DAO started development right after Neverwinter Nights was finished. In fact it was going to be their next big game after NWN.
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If EA suddenly went out of business, would the gaming industry be better off?
- Thread starter Motley
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DAO started development right after Neverwinter Nights was finished. In fact it was going to be their next big game after NWN.
Yes, but if EA had wanted to interfere with the game, they would have had plenty of time to do it before it was released. They could have even delayed the game as much as they wanted if they needed time to make those changes. They didn't do any of that.
I think the fact that Bioware's post-EA games have still maintained a fairly high standard of quality is quite telling.
bigdogchris
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Well, I'm only thinking about EA as a publisher and not as an owner of developers.
Even though Bioware has been greatly influenced in negative ways by EA, they would exist if EA never would have, and ME 3 would just of been published by someone else.
Kaiyoko-Desu
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A dead EA is a bad thing, despite what they do; I rather see Activision go down first. With EA out of the picture, it would cause a hell of a shock to the video game market and other worse companies would pick up the pieces and make it even worse. Unless Valve steps in...
I'll hate to see my friends working at EA lose their jobs right now, given the current job climate.
I'll hate to see my friends working at EA lose their jobs right now, given the current job climate.
Yes, though from what the developers said most of the game was done before they were bought. There had been a small team working on it since 02 so unless EA wanted to spend a lot of money and redo a bunch there wasn't much to do about it. That said, yes they could have done a lot and didn't.
Microsoft would still own the publishing rights and there would never have been PC versions.
I want to comment this very last thing you wrote first, I think you have missed the point. The very reason it is hard for indie developers to survive financially is because there's so little room for them in the market, you can claim all you want that it's as easy as making good games, but there's countless examples of small dev companies making good games that don't survive in the long run. You can blame piracy if you want too, that people don't pay for their games, but still play them. But fact is that the bigger companies you have, like EA, the more money they have to control the market, the less room it is for the small guys who can't spend millions of dollars on advertising, so people become aware of their game.
Second, I find it amusing you're so arrogant that you actually know better, what happened between THQ and Iron Lore Entertainment than the actual people running both companies.
The grip publishers hold over small devs is suffocating, we say "indie" developer, but very few actually are, they rely on funds from their publisher. They rely on shitty contracts most have no choice but to sign, if they ever want to get a game released.
They did not even receive payment for their sales.
But even so, many indie developers (e.g. Frictional Games) don't want to stay independent, because it's that much harder getting your game out. See recent interviews for this.
What was the reason for no interest? Lack of Titan Quest 1 sales, even though, like I said, over time, it did well, but initially didn't sell that many copies.
And BTW: That expansion you keep harping on, Soulstorm, that was just an attempt to try and keep the company alive, they were in trouble way before that. It was a desperate move.
Who do you think causes an aggressive development schedule? The publisher.
I mean, this whole thing is so simple that I can't comprehend why anyone wouldn't understand. In what market ruled by a few corporate giants is there variety and room for the competition? Look at the music market, ruled by four companies, same with Hollywood, same with the games industry.
That kind of market is not good for the small companies.
You don't need to take my word for it, you can ask any small game developer, and they'll tell you the exact same thing. That's a lot better, taking the word from those in the industry, than whatever it is you do now. That's the people I get my information from, I pay attention to what they say in interviews, especially what they say when they're no longer under the grip of a publisher, when they're not afraid to speak their mind.
Also: About buggy releases, you seem to neglect the fact that small developers are pushed like hell with deadlines and shit to make a game to the publisher's demands. No developer wants to release buggy games.
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And if Soulstorm had been a success, Iron Lore may have survived. So its failure did in fact contribute to their demise, even if it had started with Titan Quest's lackluster performance. In any case, while I and a lot of other people liked the game, it didn't do extraordinarily well in reviews, and there were a lot of people who didn't like it because it was too much of a Diablo clone while not living up to the quality standards of that game. So one can also make the argument that they failed as a company because they never released any truly excellent games.
You're right about the fact that the gaming market is very crowded. That's not the fault of the large publishers; in fact, the number of games developed by independent studios far outnumbers that of the games published by large companies. But what that does mean is that for a game to not only be noticed but be successful as well, especially if it's made by an independent company, it has to be extremely good and it has to be marketed well (and not necessarily with a lot of money; good marketing can also be accomplished relatively cheaply). Iron Lore wasn't able to pull that off.
And EA's own developers don't also have to meet deadlines? As a matter of fact, large publishers tend to be much more strict with their own development studios in terms of deadlines compared to outside developers that they publish. You can see this with a lot of the 'yearly' game franchises, like sports games and the Call of Duty series.
Starcrossed
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Probably.
PrincessFrosty
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I'm actually starting an Indy game at the moment, with royalty based deals on several really good engines, and distribution platforms like steam it means you can release game for free, the only cost is your own time and effort to make the game, all the royalties are taken as a percentage of each sale you make.
This is only very recent though, engines like for example the Unreal engine were strictly licensed and you'd need to drop a good few hundred grand up front for the privilege of using it, now you can use it for free, hell they'll let you make your first $50,000 free before they even start taking a cut.
This is only very recent though, engines like for example the Unreal engine were strictly licensed and you'd need to drop a good few hundred grand up front for the privilege of using it, now you can use it for free, hell they'll let you make your first $50,000 free before they even start taking a cut.
sirmonkey1985
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EA definitely isn't the devil everyone makes them out to be. activision on the other hand.. whens the last time those jackasses ever released a new game? and no re-skins of COD4 with a new name and 60 dollar price tag do not count as a new game.
yes EA has made some mistakes, especially command and conquer 4 but the fact is no ones gotten the real story behind what actually happened other then the fact that we knew they had fired the developing team before the game released. outside of that no one knows why but i have a good feeling its because of the piece of crap game they designed and released so i really don't feel sorry for those people.
sure EA tested the waters with online paying and DLC content for consoles(which the problem is microsoft and not EA). but as far as PC goes you can't really complain. a good example is BC2. console players had to drop 30 bucks on DLC while the rest of us on PC got everything for free.
as a whole if EA went under thousands of jobs would be lost and none of the other production companies would bother putting out the money EA would want for their IP's. so if people some how think it would make the gaming community better you guys are all living in a dream world that would never happen.
welcome to the real world where companies that put profit ahead of everything else to succeed and indie companies that take 10+ years to release games that don't profit worth a damn and continue to stay one hit wonder low budget indie companies. the problem isn't just the companies but the gamers themselves demanding more and more. the more work they put into a game the more money they have to spend doing it. that means they have to make more money in return to pay for that added cost and thats where paying for DLC and multiplayer come in. its like that with every production company and it will continue to be like that for a long time to come. this isn't the 80's and 90's where a company can spend a couple hundred thousand dollars making a game and then quadrupling their profits. Activision is the only company thats been able to do that and that ships already starting to sail.
you have to look at the gamers way before looking at the production companies as the problem.
yes EA has made some mistakes, especially command and conquer 4 but the fact is no ones gotten the real story behind what actually happened other then the fact that we knew they had fired the developing team before the game released. outside of that no one knows why but i have a good feeling its because of the piece of crap game they designed and released so i really don't feel sorry for those people.
sure EA tested the waters with online paying and DLC content for consoles(which the problem is microsoft and not EA). but as far as PC goes you can't really complain. a good example is BC2. console players had to drop 30 bucks on DLC while the rest of us on PC got everything for free.
as a whole if EA went under thousands of jobs would be lost and none of the other production companies would bother putting out the money EA would want for their IP's. so if people some how think it would make the gaming community better you guys are all living in a dream world that would never happen.
welcome to the real world where companies that put profit ahead of everything else to succeed and indie companies that take 10+ years to release games that don't profit worth a damn and continue to stay one hit wonder low budget indie companies. the problem isn't just the companies but the gamers themselves demanding more and more. the more work they put into a game the more money they have to spend doing it. that means they have to make more money in return to pay for that added cost and thats where paying for DLC and multiplayer come in. its like that with every production company and it will continue to be like that for a long time to come. this isn't the 80's and 90's where a company can spend a couple hundred thousand dollars making a game and then quadrupling their profits. Activision is the only company thats been able to do that and that ships already starting to sail.
you have to look at the gamers way before looking at the production companies as the problem.
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EA is far and away the best "big" publisher. They put out a ton of original games, not just sequels, and many fo those games are very experimental or niche or hardcore oriented. EA might pull off the same scummy DLC and DRM tricks as the other bigs, but content wise they have no competition.
It would be terrible for the industry if EA folded, because that would prove the Activision way, exploiting a franchise to the tune of 2-3 titles per year, is the only way to be successful as a big publisher.
limitedaccess
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Stardock was pressured by Stardock to release Elemental: War of Magic early and buggy. Some giant publishing company was at fault here somehow?
Why should developers not need to follow schedules and deadlines? A lot of people always bring this up as a fault of the publisher, but these exist for a reason. Do you think the people working at the developer would be happy if they were paid behind schedule and deadlines? Maybe if gamers "rented" games and paid when they felt like it? Schedules and deadlines are a fact of life, even if you work for yourself you still need to deal with them.
How is it you can perfectly pin the blame on publishers setting unworkable deadlines versus developers simply not budgeting their times and resources well? Many developers have worked without publisher interference, and the development times become horrendous. It is fine if you are Valve with other revenue streams and develop other new games, what about 3d realms? It also seems like most developers under big publishers are actually able to release things on schedule without issues.
ikarinokami
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I like most EA games. the other things that irk me about them, is the exclusive football license, but the nfl is just as much to blame for that, the canning of mirror's edge, but since many gamers didnt buy the game, which was awesome, all the blame does not rest on them.
I do however blame them for the rpg-lite second rate gameply games bioware has been putting out though. seriously DA2 in comparision to DA is lackluster and a near abomination in comprasion to BG2. just sad what has occurred at what use to be the finest RPG computer development house in the world.
I do however blame them for the rpg-lite second rate gameply games bioware has been putting out though. seriously DA2 in comparision to DA is lackluster and a near abomination in comprasion to BG2. just sad what has occurred at what use to be the finest RPG computer development house in the world.
No one's saying people shouldn't follow deadlines and schedules, what I'm saying is that publisher's often put small dev companies, with little power to argue otherwise, under extreme amounts of pressure due to unreasonable expectations in regards to deadlines. If you don't believe that's something happening often, fine. Don't believe it.
Also, don't think that these devs are free to "budget their time and resources" as they see fit. That's not a luxury they have. Like I said, these contracts are often suffocating.
I find that, I can't even mention examples of small dev companies that's died, but have made good games, because whoever I mention, someone will say they died because they made shitty games, and the reason they made shitty games was all their fault, the reason they released buggy games was their fault, not due to publisher pressure. Even though they actually sold well, and their games were well received, and has many fans.
What's the point then, really. I don't know why I bother. Obviously there's a lot of EA and other big publisher's supporters here, who's totally blind and ignorant to how a market like this destroys quality.
The evidence is right there in the games itself. It's a market that's playing it safe, all the time, no one wants to make a bet unless it's on both winner and loser. The only games that receive a big enough budget, budget big enough to make something awesome with, is the ones who's got safe ideas. There's no original IP games with interesting ideas and a totally new way of doing things that will ever be granted a big budget from one of the major publisher's, not in this market.
There's just rehash upon reiteration all the way. It used to be the RTS genre that had it worst, every game was just the exact same core mechanics with a a different theme. The one's that got it worst now are the MMO market. The same mechanics and systems and core gameplay with just a different theme, just a different setting.... It's like changing skin on your Winamp player, that's all there is to it.
Not to mention the FPS genre, it's pretty terrible now as well.
Shalafi
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I hope EA and Activision both go out of business like Acclaim did, neither one contributes anything to my overall gaming experience.
Plague_Injected
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I thought the Bad Company 2 VIP packs were free for those who bought the game new.
TheGreySpectre
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For the last couple years I have thought the games EA published were overall more polished then the stuff activision published. It seems if EA went out of buiseness then activision blizzard would take over and we would have new Crysis and BF games every year with map packs every 6 months and the games would be buggy as hell.