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One thing I am tired of hearing about...
Cabe2323
Member Posts: 2,939
I am sick of hearing about how EA supposedly destroyed Ultima Online after they bought it.
First off EA owned Origin Systems years before Ultima Online was released. It is well documented (meaing from Garriot's own words) that he had to get the funding to make Ultima Online from EA. So EA was a part of UO's successes as well as failures. Too often I see people placing the blame on UO's demise on EA but try to hype the successes as the work of Origin.
Richard Garriot in an interview admitted that it was entirely the fault of Origin that several of their games were cancelled. It was entirely their fault because they had no idea how to run such a large company with such a large budget. EA game them tons of funding and let them go, after Origin had numerous problems with meeting deadlines, difficulty with direction of the game, etc, then EA stepped in and took over. What do you expect though when a division is taking all of your cash and not producing anything of substance.
Also, I don't need anymore proof that EA is supportive of creative thought (as long as you have some semblance of an actual direction) then the fact that Will Wright has remained with the company all of these years.
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
Um... you pretty much just admitted that EA was responsible for the downfall of UO. EA may have been in the piucture but OSI was responsible for the creative direction that the game took. It wasn't until EA stepped in that the game transformed from teh hardcore RPG that it was into the carebear rainbow land that it is to this day. EA is responsible for the crap that is UO today. OSI is responsible for the UO that was released in 1997.
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Starting Out Fine
Origin's employees on the early years after the purchase:
Spector: "For the first couple of years, EA's acquisition of Origin changed the place for the better in nearly every way. EA brought some much needed structure to our product greenlight and development processes. And we certainly got bigger budgets! We were able to do more and cooler things than we'd been able to do before. In most ways, though, EA gave us a lot of rope - enough to hang ourselves, as it turned out!"
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."
Spector: "Once it became apparent we were getting a little crazy, EA started taking a firmer hand with us, integrating us into the machine in subtle and not so subtle ways, and that's when things started to get a little less pleasant. Every company has its politics but, in my relatively limited experience, EA was an incredibly political place - lots of empire building, folks jockeying for bigger, better jobs, competing for resources, marketing dollars and so on. And there were certainly people at EA who, let's just say, lacked confidence in Origin's development management and - less sensibly, I think - in the Austin development community in general. There were a lot of strange decisions."
Denis Loubet, artist: "Before [the purchase], the desire to keep Origin afloat did much to keep politics on the back burner. But afterwards, survival transformed into a competition at the feeding trough. As production groups became more insular, Origin fractured. That was the death of any 'Origin Culture.' It didn't help that each production head was a dictator over his team, yet each had to brown-nose EA for funding."
Steve Powers, artist and programmer: "When EA assumed control, much of the joy began to fade from the Origin company culture. It was a running joke through the company that we went from working for the Rebellion to working for the Empire. Our company had a culture that made work an incredible joy, day in and day out, even though we worked tremendously long hours. And the culture *had* to be appealing, because Origin paid a pittance. I started there at wages that were just above poverty level. EA began to bring salaries up to a competitive level for the region, and people who were equivalent to hobbyists were suddenly in a career. It was no longer a nerdy fraternity; it was business."
Garriott: "There are people at EA to this day who I respect either as brilliant or at least well-intentioned. [CEO] Larry Probst was often not supportive of the things I was doing, but I respect Larry because he was always clear, rational and consistent in his lack of support. I felt [Chief Creative Officer] Bing Gordon understood sometimes; I always felt Bing's intent was to help me do my best. Nancy Smith [Executive VP, North American Publishing] empathized and desired success for all at Origin. [But] there were others who got into politics, who very clearly would get into the mode of 'Your success will work against my success. EA caring about you will mean they care less about me.' The politicians began to look at us as the enemy, and would actively work against us."
The Hatchet
After EA bought Origin, authority for the new division fell to the president of EA Worldwide Studios, Don Mattrick.
A Canadian from the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, Mattrick wasn't just a suit; he could claim seniority over many Origin coders, having programmed (with Jeff Sember) his first published game, Evolution for the Apple II, in 1982 at age 17. Mattrick joined EA in 1991 when EA paid him $13 million for his company, Distinctive Software, maker of edutainment and sports games such as the Test Drive and HardBall series. Distinctive became EA Canada, and as its Executive VP and General Manager, Mattrick led it brilliantly from strength to strength until 1997, when EA CEO Lawrence Probst III promoted him to Worldwide.
Once EA started exerting a tighter grip on Origin, Mattrick pushed teams to stay on schedule (an insistence that badly damaged Ultima VIII, according to Garriott). Mattrick killed many projects because they had spun out of control, and cancelled other projects for reasons staffers still consider mysterious. Some staffers believe (though not for attribution) Mattrick undermined Origin because it competed for resources with Distinctive's new incarnation, EA Canada. This view arose particularly because of the way Mattrick managed Origin's late-'90s move into online games.
This move was not his idea. Originally there was no money in the Origin budget for Ultima Online. Garriott went directly to Probst to ask for $150K in seed money to kick off the project. Without Probst's approval, UO would have been delayed, maybe never started at all. Garriott said in a 2004 GameSpy interview, "Ultima Online was kind of a red-headed stepchild during development. Everyone at EA was focused on Ultima IX, which was seen as more of a sure thing. Nobody at EA really understood what Ultima Online was all about." But after the beta test drew 50,000 volunteers, EA made a sharp reversal. They insisted Garriott shelve Ultima IX and work only on UO.
Launched in 1997, UO's unheralded success (it peaked at about 250,000 subscribers) kicked off the MMORPG industry and roused EA's interest in online games. Origin presented EA a suite of ideas for followups: a Flash Gordon-style space opera, a martial arts game using collectible electronic cards, online soccer and more. None of the proposals were sequels, spinoffs or licenses.
But EA, which sold sports and licensed games by the millions, was used to releasing sequels every year. The corporate office commissioned Wing Commander Online, Privateer Online (based on the 1993 space sim), and the licensed Harry Potter Online. And, inevitably, Ultima Online 2, which the marketing department retitled Ultima Worlds Online: Origin.
Staffers argued against doing UO2, because it would compete with UO. But Mattrick greenlighted it in 1999, cancelled Wing Commander Online and assigned its team to UO2. A bunch of guys who liked spaceships, reassigned to animate monsters? They quit six months later, and UO2 had to start over. The game never really recovered.
In March 2001 Mattrick cancelled UO2. Among his reasons: UO2 would compete with the original UO. (EA repeated this story precisely with Ultima X: Odyssey, greenlighted 2002, cancelled 2004.)
Business Matters
Privateer Online: cancelled in 2000 to avoid competition with EA's big bet, Earth and Beyond. The core PO team moved to Verant (later Sony Online Entertainment) and created Star Wars Galaxies.
Harry Potter Online, cancelled at Origin 2001, assigned as Hogwarts Online to EA studio New Pencil, cancelled 2005.
Transland (a surrealist game), Silverheart (an RPG with design contributions from Michael Moorcock), Firehorse (Hong Kong John Woo-style full motion video), mainstream RTS Technosaur: cancelled, cancelled, cancelled....
"The business was changing radically, in ways an independent developer/publisher like Origin probably wasn't equipped to handle," says Spector. "We were becoming a blockbuster business, like the movies. When Origin's revenue and profits took a hit and EA gave us a very... aggressive budget number to hit, it was mostly my projects that got killed - I wasn't happy about that. But what were they going to do? Kill Richard Garriott projects? Chris Roberts projects?"
Spector's games (Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle, Ultima Underworld, System Shock and many more) consistently brought returns a small studio would think quite respectable. But the economics of a billion-dollar corporation are different. For EA it makes more sense to reach for the sky with every single project. The games that die or get cancelled become tax writeoffs, and the rare hit pays for all the rest. The worst case is the mere modest success, a mediocre return on equity without corresponding tax advantages.
Spector says, "Mattrick told me I needed to make games more like Richard and Chris - swing for the fences, go for the megahit, spend a ton to make a ton - instead of consistently turning out smaller games, making some money every year. I thought he was nuts at the time. Took me several more years to admit that, like it or not, he was right and I was wrong."
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)
Hmm, well I played UO for about 9 years.
EA supporeting creative thoughts? Must be why they fired seers and counselors. Why GMs were not allowed to interact with customers. Why the Event Moderators were not hired again.
EA gets the praise to let some crazy developers do their thing (and it nearly crashed but then uo was supposed to support 300 people until ea decided it has to fit 3000), but EA bosses definitely deserve the scolding for making a 3d clint TWICE that sucks so much the client base overall refuses to use it.
Well thanks for shedding some light as to why EA does what they do to games...
"...Every company has its politics but, in my relatively limited experience, EA was an incredibly political place - lots of empire building, folks jockeying for bigger, better jobs, competing for resources, marketing dollars and so on...
...But afterwards, survival transformed into a competition at the feeding trough. As production groups became more insular, Origin fractured. That was the death of any 'Origin Culture.' It didn't help that each production head was a dictator over his team, yet each had to brown-nose EA for funding..."
If you're tired of hearing bad things about EA, I doubt this is going to help...
I'm actually more sick about hearing about how SOE ruined SWG...
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
EA will destroy every game it acquires.
It is EA's business model to:
EA will not innovate, create, or produce one of its own worthy games. It lacks the management and structure to do that, so its business model requires it to acquire games and milk them for as much money as possible in the short-term.
Let us see some of the games that have come out from EA:
Ultima Online - EA Origin Game. EA funded the game and Origin was totally owned by EA when the game was designed
The Sims and The Sims 2 - Both games came from EA
Spore - Hey look another EA game coming out that is innovative.
Just to name a few quick ones off the top of my head. People seem to think that EA buys up these companies and those companies never have another good game. as the article shows EA doesn't destroy these small companies. They implode because their management is incapable of handling the extra stress a massive budget entails. The same thing happened to Sigil. McQuaid couldn't manage a wet paper bag and so the company went under. The same thing would of happened to Origin whether EA was involved or not.
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)
EA has two strategies:
EA is the great-destroyer and what is wrong with the gaming industry.
As an aside, read about EA's employment policies here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_arts#Employment_policy
My Fear: EA has its eyes on R*, the creator of GTA IV, and it will milk and dilute that game for as much money as fast as it can.
BOYCOTT *ALL* EA TITLES.
UO was a bit of a fun project.
Read a design document and UO was planned for 300 people online and only half a year before launch the developers had to make it for up to 3000 players online.
UO had with their open pvp one of the highest cancelling rates of any online game, so many that they had to copy their own landmass where no free pvp was happening. They copied the landmass exactly because they feared a big download would be too much for customers and so.
So UO went on and had about 200k customers worldwide and other games were passing it left and right when they decided that if they copy diable, millions of gamers have to join.
The servers after that expansion were harldy playble for the first month, because so much data had to be transfered from the new properties that all lagged.
And so on ...
So UO was a fluke.
EA thought it would not last longer than 6 months and UO was/is a great experiment, but nothing planned and especially not planned by EA, but some game designers who partly made some of the worst choices in online gaming ever and UO became partly an example how not to do it.
I like to tell things straight out ,not because i'm a fanbois or trying to piss anyone off.I played UO early on and thought it was a great game....BUT! for it's time.Soon came a surge of modern newer looking games.
IMO UO never failed for any reason blamed towards EA or anyone,they just got outdated.I know they tried to follow up with newer graphics ,i really don't know how that turned out,as i kind of just left the game for old.I guess in comparison,my fave game to play is FFXI.Even if they decided to modernize the graphics and gameplay/UI,i prolly wouldn't go back to playing it after i leave for good[i'm close to finally leaving it for good as is the case anyhow].
You should also realize that at the time there really wasn't much competition in the whole MMO community.I mean it would be pretty obvious to understand they would lose thousands of players as newer games are released.There really is no one to blame.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.