Origin: Best PC game developer of all time?
Just a handful of Origin masterpieces.
Don’t get me wrong: there are a few other phenomenal game developers out there. I’m less sold on Bungie since Halo, admittedly (although that has more to do with the fact that the series went to the XBox; I still love Marathon), and I love me some BioWare (they’re kind of like the Pixar of the gaming industry: even their not-so-great games are better than some of the competition’s good games). But there is a point to be made about developers like these, which Plunkett hammers home:
…while I applaud “specialist” developers – those like Valve who continually progress the one genre or series – to me, if you’re going to talk about the greatest PC developer of all time, it needs to be one that has proven itself across multiple generations, genres and series. Why? Because if a developer can come top of the class in more than one kind of game, it shows that there’s brilliance running right through the company, not just in the engine room or art department.
It’s why a studio like Irrational, which has brought us everything from Freedom Force to System Shock 2 to BioShock is so revered. The same can be said of Bullfrog, which was able to jump from Theme Park to Magic Carpet to Syndicate without missing a beat.
While I have great respect for all the developers named above, though, none can match the standards set by Origin Systems.
Plunkett correctly notes that Origin released games in many genres (RPGs, FPSs, flight sims, so-called “interactive movies”) and almost always did it well. Some of the biggest names in the gaming industry were either inspired by, or worked directly for, Origin at one point or another. They could (seemingly) do almost anything; even the modern MMORPG craze owes much to Origin’s Ultima Online.
Sadly, Origin did not last, due to a combination of their own mistakes and meddling from Electronic Arts, which back in 2004 had a much-deserved reputation as the place that good game franchises went to die. EA is quite a bit different nowadays, thankfully, and Origin’s spiritual successor — BioWare Mythic — will hopefully be able to do at least some (if not all) of the grand things it has planned for the various Origin IPs that, as Plunkett notes, EA has been sitting on (and doing precious little with) since 2004.
I never doubted it for a second. 😉
But of course! I have long named Origin as the best game development studio of all time, with Bioware being the closest we have to a modern equivalent. That’s why I freaked (as I’m sure many of you did) when EA acquired Bioware back in 2007. Thankfully, they have thus far not made the same mistakes with Bioware that they did with Origin. It is ironic that the Origin IPs have now come to rest under the Bioware banner.
I don’t find it ironic so much as I find it promising. It is not a bad thing at all that the torch of the best PC game developer in living memory should pass on to a competent, talented developer like BioWare.
Bioware not really that much like Origin (although their new cinematic style is reminiscent of Wing Commander – one could easily imagine the events of WC taking place in the Mass Effect universe).
The Ultima games (before the series was derailed) were, I think, evolving to become a hybrid of Bioware-style dialogue/plot-heavy RPGs and Bethesda-style exploratory RPGs. When it worked, it was awesome.
“We Create Worlds” – it says everything 🙂
I would certainly agree that Origin is the best PC developper of all time and I think the versatility of Origin is a strong argument – I can’t think of any modern developper that is even remotely comparable really.
I mean Bioware is a great developper… but they’re limite to RPGs in the end (and as far as RPG developpers goes, I would put Obsidian a few good notches above Bioware), which is true about many other companies.
@cor2879 – As long as EA doesn’t try to turn Bioware into a MMO company it’ll be okay. 😛 It’s not so much EA as UO that ruined Origin Systems. If anything, Origin produced some of its best games while under EA and in no small part thanks to the funds EA brought to the company. The UO came along and all went to hell…
I’ve not quite managed to finish all their games yet, but there is no question for me about Origin being the #1 games developer of all time either. Apart from all the obvious classics, there are some real gems among their lesser known games like Cybermage, Space Rogue, 2400AD and Autoduel. From over 60 titles, the only poor ones that spring to mind were Wing Commander Academy which was filler before WC3 and Metal Morph which was a fairly awful SNES platform/shmup game.
@Sergorn: there’s little danger that BioWare (Edmonton) will be turned into an MMO studio. After all, the BioWare Group already has two other MMO development houses in it: Mythic and Austin. Converting a powerhouse single-play studio like Edmonton into an MMO shop would be…a financially stupid decision.
Granted, EA a decade ago might have made such a decision, but these days their thinking is different.
Agree on Origin being number 1. Not only were there games great they also created so many different kinds of games well. I always thought their games were a work of art more than just a game.
Bioware is ok, I like Baldur’s gate and the sequel, but everything after that is just ok in my opinion. Didn’t care for Dragon Age and the sequel looks worse from what I have seen.
You know, it occurs to me that Bungie was headed in this direction (at least on the Mac platform) prior to its acquisition by Microsoft. I mean, they did Pathways into Darkness and the various Marathon games (all FPSs) to start, but then started branching out with titles like Myth/Myth 2: Soulbringer (both real-time tactical games), and with the sadly underrated Oni as well (which was more in the vein of an action RPG, really).
I would actually almost say I hope that their next title won’t be an FPS; I think the company has a lot of talent in other genres that needs to be tapped.
Ah, the Myth series. I loved those games. Their Götterdämmerung-esque “apocalyptic fantasy” atmosphere has yet to be matched by any other game I’ve played. A masterpiece of (relatively) minimalistic storytelling.
Bungie could have made some awesome RPGs back in the day, if that was their thing.
Well, the original Halo was supposed to have RPG elements, as I recall. that was before the Microsoft purchase, of course.
Heh I didn’t know Bungie developped the Myth games. These were certainly more interesting than Halo 😛
I didn’t play much of them, but it reminded be quite a bit of the Warhammer RTS games that got done in the mid ’90
Myth was an amazing series…just amazing. Totally new spin on the RTS concept.
Man, I remember playing it online against Warcraft fans…let’s just say that “rushing” was, in Myth, a losing tactic.
And my favorite “shout to all players” message: “How do I build a base? What unit does that?” Yeah, sorry dude…you gonna die.
I would agree with “totally new spin” if i wasn’t for the fact that Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat was released two years before Myth 😛
Myth feels very much like an updated version of it.