EA Stock Plummets by $21 Billion as Battlefield V Sales Disappoint

Me too....except I have resorted to starting my own indy studio and making games I want to play :p

Very cool - I hope you put them out of business with unique, cool games which harken back to the golden age.

Sometimes, if I close my eyes and relax, I can still hear the sounds of the arcades, see the games, and smell the awesome pizza at the pizza place where I would game, circa 1981 or so. I'll never forget the awe I felt when I powered on my Atari 2600 and VIC 20 for the first time, which eventually led me into EE and IT consulting. Back then, it seemed like companies were out to truly entertain you, innovate, and change the world. Today, it seems the only "innovation" happening at the big studios is them finding unique and previously unheard of ways to milk people of every last dime they can. Everyone happy with these subscription-based cloud services won't be so happy when they realize the likes of EA, Microsoft, and others are going to just keep raising rates once they have everyone.

I can't help but wonder about the EA/DICE guy who said "don't buy it then" and if he'll need emergency surgery to have that foot removed from his mouth.
 
lol, you mean attempt to sell and attract more female gamers, and sweaty nerds that like to play as female avatars, don't pretend it's anything else, recognize it, and move on with your life. The fact you even care enough to not want women in the game is just beyond me...don't be such a weenie.

lol, i just don't want women in BF main modes. Alot of consumers are with me too.

appeal to women gamers? that's straight outright SJW PC talk.
 
lol, i just don't want women in BF main modes. Alot of consumers are with me too.

appeal to women gamers? that's straight outright SJW PC talk.

I am not going to pretend to know what SJW PC is...but appealing to as many consumers as possible is straight out of your first business and economics classes. But yeah, there's lots of weenies in the gaming community, so that doesn't surprise me.
 
Don't forget Maxis and Sim City series.



Why wouldn't the weapons and maps show up earlier? I mean, we apparently don't care about historical accuracy, right?


......Because they didn't want too...despite historical accuracy they're still trying to tell a story...and it allows them to extend the life of the game. Why does every game have content released later.
 
I am not going to pretend to know what SJW PC is...but appealing to as many consumers as possible is straight out of your first business and economics classes. But yeah, there's lots of weenies in the gaming community, so that doesn't surprise me.

Appealing to one group that isn't very likely to buy your game anyways at the expense of alienating your core group is poor business. You cannot satisfy everyone, you should cater to the group that is most likely to buy your product. And there is a core group of people buying Battlefield that do it for the immersion in history, so historical accuracy is important. You wouldn't have men modeling your A-cup bras, would you?

......Because they didn't want too...despite historical accuracy they're still trying to tell a story...and it allows them to extend the life of the game. Why does every game have content released later.

Back in the old days every game was released with full contents. Expansions sometimes came, but they were not usually planned at the beginning.

In any case, it's funny you don't find the hypocrisy in your statement. You claim people shouldn't care about historical accuracy. Then why should anyone care about Asian weapons showing up in the European theater? They should have it already and make it available, shouldn't they? Also, what story are they trying to tell? A historically accurate WWII story, or a revisionist history?
 
I am not going to pretend to know what SJW PC is...but appealing to as many consumers as possible is straight out of your first business and economics classes. But yeah, there's lots of weenies in the gaming community, so that doesn't surprise me.

even before that, the most basic lesson is to know your audience. They have failed at this. It's like changing your product to bubblegum flavor for your 3-in-1 bodywash in an attempt to appeal to everyone.

even your elderly priest would tell you that is dumb. If they wanted a more casual , fantastical setting, then they better go make another game but still continue on with BF being male targeted. A win for the oft-championed marginalized female gamers, and also a win for male audiences of more hardcore BFs

they have every possible access to manpower and budget to do that, but yea, the kicker is that less bonus for the top execs cause can't beat already ridiculous y-o-y profit targets. So a well placed but small applause for the stock price correction. ( small one cause the same bunch of people selling stocks are the one that already made a good buck after all)

sigh, Billions man, billions! Man, if only game fans are the ones controlling that amount of money...
 
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I am not going to pretend to know what SJW PC is...but appealing to as many consumers as possible is straight out of your first business and economics classes. But yeah, there's lots of weenies in the gaming community, so that doesn't surprise me.

Never potentially sacrifice your core demographic for some pie-in-the-sky dream of expanding your player base into previously uncharted demographics. Gaming history is littered with the corpses of games where the publisher decided to cater to people who, in the end, had no interest in the game and as a result, the game flopped because they alienated their core demographic in the process.

I think the big issue most people have is that when you point out something obviously wrong (such as the lack of women in allied combat roles in WW2 or the flaws in The Last Jedi to give an example from the movies), the companies behind the product don't listen to the complaints and instead, double down on their decisions and attempt to silence their critics with the predictable insults and accusations. IIRC, when folks discussed the BFV issues with EA, the spokesperson (producer?) basically said "Don't buy it if you don't like it." That is NOT the way you respond to customers and it appears that arrogance and hubris is contributing to the game tanking.
 
Is the game at fault at all? I mean is the game not as good as bf3 or bf4 at all? Seems a pretty solid entry in the series from all I've read (haven't played it yet)

BF4 was good, and everything since has been a regression. Nobody wants to fly a cardboard plane with iron sights when they have flown little birds with 25mm cannons. Let the past die and make modern shooters. And stay the hell out of space.
 
Never potentially sacrifice your core demographic for some pie-in-the-sky dream of expanding your player base into previously uncharted demographics. Gaming history is littered with the corpses of games where the publisher decided to cater to people who, in the end, had no interest in the game and as a result, the game flopped because they alienated their core demographic in the process.

I think the big issue most people have is that when you point out something obviously wrong (such as the lack of women in allied combat roles in WW2 or the flaws in The Last Jedi to give an example from the movies), the companies behind the product don't listen to the complaints and instead, double down on their decisions and attempt to silence their critics with the predictable insults and accusations. IIRC, when folks discussed the BFV issues with EA, the spokesperson (producer?) basically said "Don't buy it if you don't like it." That is NOT the way you respond to customers and it appears that arrogance and hubris is contributing to the game tanking.


he did not basically say it.. he said it.. and I quote:

"These are people who are uneducated—they don't understand that this is a plausible scenario, and listen: this is a game," he added. "And today gaming is gender-diverse, like it hasn't been before. There are a lot of female people who want to play, and male players who want to play as a badass [woman]."

"And we don't take any flak. We stand up for the cause, because I think those people who don't understand it, well, you have two choices: either accept it or don't buy the game. I'm fine with either or. It's just not ok."

This was the lead developer Soderlund.. who coincidentally was sacked 2 months later. We're doing this for the cause... if you do not agree you are uneducated and don't buy my SJW game. Apparently a lot of the core players complied with his wishes. Again.. don't mention this on the EA forums. I received a warning for the mere thought this assclowns comments had an impact on the bottom line in a thread about the anemic sales. Have a pretty entertaining side discussion going on with that mod. Seems his pink pussy hat is on a bit tight. :p
 
he did not basically say it.. he said it.. and I quote:



This was the lead developer Soderlund.. who coincidentally was sacked 2 months later. We're doing this for the cause... if you do not agree you are uneducated and don't buy my SJW game. Apparently a lot of the core players complied with his wishes. Again.. don't mention this on the EA forums. I received a warning for the mere thought this assclowns comments had an impact on the bottom line in a thread about the anemic sales. Have a pretty entertaining side discussion going on with that mod. Seems his pink pussy hat is on a bit tight. :p

Lol, the fact that he got canned makes me happy.
 
It's a decent game...but incredibly lacking in content and good maps. Maps like Hamada it's not unusual to see the server emptying out to about half the previous amount of players.

It's a $30 game, as it sits. Thats the problem and the solution.

Of course the game is at fault, even more so are the people in charge of what direction the game took.

I respect women, but, there is a woman's voice in the game ... there is a woman on the cover of the game ... yet, 99.9% of all the people that served on the Battlefield were ... men. It's a BS fantasy piece and EA used ... repeat ... used women to further their aspirations for massive profits.

I am glad they are losing billions of dollars. In fact, I am down right happy and excited to hear this news. I hope all of the suits at EA lose their jobs. Actually, I wish the company just went out of business or was sold to a company that actually cared about it's customers and the games it publishes.

Keep fucking social justice out of our games. Games do not have to be politically correct.

They crapped all over their fans to appease a handful of whoever's ....

It’s actually welling well, not as well as Red Dead 2 but not poorly, the US exchange is getting fucked right now because the government shutdown so a lot of people are selling.

Played an hour or two tonight. I think the poor sales are culmination of issues.

1. Battlefield 1, Battlefront 1 and 2 were all kinda of let downs

2. Instead of an actual Battlefield 5 we got Battlefield V for whatever reason. No pun intended, I mean to say instead of getting a new modern battlefield game meant for competitive play we got a sort of demo of an updated battlefield 1942.

3. All jokes aside from gameplay to cover art this title really isnt all that distinguishable from Battlefield 1. Its not doing anything that screams "buy me Im the next big thing". That really can affect sales especially retail and console.

4. Regarding the WWII issues I kinda gotta agree I'm not sure where their heads were at but I'm below average on the WWII and I could still think of atleast 5-6 battles that would have been more enjoyable than anything they're put out. I can't speak for the single player. I never play single player BF games. I know going in their hearts not gonna be in and it'll be the mcdonalds happy meal single player campaign and not a serious investment.

5. There's only 8 maps with only 2 or so I enjoy, I'll admit I'm bored now.

6. The weapon balancing is hot garbage. None of the guns in this game are anything near what they should be. I can snipe people from 200+ yards with a sten bursting. People are headshotting while hopping around dodging bullets, it's a joke.

7. cheating is already rampant. I'd rather go back to that obnoxious security program they had back in the old days than deal with this....punkbuster? fuck I need my ginkobola and I'm pretty sure the nurses are stealing my things.

The biggest issue of all is that the youtuber/twitch community has already given it a massive thumbs down and fairly, for the lack of maps and disappointing gameplay. People are starting to be more wary of larger media outlets giving every BF/COD game a 9/10.

My concern is that they acted like this had been in development for a long time. It looks more like an unfinished expansion for BF1 that got handed off to Gearbox to finish.(yes Im still mad about ACM)

So it seems the maps aren't very good, which is poor form for a battlefield game. You can forgive all the little annoyances around the edges if at its core it's a black hole for your free time. Maybe after this and battlefront II Dice has lost its edge! Im sure some heads will role for this and with any luck people will wake up to the fact that the twitter sphere doesn't represent the actual physical world. Down with all the snowflake crap!
 
Very cool - I hope you put them out of business with unique, cool games which harken back to the golden age.

Sometimes, if I close my eyes and relax, I can still hear the sounds of the arcades, see the games, and smell the awesome pizza at the pizza place where I would game, circa 1981 or so. I'll never forget the awe I felt when I powered on my Atari 2600 and VIC 20 for the first time, which eventually led me into EE and IT consulting. Back then, it seemed like companies were out to truly entertain you, innovate, and change the world. Today, it seems the only "innovation" happening at the big studios is them finding unique and previously unheard of ways to milk people of every last dime they can. Everyone happy with these subscription-based cloud services won't be so happy when they realize the likes of EA, Microsoft, and others are going to just keep raising rates once they have everyone.

I can't help but wonder about the EA/DICE guy who said "don't buy it then" and if he'll need emergency surgery to have that foot removed from his mouth.

Well they don't have to worry about me putting them out of business.....they are doing a mighty fine job of that themselves ;p

I was born in '77 so I grew up with all that good stuff too:

-Atari 2600 had a hand me down system with about 100 games in 1983ish

-Arcades...OMG so amazing seeing the first Donky Kong machine at the local convenience store, playing Rush'in Attack, Ninja Turtles, Kung FU, Street Fighter, Ikari Warriors, etc, etc....wondering thru arcades and hearing all those classics playing at the same time...so magical of a time!

-PC: From ancient monochrome Karateka, 4 color CGA Gato, thru the rise of 1980's Sierra Online

-NES: Purchased with paper route money despite being forbidden by my parents who felt the Atari 2600 and 086 12mhz PC were sufficient. Was blown away to see Super Mario Bros on the home TV

- Sega Genesis did what Nintendo Don't...Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Madden 91 / NHL 93

-PS1....Resident Evil melted my face, Driver,

-N64....remember it being sold out EVERYWHERE..lucked out and was in a Walmart at the same time a dude was trying to return one, so I paid him cash and bought it right on the spot. Mario 64, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, NFL blitz.....literally the Epoc of gaming for me

-PS2 / Xbox era was fantastic....metal gear, Halo CE Lan all nigthers....watching tech get better and better

-PC: Grand theft auto and Battlefield 1942 brought me back into pc gaming with an epic 9700 Radeon Pro.

-Xbox 360: Had four of em hooked up on a lan at my place...Every Tuesday night was game night with friends. Playing all the Bond, Halo & COD games was epic

- PC again....crysis was the game that got me into total custom rig building. 8800Ultra FTW!

Those were the best gamin times for me...I dunno if its because I am 41 years old now or what....but modern games have lost their luster and its painfully clear that I am no longer in a useful demographic for the industry lol

BF1 and Battlefront 2 sucked and BFV was the first BF game I took a hard pass on. COD Blackout is horrid and PUBG is full of cheaters.....single player games fail to hold my attention longer than a day or two....RDR2 is an amazing work but bored me after a few days and sits collecting digital 30fps console dust.

I started building indy games in 2015, but made the mistake of trying to make 3D games when I should have started off making simple 2D mobile games....making full 3D games is very expensive and time consuming....its a lot like getting kicked in the nuts every single day for endless years. However, I am making games that I want to play with very original content .....hopefully that translates into marketable products!

I dunno if I would ever want to run or be involved in a company as massive as EA. I hold a degree in Business Finance and have run a few companies in other industries, however, I really like small fluid organizational structures for working on art / developing games. Having to account for thousands of artists and answer to stockholders every 15 minutes sounds nightmarish to me.....I don't think I would be able to concentrate or be the artist that I like to be under such a pressure cooking structure.
 
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Well they don't have to worry about me putting them out of business.....they are doing a mighty fine job of that themselves ;p

I was born in '77 so I grew up with all that good stuff too:

-Atari 2600 had a hand me down system with about 100 games in 1983ish

-Arcades...OMG so amazing seeing the first Donky Kong machine at the local convenience store, playing Rush'in Attack, Ninja Turtles, Kung FU, Street Fighter, Ikari Warriors, etc, etc....wondering thru arcades and hearing all those classics playing at the same time...so magical of a time!

-PC: From ancient monochrome Karateka, 4 color CGA Gato, thru the rise of 1980's Sierra Online

-NES: Purchased with paper route money despite being forbidden by my parents who felt the Atari 2600 and 086 12mhz PC were sufficient. Was blown away to see Super Mario Bros on the home TV

- Sega Genesis did what Nintendo Don't...Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Madden 91 / NHL 93

-PS1....Resident Evil melted my face, Driver,

-N64....remember it being sold out EVERYWHERE..lucked out and was in a Walmart at the same time a dude was trying to return one, so I paid him cash and bought it right on the spot. Mario 64, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, NFL blitz.....literally the Epoc of gaming for me

-PS2 / Xbox era was fantastic....metal gear, Halo CE Lan all nigthers....watching tech get better and better

-PC: Grand theft auto and Battlefield 1942 brought me back into pc gaming with an epic 9700 Radeon Pro.

-Xbox 360: Had four of em hooked up on a lan at my place...Every Tuesday night was game night with friends. Playing all the Bond, Halo & COD games was epic

- PC again....crysis was the game that got me into total custom rig building. 8800Ultra FTW!

Those were the best gamin times for me...I dunno if its because I am 41 years old now or what....but modern games have lost their luster and its painfully clear that I am no longer in a useful demographic for the industry lol

BF1 and Battlefront 2 sucked and BFV was the first BF game I took a hard pass on. COD Blackout is horrid and PUBG is full of cheaters.....single player games fail to hold my attention longer than a day or two....RDR2 is an amazing work but bored me after a few days and sits collecting digital 30fps console dust.

I started building indy games in 2015, but made the mistake of trying to make 3D games when I should have started off making simple 2D mobile games....making full 3D games is very expensive and time consuming....its a lot like getting kicked in the nuts every single day for endless years. However, I am making games that I want to play with very original content .....hopefully that translates into marketable products!

I dunno if I would ever want to run or be involved in a company as massive as EA. I hold a degree in Business Finance and have run a few companies in other industries, however, I really like small fluid organizational structures for working on art / developing games. Having to account for thousands of artists and answer to stockholders every 15 minutes sounds nightmarish to me.....I don't think I would be able to concentrate or be the artist that I like to be under such a pressure cooking structure.

Pleasure to read your post! Brought back many memories. If ya would of tossed in there duke nukem 3d and quake,2,3 we could of been friends haha.

Those times are lost in today's games but will live on forever in our hearts! Maybe one day someone will build games that are just as fun!
 
I seen this from a mile away they keep putting off making a sucessor of Battlefield 4.
 
Considering that for many of us gaming was a community for us, by us and it was made because we generally are a different breed. It's our space, we want to keep it to ourselves.

yea. For some reason why the money bags don;t get this. It's like suggesting to them to mass appeal polo ( the one with the horses ) and yatch racing.
 
Well they don't have to worry about me putting them out of business.....they are doing a mighty fine job of that themselves ;p

I was born in '77 so I grew up with all that good stuff too:

-Atari 2600 had a hand me down system with about 100 games in 1983ish

-Arcades...OMG so amazing seeing the first Donky Kong machine at the local convenience store, playing Rush'in Attack, Ninja Turtles, Kung FU, Street Fighter, Ikari Warriors, etc, etc....wondering thru arcades and hearing all those classics playing at the same time...so magical of a time!

-PC: From ancient monochrome Karateka, 4 color CGA Gato, thru the rise of 1980's Sierra Online

-NES: Purchased with paper route money despite being forbidden by my parents who felt the Atari 2600 and 086 12mhz PC were sufficient. Was blown away to see Super Mario Bros on the home TV

- Sega Genesis did what Nintendo Don't...Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Madden 91 / NHL 93

-PS1....Resident Evil melted my face, Driver,

-N64....remember it being sold out EVERYWHERE..lucked out and was in a Walmart at the same time a dude was trying to return one, so I paid him cash and bought it right on the spot. Mario 64, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, NFL blitz.....literally the Epoc of gaming for me

-PS2 / Xbox era was fantastic....metal gear, Halo CE Lan all nigthers....watching tech get better and better

-PC: Grand theft auto and Battlefield 1942 brought me back into pc gaming with an epic 9700 Radeon Pro.

-Xbox 360: Had four of em hooked up on a lan at my place...Every Tuesday night was game night with friends. Playing all the Bond, Halo & COD games was epic

- PC again....crysis was the game that got me into total custom rig building. 8800Ultra FTW!

Those were the best gamin times for me...I dunno if its because I am 41 years old now or what....but modern games have lost their luster and its painfully clear that I am no longer in a useful demographic for the industry lol

BF1 and Battlefront 2 sucked and BFV was the first BF game I took a hard pass on. COD Blackout is horrid and PUBG is full of cheaters.....single player games fail to hold my attention longer than a day or two....RDR2 is an amazing work but bored me after a few days and sits collecting digital 30fps console dust.

I started building indy games in 2015, but made the mistake of trying to make 3D games when I should have started off making simple 2D mobile games....making full 3D games is very expensive and time consuming....its a lot like getting kicked in the nuts every single day for endless years. However, I am making games that I want to play with very original content .....hopefully that translates into marketable products!

I dunno if I would ever want to run or be involved in a company as massive as EA. I hold a degree in Business Finance and have run a few companies in other industries, however, I really like small fluid organizational structures for working on art / developing games. Having to account for thousands of artists and answer to stockholders every 15 minutes sounds nightmarish to me.....I don't think I would be able to concentrate or be the artist that I like to be under such a pressure cooking structure.

Great post. I’m several years older than you and can remember how things started changing in 1977 and went into overdrive in the 80s. I’ll never forget how magical Atari was, and a few months ago, bought a unit from eBay and a bunch of games to play. I’ll never forget begging for an Atari and remember the excitement when we got one for Christmas in 79 or 80. I still remember my dad hooking it up to our big, 70s-style console color TV and playing it with us. Asteroids, Space Invaders (the first game I ever played in the arcade in the 70s), and Combat were so fun.

I started with a VIC 20 and then went to a Commodore 64, Commodore 128, and then moved to what was probably he most revolutionary computer ever - the Amiga. Then I had to move to the PC when Commodore died in 1994. :( While I don’t have my original Atari, I actually still own (all in working condition) every single Commodore unit I ever had as a kid. The games from that era are simpler than what we have today but so much more fun IMO. Kids don’t know what they’re missing.

At any rate, a simple video game console from the 70s led me into electrical engineering and then IT consulting. That’s how inspirational it was to me.
 
I seen this from a mile away they keep putting off making a sucessor of Battlefield 4.


Making yet another modern bf game has nothing to do with it. The game most people seem to want to see a sequel to is bad company 2.

Had they not went total tard mode with the marketing, gaffer taped sodurlunds mouth shut and not went total "Bra burning" mode shoehorning female characters in at every available opportunity odds are bfv would have been better received.
 
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Soon CD Project Red can buy EA for cheap and actually make good games from their franchises.
Sadly the opposite would probably happen. EA has this nasty habit of buying studios and ruining them. Maxis and Westwood are good examples. I'm so sick of games designed to squeeze max profit and politically correct BS. Ironically I feel game design to maximize profit actually ends up making less. Good games pretty much sell themselves through word of mouth and reviews. A great game doesn't need a 10 million+ marketing budget.

You design a game for your target demographics and ignore feedback not coming from them. This shit isn't that hard or complicated. For example if I send in a bunch of complaints regarding women's shoes, the company should ignore me... because I don't buy or wear women's shoes. Businesses should be listening to their customers, customers being defined as people who actually buy their products. If you aren't a legitimate customer, you don't matter (to the business that is). If you change your product lineup to appease people that aren't going to buy your product and at the same time alienate your established customer base then you are an incompetent fool.
 
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This is why I fucking hate the stock market, the pure concept of it.
EA formally revised FY 2019 net bookings guidance; the outlook was revised from $5.55 billion to $5.20 billion.
so the outlook is 35 million less, yet the "value" of the company drops 21 billion. Like seriously, this is like them saying they lose $600 million in sales because they counted up all the times a torrent was downloaded across all sites and the torrent for their games were downloaded 10 million times... because 10 million downloads x $60 = $600 million in lost sales.

That said, I still have investment accounts because that's the only way you can fucking retire these days.
 
Ironically I feel game design to maximize profit actually ends up making less.
Funny how that works out, right?
Good games pretty much sell themselves through word of mouth and reviews. A great game doesn't need a 10 million+ marketing budget.
Agreed. If it was a good game it would sell itself. Whereas if I see a lot of advertising I start to think "What's wrong with it?".
Businesses should be listening to their customers, customers being defined as people who actually buy their products.
I wish more companies would follow this rule, not just game companies. Imagine if your cellular phone provider or your home ISP believed in this way of doing business.
This is why I fucking hate the stock market, the pure concept of it.
The stock market is pretty much made up of a bunch of fools that are telling you how to run your business all the while they know nothing about your business and how it works.
 
Good games pretty much sell themselves through word of mouth and reviews. A great game doesn't need a 10 million+ marketing budget.

This part I kinda disagree with. An excellent game can sell via word of mouth (minecraft and stardew valley being good examples) but those kind of success stories are anomalies. There are plenty of good small budget games out there that never make it big in a time it matters for the developer, at best they may eventually become cult classics. Some marketing budget is needed to let people know this game exists and what kind of game is it. But those multimillion Super Bowl comercials? Completely unnecessary waste of money.
 
As for myself, I'll never forgive EA for what they did to Westwood Studios and the Command and Conquer series.

There's always Total Annihilation Commandder's pack on GOG (though there's no Tanya in TA and you can't sandbag the enemy base)
 
Pleasure to read your post! Brought back many memories. If ya would of tossed in there duke nukem 3d and quake,2,3 we could of been friends haha.

Those times are lost in today's games but will live on forever in our hearts! Maybe one day someone will build games that are just as fun!

I left a lot of games and systems out of that list....For example the 3D0, I know it was incredibly expensive, but my older brother bought one and it was my "dreamcast" The original Need For Speed, Space Hulk, Wing Commander III, Road Rash, Return Fire, Star Control II, Foes of Ali, Slam N Jam.....I know the 3D0 was a flop and a lot of people did not like it but those 8 titles were AMAZING and entertained me every day which is more than I can say for modern gaming...My ps4pro has spiderman which has already been forgotten, my xboxonex has RD2 which has been abandoned, my PC has a 5ghz 8770k + 2080ti but I get far more enjoyment playing my indy game prototypes and retro games.

Great post. I’m several years older than you and can remember how things started changing in 1977 and went into overdrive in the 80s. I’ll never forget how magical Atari was, and a few months ago, bought a unit from eBay and a bunch of games to play. I’ll never forget begging for an Atari and remember the excitement when we got one for Christmas in 79 or 80. I still remember my dad hooking it up to our big, 70s-style console color TV and playing it with us. Asteroids, Space Invaders (the first game I ever played in the arcade in the 70s), and Combat were so fun.

I started with a VIC 20 and then went to a Commodore 64, Commodore 128, and then moved to what was probably he most revolutionary computer ever - the Amiga. Then I had to move to the PC when Commodore died in 1994. :( While I don’t have my original Atari, I actually still own (all in working condition) every single Commodore unit I ever had as a kid. The games from that era are simpler than what we have today but so much more fun IMO. Kids don’t know what they’re missing.

At any rate, a simple video game console from the 70s led me into electrical engineering and then IT consulting. That’s how inspirational it was to me.

I wish I would have gone your path with a CS or EE degree as it would have made my current path easier. In many ways my finance degree was a total waste, but a degree is what you make of it and after I earned mine I realized there was no passion for the actual work. I feel as if I was educated to fly a starship, but the only available jobs for a non-ivy league BA undergrad were to balance the ledger to make rocket fuel payments...which I found extremely boring but cushy. I had plenty of time to go back and learn programming languages or increase skill sets to do a lateral career move.....but was too busy living and enjoying life.

At 37 I sat back and said what is it that I really want to do, what kind of legacy can I leave. I always liked to entertain people, but could never quite seem to find my niche. I'm a terrible actor, stand up comedy interests me but the idea of living out of my car traveling 200 days a year doesn't, I quit bodybuilding in my early 20's to pursue professional wrestling under Rocky Johnson, but failed due to a back injury....later on wrote a book that I never bothered to promote, until at 37 came to the realization that above all else, video games have always been my favorite source of entertainment.....

So I decided to pursue that and the experience has been humbling, frustrating, exhilarating, adventurous, expensive, defeating, rewarding, worrying, egotistic, angry & joyous. I have found in the indy game projects, the actual value of my BA degree and that is the management and motivation of people to accomplish a shared goal which is bigger than any one person and extends over a period of years. Thus I went to school to learn about fancy numbers, but really got an education in people, so that I could make really fucked up video games lol
 
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