Rogue One Writer Lambastes EA for "Catastrophically Mismanaging" the Star Wars License

Megalith

Megalith

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Following the Battlefront II microtransaction controversy and the recent cancellation of another potentially epic Star Wars title, Rogue One writer Gary Whitta appeared on Kinda Funny Games this week to blast Electronic Arts for “catastrophically mismanaging” the Star Wars license, which it earned in 2013 but has been pissing away since. Whitta can’t believe how hard EA fumbled with Battlefront (the first didn’t even have a campaign) and is stunned at the shelving of Amy Hennig’s “Star Wars Uncharted” project. “If I was an EA shareholder, I’d be f*cking furious.”

Whitta criticized EA for publishing the first Battlefront without a story, and for the “embarrassing fiasco” surrounding Battlefront II‘s microtransactions, which prompted Disney executives to step in. He also blasted the company for cancelling Amy Hennig’s Star Wars project (codenamed ragtag), which he thinks would have turned out fantastic with one of the best writers in the industry at the helm. The Rogue One writer went on to suggest that if he was at Disney and there was some kind of a “get out” clause in the contract with EA, he would revoke the license and “pull the plug.”
 
Though I was fan of the first original battlefront I never ended up buying the remake for two reasons.
1. I played the beta and there was only like 3 maps, it didn't feel like a battlefield game at all, and just a few guns.
2. I watched one of those in house walkthroughs of the development studio and they more or less admitted the primary developers were on Battlefield 1 and so they had the DLC B team working on battlefront with a rushed deadline so I passed.

The second ones trailer looked great and had all kind of promises from EA that they'd do it justice this time, but before the game even launched there was all this talk about slow xp progress and microtransactions like Dead Space 3 so I passed again. I've watched gameplay it just doesn't incite me. Ironically someone gave me Battlefront II for PS4 and its just collecting dust in a corner.

I'm just really burnt out on giving studios full price and preorders for empty and half fullfilled promises.
 
Hard part is I'm actually enjoying Battlefront II's Starfighter Assault mode- and the story isn't terrible.

But they could have done so much more.
 
Some of the Star Wars games from the past were great: KOTORs, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter (would love to see a remake of the space simulators). I am not a huge fan of the Battefront games - ok for a while, but just not my kind of game I guess.
I don't know how the licensing works...I wonder if the developers are allowed to use the Star Wars universe? Timothy Zahn had some interesting characters and stories.
 
EA only cares about its share holders and bottom end profits, they use there sports titles as a crutch and just shit on everything else to rush it out or door
 
The main issue with star wars games is Greed. Disney takes a massive cut and charged a ton for the rights. It means a game can't just do ok. If EA puts out a game that just does ok, they will loose a ton of money. Star wars suffered from the same issues under Lucas as well. Main reason why the best Star wars games all date back to Lucasarts is simple... they could afford to produce just OK games. So developers got some room to make games that may not have screamed best selling hit during development. They turned out some classics.

So I don't blame EA for cancelling some games... and trying to make as much $ as they can on BS micro transactions. Factoring in Disneys cut a game that isn't a #1 sales hit... or isn't raking in a ton of after purchase sales is not only not going to be a money maker it well could be a money sink... as Disneys contracts almost for sure say they get their cut first and no matter what the state of the game is in terms of profit / loss.

Didn't sell enough to recoup development ? Disney doesn't care... they get % of sales from day one. So if a project goes over budget or looks like it will... canning it is a logical option for EA. I don't know the specifics of their royalty deal... but I would assume its front loaded... meaning Disney likely gets a higher percentage initially, with there % dropping over time. Why would EA sign such a crap deal ? Well if they didn't someone else would. I wouldn't doubt if part of the thinking when they signed the deal was... well worse case if we can't make money at least we aren't competing against another developers SW games.
 
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Exavior said:
yeah, because you know Disney is doing such a great job with the license themselves.
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Catboxer said:
Star Wars is already so bastardized, who cares?
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Yep.. hopefully another 'universe' will be born at somepoint in the future...
On the serious side of sci-fi The expanse is looking good, I don't know if that can grow into a 'universe' that appeals to millions.
I am liking The Orville quite a bit, but again I don't think that could be too huge either, I don't know.
Really don't know how any current sci-fi would fare in games though.. I suppose it would have to be a good game first and foremost.
 
BattleFront II is a great game. It's fun, and like 3 games in 1, plus the campaign !! So 4 games in 1 really... There are no microtransactions, all progression you gotta earn by playing. Seriously, it's fucking great now and a lot of fun! I play it daily.
 
Exavior said:
yeah, because you know Disney is doing such a great job with the license themselves.
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Catboxer said:
Star Wars is already so bastardized, who cares?
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I was gonna say pot calling kettle black, but I thought about it, and I have to conclude that EA proves even more inept since Disney actually made new IPs while EA couldn't even deliver anymore.
 
EA have been pushing out shovelware for years now. Just have to look at Battlefield v, they basically launched it with a few modes and are sellotaping the rest of the game onto it via patches and updates and calling this "FREE CONTENT" when it's obvious its stuff that couldn't meet EA's retarded deadline. :rolleyes:
 
lol. Shitty movie writers blasting a shitty game company. But who's got the better product? I'd say the shitty game is.
 
Chris_B said:
Rogue 1 was a shitty movie? News to me, it's by far the best of the 4 movies since Disney got the franchise and fits in well with the original 3.
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You’re right it was the best.... and it was ok at most.
 
Chris_B said:
Rogue 1 was a shitty movie? News to me, it's by far the best of the 4 movies since Disney got the franchise and fits in well with the original 3.
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Thats sadly not saying much and if I remember right they rewrote and re-shot a bunch of Rogue1. Anyway, I remember when Whitta was a reviewer at PC Gamer years ago.
 
steakman1971 said:
Some of the Star Wars games from the past were great: KOTORs, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter (would love to see a remake of the space simulators). I am not a huge fan of the Battefront games - ok for a while, but just not my kind of game I guess.
I don't know how the licensing works...I wonder if the developers are allowed to use the Star Wars universe? Timothy Zahn had some interesting characters and stories.
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The old DOS Tie fighter game and x-wing vs tie fighter were AWESOME back in the days!
I wish they'd make something like that again!
 
Exavior said:
yeah, because you know Disney is doing such a great job with the license themselves.
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Give the guy credit for speaking up and not just cheerleading everything Star Wars. EA truly has done a crappy job. Now if we can get somebody from Hasbro to critisize the movies, we will be getting somewhere.
 
steakman1971 said:
Some of the Star Wars games from the past were great: KOTORs, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter (would love to see a remake of the space simulators). I am not a huge fan of the Battefront games - ok for a while, but just not my kind of game I guess.
I don't know how the licensing works...I wonder if the developers are allowed to use the Star Wars universe? Timothy Zahn had some interesting characters and stories.
Click to expand...

xmadror said:
The old DOS Tie fighter game and x-wing vs tie fighter were AWESOME back in the days!
I wish they'd make something like that again!
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Battlefront II has space battles reminiscent of the old X-wing and Tie Fighter games. No single player campaign like those were, but still pretty fun... Well thinking about it, there are some space battles in the campaign. Can fly as Luke, Yoda, Darth Vader, Boba Fett and others.
 
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Ranulfo said:
Thats sadly not saying much and if I remember right they rewrote and re-shot a bunch of Rogue1. Anyway, I remember when Whitta was a reviewer at PC Gamer years ago.
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The solo movie had a ton of reshoots, not sure how much if any rogue one had but it's not exactly uncommon in movie making.
 
Chris_B said:
Rogue 1 was a shitty movie? News to me, it's by far the best of the 4 movies since Disney got the franchise and fits in well with the original 3.
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And the best runner was the guy with two perfect legs running against a quadriplegic and another with broken ankles.
 
Megalith said:
Whitta can’t believe how hard EA fumbled with Battlefront (the first didn’t even have a campaign)
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come on, it's EA we're talking about here. Took them 6 weeks to get my Mass Effect 2 DLC working and look how they royally screwed up Mass Effect Andromeda.

Anyone remember Chuck Yeager's Air Combat ("check six!" LOL) ... It was an EA product back in the day ...

 
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Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, "Star Wars" is dead. From its corpse is rising some bullshit SJW wet dream concoction being raped by EA and Disney because of marketable name.
 
THRESHIN said:
This guy is being too specific. EA has been catastrophically mismanaging ALL of their licenses and IPs for over 20 years now.

If they wanted a good star wars game why would you trust those assclowns??
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All that needs to be said. This is simply a case of Disney not doing their homework. EA is bottom of the barrel when it comes to game development at this point. I've played various sports titles from EA over the past few years, and to say that some of these games are past the beta stage would be giving them too much credit.

Some of these games don't even receive updates to game breaking mechanics because EA seems to have some sort of policy of only supporting a game one month after release, and then moving on to churning out next year's title, which inevitably brings even more issues. But they make a killing off of sales and MTX, so they basically test the waters as to how much they can screw with their player base.


I can't recall a single title from EA over the past 5 years that hasn't been met with significant disdain. While they're still making good revenue, it seems like people have been waking up a bit more with the recent BF2 fiasco. This year will be the first time that EA will release a patch for FIFA after the new year, which was practically unheard of before.
 
MrTryfe said:
All that needs to be said. This is simply a case of Disney not doing their homework. EA is bottom of the barrel when it comes to game development at this point. I've played various sports titles from EA over the past few years, and to say that some of these games are past the beta stage would be giving them too much credit.

Some of these games don't even receive updates to game breaking mechanics because EA seems to have some sort of policy of only supporting a game one month after release, and then moving on to churning out next year's title, which inevitably brings even more issues. But they make a killing off of sales and MTX, so they basically test the waters as to how much they can screw with their player base.


I can't recall a single title from EA over the past 5 years that hasn't been met with significant disdain. While they're still making good revenue, it seems like people have been waking up a bit more with the recent BF2 fiasco. This year will be the first time that EA will release a patch for FIFA after the new year, which was practically unheard of before.
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I'm still pissed that they killed origin systems. Mid production of privateer 3, 1 and 2 being fond childhood memories.

Last game I actually liked from them was dead space. 2 was fun as well. Like they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
 
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