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Do As We Say, Not As We Spend Hundreds Of Millions On Doing
EA’s CEO: Sequels are dull, threaten industry.
“For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat,” he said. “There’s been lots of product that looked like last year’s product, that looked a lot like the year before.”
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about 3 years ago
Which came first? Chicken, egg, or Egg 2: Bird Vengence
about 3 years ago
omg! What’s next, Rue Paul coming out publically against homosexuals? Hillary Clinton slamming socialist medicine? Jack Thompson declaring he’s tired of hearing all the whining about games making people violent?
EA: Turning Hypocrisy into HYPEocrisy since 2004!
about 3 years ago
Clearly he means “With the exception of my own fantabulous company …”
about 3 years ago
He strikes me as the kind of boss that rolls into the parking lot in his beemer around 10am, takes a 2-hour “working” lunch at 11:45 and skips out around 3:30 for an afternoon tee time.
3 days a week.
Maybe.
about 3 years ago
Anyone else think his comment about mobile phones and iPhones is silly? I might want to play games on an iPhone or cell phone, but not if I’m sitting on my couch next to my unused computer or console.
I dare him to contact Tim Schafer and offer him a big contract to come up with a fresh IP.
about 3 years ago
You guys did catch that the guy just started in April, right? It might explain the “hypocritical” comment, and signal a change in direction with EA. About time, if you ask me.
about 3 years ago
You guys did catch that the guy just started in April, right?
Right. He used to be EA’s COO, then bailed to form Elevation Partners which led to the merger of Bioware and Pandemic, then went back to EA. So he’s basically the white knight agent of change, maybe, if he can weather the storm of bad-mouthing the long-standing company culture of sequels and more sequels.
about 3 years ago
If he was talking about his company in particular, then he should have said so specifically. It read more like he was talking about everyone else’s problems, and considering not the beam that is in his own eye.
about 3 years ago
I thought this was interesting:
Does he mean that the games are harder to play because they are sequels, or that they are hard to play because each generation of sequel is designed to be harder? Because I don’t think either is necessarily true.
Also he looks very tired in his picture. He might want to go with “lack of sleep” when Madden’s people call.
about 3 years ago
I hear Warhammer Online is the sequel to Dark Age of Camelot. True story.
about 3 years ago
Hypocrisy? In my games industry?
It’s more likely than you think.
about 3 years ago
I don’t think it matters whether he was talking about EA specifically because 1) what he describes is EA’s M.O. arguably more than anyone else (besides Nintendo, which somehow manages to stay fresh despite re-using its Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby and Pokemon franchises without apology or complaint from fans or critics) and 2) EA, being one of the largest and longest-lived publishers with one of the biggest war chests, is going to influence the industry as a whole no matter what it does.
It is fair to say that pointing out problems rarely matters. Finding workable solutions and backing them to completion, especially when you’re a CEO, always matters.
about 3 years ago
Leaders make changes first and talk about the changes success or failure later.
Any idiot can walk in like a cowboy and proclaim the wondrous changes they are going to bring about.
Anyone who has actually lead people know not to put the cart before the horse because doing what you say is the number one thing in leadership.
about 3 years ago
Oh, look. Cosmik is back (sorta).
about 3 years ago
I call shenaigens on you guys who say that was hypocrisy with respect to sports games. A new very similar sports game comes out every year because many gamers want the changes in teams reflected as much as they want a new and improved game.
A good argument could also be made that some game genres are just simulations and the changes to the games are primary just ways to make them more realistic – but this quickly goes into grey areas making it a weak position.
Im no EA fan, and EA doesnt have room to preach on this subject anyway with respect to more creative type games. And they may be wrong , perhaps sequals are exctly what does make people happy.
about 3 years ago
A curious use of the word “spend”.
about 3 years ago
I read something very similar to this, if not exact(!), months ago. I did a quick search but didn’t find it. This move was anounced back in February, and that sounds about right on the timeframe, but I’m not sure. My point is that, since his words are so similar, and I repeat, sounding exactly the same, it lends to either a serious attitude change or an official line of bull.
Since he took over, he has iniciated changes in the structure at EA. This would be a must for any corp that wants to change directions. So I’m in the “wait and see” camp on this, since these things take time.
p.s. in doing my search, I’m reminded of just how much these CEOs make, especially in stock options. This really doesn’t belong here, but it pisses me off when thinking about the ever widening spance between what they make and the average worker.
link
about 3 years ago
I think this is the after-effects of the Wii, the tremendous success that Nintendo has been having with the Wii has many people changing opinions about things like this. It clearly demonstrated that new and original ideas such as an alternative input interface have a real potential.
about 3 years ago
In other news, pot calls kettle black.
about 3 years ago
Everything has “potential” in games. There’s potential to make a fun and successful game out of just about anything you can imagine. It’s the design and implementation that would have to be married to that potential for it to mean anything.
There’s “potential” for EA to keep making a new Madden every year until doomsday and continue to innovate incrementally. There’s also the potential for 2K Sports to steamroll their popularity and crush EA Sports utterly, thereby putting the whole of EA in jeopardy.
about 3 years ago
What’s funny is that it’s EA’s business practices that truly do crush any possibility of exciting, new products faster than anything else. Part of the standard publisher contract with a developer is that the publisher can buy said developer for peanuts in the future if they want to. So, the publisher signs the company, lets them develop some hot new game, then acquires them for a song if the game actually does well. The team is gutted in most cases, the people that poured their soul into the game get a few nice dinners paid for by the publisher, and the IP is ruthlessly exploited by for-hire teams that get paid a pittance. Any fan of the Battlefield games knows what this looks like from the fan’s perspective. In the end, the people that came up with the now-successful IP get little out of it, so they’re probably not eager to jump back into the meat grinder to repeat the process. Thus, innovation is successfully driven out!
This is one of the reasons I’m a vocal supporter of indie development. It’s the people that aren’t risking multi-millions that can bring a real change. Of course, indies have their own problems trying to get attention for their game.
about 3 years ago
Because, of course, the other prong of EA’s strategy is to “raise the bar” for development so that we find ourselves facing multi-million budgets to produce the modern equivalent of Pacman.