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EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

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Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#31

Post by interesting_att »

ghshephard wrote: post #25
delinka wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliminating competition.

Pretty good strategy from a financial perspective if you consider game purchasing to be a zero-sum game. If your average consumer is willing to spend $XX on games, and $YY is going to solid competitor ZZ, then acquiring and shutting down ZZ, removing them from the game industry, frees up that $YY to be spent on EA games. What I don't understand about that strategy is what prevents the acquired employees from re-formi…

It is very difficult to get financing for a AAA game company since the industry is so hit-driven. Moreover, it'd be rather difficult to find investors just after the studio you worked for just shut down due to poor performance.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#32

Post by kenrikm »

ghshephard wrote: post #25
delinka wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliminating competition.

Pretty good strategy from a financial perspective if you consider game purchasing to be a zero-sum game. If your average consumer is willing to spend $XX on games, and $YY is going to solid competitor ZZ, then acquiring and shutting down ZZ, removing them from the game industry, frees up that $YY to be spent on EA games. What I don't understand about that strategy is what prevents the acquired employees from re-formi…

Financing AAA games through a studio is similar to dealing with a record label, the cards are stacked agains you unless you really make it big.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#33

Post by lmkg »

spiritplumber wrote: post #6

Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis.... EA's strategy seems to be "Buy studio, make them shovel a couple incomplete games out of the door, close studio, repeat." Okay, they're asshats. What I don't get is, how does this make them any money? They're basically strip-mining the games industry, is this really more profitable than actually making good games?

As a strategy, it's better than being profitable: it's predictable. The forecasts for the upcoming financial quarters are much more likely to be accurate when you only work with known IP.

The CEO is more beholden to analysts and stockholders than to customers. He has more to lose by failing expectations than he has to gain by exceeding expectations. Therefore, EA adopts a strategy that minimizes variance rather than maximizing profit.

But yes, it's profitable enough. Games and studios generally have more name-recognition than publishers. EA can take existing name-recognition on a series and generate large revenue from the first bad game they turn out. They launch a large marketing campaign, and by pushing pre-orders they can get more people to spend money on a game before they have an opportunity to find out what the product is that they're actually buying. At this point it's practically a science, and the market is only starting to push back (the latest Assassin's Creed may be doing a number on pre-orders).

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#34

Post by bstar77 »

keyle wrote: post #4

There seems to be a lot of misinformation going around. They're chopping off the people of Maxis but the name will remain (ahem!). Same for the IP, it will live on and be farmed to (an)other studio(s). (I don't side with EA. Sad day for SimCity lovers. Maxis is a mammoth of history and should not be chopped up. My thoughts for the devs that lost jobs...)

People are what make game companies great, not names or logos. There's something to say for maintaining the direct line of employee descendants to the original Sim City.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#35

Post by interesting_att »

spiritplumber wrote: post #28
bottled_poe wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope that is EA's strategy, as it will end them. The overhead of entering the games industry is cheaper than ever, and as a result we are seeing more and more independent game developers successfully penetrating the market.

EA has been around for 30 years though, so whatever they are doing, it works - what I don't understand is why does it work.

EA survive off of Madden and FIFA licenses. They don't have to spend that much money on improving the game year after year, but millions of people purchase them almost religiously.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#36

Post by chris_wot »

qmalxp wrote: post #3

I was just thinking today about how cool a modern open world version of SimAnt would be. Oh well. Edit: Someone posted a link to this but then it got deleted: http://www.formicarium.org/

Introduce some Yellow Crazy Ants.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/exo...

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#38

Post by prewett »

saganus wrote: post #26
calcsam wrote: post #9

Wow, an icon of my childhood gone. If you're an affected developer, shoot me an email & I'll be happy to put you in our pipeline.

Icon is the correct term. SimCity had one of the earliest form of DRM I remember. The almost-impossible to Xerox manual (highly reflective paper so photocopies would come black) was used to answer a question the game asked you, about the population of a specific city on a certain page of the manual. Loosing the manual was not an option. Farewell Maxis.

I remember hand-copying the numbers from a black on dark dark grey crinkled photocopy acquired from a friend of a friend in my spare time during classes in high school. Boy was I glad to finish that... Then I discovered that the PC version didn't look anywhere near as good as the B&W Mac version :(

Definitely iconic. Fond memories!

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#39

Post by troymc »

spiritplumber wrote: post #6

Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis.... EA's strategy seems to be "Buy studio, make them shovel a couple incomplete games out of the door, close studio, repeat." Okay, they're asshats. What I don't get is, how does this make them any money? They're basically strip-mining the games industry, is this really more profitable than actually making good games?

EA has at least one other strategy, with EA Sports: every year they come out with a new and improved Football, Basketball, Hockey, Golf, etc. and people get it. Madden NFL has been going since 1988.

To be fair, EA Sports did discontinue some of their less popular games, such as Rugby and Cricket.

Re: EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

#40

Post by prewett »

spiritplumber wrote: post #6

Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis.... EA's strategy seems to be "Buy studio, make them shovel a couple incomplete games out of the door, close studio, repeat." Okay, they're asshats. What I don't get is, how does this make them any money? They're basically strip-mining the games industry, is this really more profitable than actually making good games?

On the plus side, it looks like there is a vacancy in the simulation game market...
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