*yawn*
http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/151333
there is your answer to why EA bought BioWare/Pandemic
I am done arguing here.
EA is despised by pretty much every quality development team out there.
I like valve's response to EA trying to buy them "Go f*** yourself" (thats aimed at EA not you)
These large conglomerates are not the ones making the great games of the past 20 years, they just aren't. The less indepents you have the lower the bar gets lowered on what is great because you do not have them out there competing to create the next great game. Everyone is just out there working for some conglemerate trying to make a deadline, trying to market crap.
The Gaming industry is quickly becomeing just like the movie industry. Full of suits trying to make art.
P.S. The more i think about the more i start to think back about playing the Sims, and you know what in retrospect that thing stunk too, it bored me out of my mind after a few days of play, and i love even the sim city sequels.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)