Eurogamer.net has a very revealing interview with Andrew Wilson, EA CEO, concerning the Dungeon Keeper reboot.

While Mythic as a studio isn’t specifically discussed by Wilson, when you read between the lines and look at everything outside of Dungeon Keeper that happened this year, Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online being moved to a 3rd party studio (something that was unprecedented for EA), Ultima Forever seemingly ceasing development, it’s not hard to guess why Mythic was closed.

Dungeon Keeper was mired in controversy from the get-go, with its negative reviews, user backlash and then, somewhat hilariously, a scandal over EA Mobile’s attempt to filter out 1-4 star in-app reviews of Dungeon Keeper from the Google Play Store. When EA shut down Dungeon Keeper’s developer Mythic, known for the Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online massively multiplayer games, was anyone surprised?

Wilson, who became EA CEO in September 2013, began his response by promising “open and transparent conversations” with Eurogamer on Dungeon Keeper….

“For new players, it was kind of a cool game,” he began. “For people who’d grown up playing Dungeon Keeper there was a disconnect there. In that aspect we didn’t walk that line as well as we could have. And that’s a shame.”

Wilson said Dungeon Keeper had sparked two types of feedback among players. One, that it didn’t feel like Dungeon Keeper as old school fans remembered it, and two, that the free-to-play model it employed didn’t make players feel like they were getting value for their money.

“We misjudged the economy,” he admitted.
….
Wilson insisted EA had learned much from the reaction to Dungeon Keeper, saying, “you have to be very careful when you reinvent IP for a new audience that has a very particular place in the hearts and minds and memories of an existing audience.”

It’s a shame that Mythic had to end with the Dungeon Keeper reboot. Dungeon Keeper wasn’t even an original Mythic property, and this has probably ended any chances of a future Dungeon Keeper game, which makes it all the more ironic or sad, or both.

Read: Eurogamer.net

UPDATE: Kotaku UK has news that Electronic Arts has been prohibited from using certain advertising that was found to be misleading, in regards certain aspects of Dungeon Keeper.

The complainant, who understood that gameplay was severely limited unless in-app purchases were made, challenged whether the ad was misleading because it omitted significant information.

Electronic Arts Ltd stated that in their view they had not misled or omitted information from the ad. They said that Dungeon Keeper was available to download for free, and that in-app purchases were not required.

The ASA noted that the game software was available to download for free, and that it was possible to play the game without spending money. However, we understood that several mechanisms within the game took a significant amount of time to be completed, and that these would only be speeded up by using the premium Gem currency.

We consequently considered it likely that many players would regard the gameplay experience as unexpectedly curtailed and as a result would need to spend Gems in order to achieve the form of gameplay anticipated.

Because the game had the potential to restrict gameplay beyond that which would be expected by consumers and the ad did not make this aspect of the role of in-app purchasing clear, we concluded that it was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1, 3.3 and 3.9 (Misleading Advertising).

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The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Electronic Arts Ltd to ensure that future ads made clear the limitations of free gameplay and role of in-app purchasing with regard to speeding up gameplay.