A shift in EA's business philosophy?
I will believe it when I see it, but there is a hopeful note sounded in Electronic Arts’ latest publishing decision. I’m not much for the horror genre of games, but the decision by EA to publish a horror title from Grasshopper Manufacture/Q Entertainment is interesting, to say the least. That’s more than a little outside of EA’s usual paradigm.
The latest signings bode well for the company’s new “studio-focused philosophy,” which EA Partners general manager David DiMartini describes as “giving the world’s best independent developers access to EA’s global publishing resources, letting them focus on what they do best — making great games.“
Perhaps there’s hope for BioWare’s Dragon Age yet![tags]Dragon Age[/tags]
It’s just EA PR department catching up with the copy-cat internet meme or “EA hate”, a view of the company as being evil derived from unfortunate marketing choices in the past. Oh, and their ability to make money. I, for one, don’t fault them that, though.
The truth is, though, for every EA Sports title EA spits out, there is at least one off-the-wall game each year they flies under the radar that they put out. They kind of gave in to the popular view that they aren’t studio-oriented (which sort of ignores how Origin operated as an independent studio under EA’s name for a decade), and re-iterated, in a way that it seemed like ‘news’, that they are turning a new leaf.
In the case of Ultima, the unexpected success of UO created an MMO rush to bank on its success. Unfortunately, that market was so new that they stumbled on how to proceed. UO2 appealed to no one, and Privateer Online got back-seated to EA’s yielding to Westwood studio’s ill-fated Earth & Beyond. Westwood is faulted for gunning for Origin, and Origin is faulted for being indecisive going forward. Westwood was a more recent acquisition, and EA hoped the popularity of C&C titles would sell E&B. Didn’t happen. Nobody cared for any IP by Westwood.
Rest is history.
Thanks for that — I do appreciate the objectivity.
In all honesty, I do admit a bit of an anti-EA bias, and tend to view pretty much any bit of news put out by or about them with a mixture of salt grains and pre-emptive disillusionment. If this is a genuine shift in their core business philosophies, I welcome it…for the moment, however, I remain skeptical.
On a more objective note, and putting on my old reviewer’s cap here for a minute…I just can’t actually think of an EA game I’ve enjoyed all that much in the last few years. MS Game Studios has had a few good releases, which came as something of a surprise, but I can’t really think of anything that has come out under the EA label that I’ve really enjoyed, as a gamer, according to metrics like plot, action, puzzle, and stability.
(I’m a Dragon too, but thanks to a stalker-esque ex that knows my old handles and likes search engines, I don’t feel comfortable using them anymore. Meh. It was my initials following the female equivalent to “Lord” though. 🙂
Anyway, WtF Dragon, based on a few articles/interviews I read earlier this year with former staff, you have the right idea. The best one link I can come up with at this hour is:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_45/269-The-Conquest-of-Origin
For anyone that watched beloved developers vanish into the EA machine and their star series mangled, or that was connected to someone in the ‘sweatshop’ programming conditions (or giving support to their family/spouse), hating EA has nothing to do with them being successful. That excuse is flat-out silly…