How EA Lost Its Soul
polygon.com
How EA Lost Its Soul
1–10 of 57 posts
Re: How EA Lost Its Soul
#2I admire iteration - the idea that you make a basketball game and you keep making it better makes sense to me. Eventually, it'll be as good as it can be, right? When you're out of improvements, you can just update it every year with better graphics and updated rosters.
In another other industry, that mentality makes sense. In the video game industry, it doesn't. Video games are so tied to emotion that you really need to strive to create something new, to induce something novel in your customers.
I think the best example of this was the release of NBA Live 10 vs NBA 2K10. Since 1995, NBA Live was the basketball game. They (in my opinion), crushed the 2K series. For years, it was a really polished game and sales were pretty consistent. They continuously improved on the menus and on the actual basketball games.
Then, something changed around 2010. Suddenly, EVERYONE preferred NBA2K over NBA Live. Here's a good article about that:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/416482-nba-live-10-or-nba...
In my opinion, EA kept optimizing for local maxima. When 2K10 started experimenting more with simulating the business side of NBA teams with Association Mode, more people were hooked. The metagame became way more fun. And My Player mode was great too.
EDIT: I think there's a lot of parallels between the video game industry and the film industry. The companies that stay on top (Disney, Nintendo, Blizzard, Valve etc.) are fiercely protective of their brand and never release something they think is just okay.
The "people will forget about our mediocre games" mentality is very, very off in industries so tied to emotion.
Re: How EA Lost Its Soul
#3I admire iteration - the idea that you make a basketball game and you keep making it better makes sense to me. Eventually, it'll be as good as it can be, right? When you're out of improvements, you can just update it every year with better graphics and updated rosters. In another other industry, that mentality makes sense. In the video game industry, it doesn't. Video games are so tied to emotion that you really need…
> The companies that stay on top (Disney, Nintendo, Blizzard, Valve etc.) are fiercely protective of their brand and never release something they think is just okay.
I'd argue this is not true of Disney, who churn out endless zero-budget, cookie-cutter direct-to-video sequels and spinoffs from their big theatrical hits (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Disney_direct-to-vide...) in order to milk them for every cent they can. Disney does this because they're an easy way to squeeze a few more bucks out of the parents of kids who are obsessed with a particular Disney property, not because they are stories that demand to be told.
Re: How EA Lost Its Soul
#4I consulted for a couple weeks at EA about 10 years ago. On one of those days, I got 2 VPs and a director into a half-hour talk in a break area about how much they loved the game Starflight:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight
Starflight's a great game. And we were all having a great time reminiscing over it when I made the mistake of saying "Why not do an update? You all seem to love this game."
Their response was that space games and RPGs are both dead genres. We all parted a few minutes later as I had apparently killed the mood.
Re: How EA Lost Its Soul
#5I admire iteration - the idea that you make a basketball game and you keep making it better makes sense to me. Eventually, it'll be as good as it can be, right? When you're out of improvements, you can just update it every year with better graphics and updated rosters. In another other industry, that mentality makes sense. In the video game industry, it doesn't. Video games are so tied to emotion that you really need…
> The companies that stay on top (Disney, Nintendo, Blizzard, Valve etc.) are fiercely protective of their brand and never release something they think is just okay. I'd argue this is not true of Disney, who churn out endless zero-budget, cookie-cutter direct-to-video sequels and spinoffs from their big theatrical hits (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Disney_direct-to-vide... ) in order to milk them for e…
I think you will find that most of those movies are several years old or more. A while back, new management in Disney changed the company's strategy to focus less on churning out a bunch of direct-to-video sequels to make some easy bucks. Several that were in production at the time and close to release were actually canceled.
Re: How EA Lost Its Soul
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The companies that stay on top (Disney, Nintendo, Blizzard, Valve etc.) are fiercely protective of their brand and never release something they think is just okay. I'd argue this is not true of Disney, who churn out endless zero-budget, cookie-cutter direct-to-video sequels and spinoffs from their big theatrical hits (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Disney_direct-to-vide... ) in order to milk them for e…
I think you will find that most of those movies are several years old or more. A while back, new management in Disney changed the company's strategy to focus less on churning out a bunch of direct-to-video sequels to make some easy bucks. Several that were in production at the time and close to release were actually canceled.
That's good to hear! Maybe there's hope for them yet.
Re: How EA Lost Its Soul
#7I admire iteration - the idea that you make a basketball game and you keep making it better makes sense to me. Eventually, it'll be as good as it can be, right? When you're out of improvements, you can just update it every year with better graphics and updated rosters. In another other industry, that mentality makes sense. In the video game industry, it doesn't. Video games are so tied to emotion that you really need…
> The companies that stay on top (Disney, Nintendo, Blizzard, Valve etc.) are fiercely protective of their brand and never release something they think is just okay. I'd argue this is not true of Disney, who churn out endless zero-budget, cookie-cutter direct-to-video sequels and spinoffs from their big theatrical hits (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Disney_direct-to-vide... ) in order to milk them for e…
There was a period where they were infamous for this, yes, but it was one of the first things Bob Iger & John Lasseter stopped (in ~2007) when they took the top jobs.
http://jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_chief1/b/jim_hill/archive/...
Re: How EA Lost Its Soul
#8I'm not seeing where EA lost it's soul simply because it made the correct business decision to not go with the CEOs idea of 3DO. It was a bad decision especially given Sony's upcoming entry. The fact that the then-CEO decided to make an offshoot company instead of miring EA with trying to go into the hardware field was probably one of the better ones to keep EA functioning well. However, despite EA not backing their CEO's offshoot company, I don't see how that signifies that they lost their soul. I think people would attribute it more to the move to yearly releases, consuming studios for their IPs, etc. Rather than choosing to not promote a specific piece of hardware. Like I really want to like 3DO and it's open spec ideas, but holding a grudge over not getting exclusives just makes me think less of the guy.
Re: How EA Lost Its Soul
#9I consulted for a couple weeks at EA about 10 years ago. On one of those days, I got 2 VPs and a director into a half-hour talk in a break area about how much they loved the game Starflight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight Starflight's a great game. And we were all having a great time reminiscing over it when I made the mistake of saying "Why not do an update? You all seem to love this game." Their response…
> Their response was that space games and RPGs are both dead genres. We all parted a few minutes later as I had apparently killed the mood.
Do you mean you were fired / you quit? Or was that the conversation?
Re: How EA Lost Its Soul
#10I consulted for a couple weeks at EA about 10 years ago. On one of those days, I got 2 VPs and a director into a half-hour talk in a break area about how much they loved the game Starflight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight Starflight's a great game. And we were all having a great time reminiscing over it when I made the mistake of saying "Why not do an update? You all seem to love this game." Their response…
> Their response was that space games and RPGs are both dead genres. We all parted a few minutes later as I had apparently killed the mood.
Do you mean you were fired / you quit? Or was that the conversation?