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[fenrif]

due to people refusing to believe that it is the same.

People know it's the same. People like that it's the same. That's why those things are so popular. It's not some massive con that's tricked millions of idiots, it's that people enjoy those games. It's the same reason why the James Bond series, Discworld series, The Simpsons, Southpark, and thousands of other things are hugely popular. People like things that are consistant.

There's a lot of knee-jerk EA hat in this thread. Hating on EA has been the cool thing to do for years now. While EA is indeed a terrible company, they're a symptom of the larger problem of what is wrong with the games industry as a whole. Activision, Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Capcom, etc. are all just as bad as EA. And if you're going to hate on EA do it for the right reasons. Don't rag on them people people enjoy their games, or mock the people that enjoy those games.

Hate on EA for customer-hostile buisness practices, hate them for project 10 dollar and all that DLC crap, hate them for treating their employees like crap. Don't call for all those employees to be out on the street and jobless though. Wishing EA would fail and all those people would be out of jobs is a heartless and horrible thing to say.

[Digital Hellhound]

To be fair, those sports games change every year with changing real-life sports more than any Call of Battlefield Honor series ever does.

[simoroth]

The developers get too big and the projects get too big. Over-ambition appears and everything goes down the sink.

How anyone can think they can make a coherant game with over 200 people is entirely beyond me. I've seen it happen at one of my last employers, the game had to be the most ground breaking thing ever. Millions were pumped into it and it imploded. Bioware is in even more hot water since they have such high expectations.

[fenrif]

There's a big difference between having too many people working on a project and having a mismanaged project. 200 People working on a video game isn't in of itself a bad thing as long as the project is managed properly, unless video games are wildly and drastically different from cinema.

It's just as easy to say that teams stay too small and how anyone thinks they can make a coherant game with a handfull of people is beyond me. Games like GW2, F:NV, or any contemporary "big" games are massive undertakings that need whole teams to have any chance of succeeding. 200 people working on a 2d side-scrolling platformer is a waste, but for many projects massive teams are necessary.

It's like how you can go and shoot a movie by yourself with just a mobile phone camera, but it'll be a whole different kind of animal than Pixar's latest CGI extravaganza.

[Matz05]

True.

How did the other studios escape the nerd-hate storm anyway? A lot of them are almost or just as bad as EA, yet they are, at best, secondary targets of our rants. How exactly is their PR different?

[alexpoysky]

I'd actually like to chime in here for once. I think the reason people hate on EA MORE than other secondary companies is justified. There is definitely the forced DRM factor, then there is the fact that they have a history of releasing rehashes of last years games "call of dutyfare 5/ sim hockey 2014 (Iceland league)", and the DLC. They've jumped on the DLC bandwagon so hard, so much, and to such an extent that it's now common to see all of their large titles LAUNCH with DLC available. That and it's utter lack of f***ks to give regarding POSITIVE PR and customer relations lead to this seething hatred from the masses of "unwashed" original title lovers such as ourselves. They cater to the masses, as any large company does, and put out what they KNOW they will get paid for, rehashes and dlc. It's not a lost cause though, working on and with independant games at Gamersgate has given me a broader spectrum than most regarding the intricities of the gaming world, and I can honestly say that there is a definite positive trend towards smaller gaming groups.

People are simply more drawn to lesser known companies because they don't charge as much, are more original, and do NOT pander to the masses.

While I can't give numbers out I CAN say that indie gaming HAS become a thing. Circa 2008 you'd have the occasional player talking about it but with the minecraft craze and the sudden availability of indie games there is a much larger, MUCH more vocal crowd of people clamoring to get their hands on original projects left right and center.

Don't keep quiet about it guys, it's working, and it's all thanks to the continued support of people such as yourselves.

[alexpoysky]

You would be VERY surprised to see how much of a NON-niche group indie gamers are!

Once again, I can't give numbers but suffice to say it's more than enough for me to make a living representing up and coming indie dev's, helping them get onto publishing venues, and trying to get on steam. It's also enough to justify this bundle craze that has cropped up, and is giving more than a few people higher up a run for their money.

I'm not saying indie games will take over the market, but they WILL carve a chunk in it, a nice, healthy chunk.

[Jelle]

Thank you for posting this article, always eager to learn what becomes of a once good game developer, even if it's more bad news.
In the end it's not such bad news I suppose, for bioware to be 'put out of its suffering' so to speak.

I agree that the hate on EA is a bit silly. If they are succesful in their business strategy, regardless of how 'evil' it is, it's because they are fullfilling the wants of customers. The real problem lies with the consumerbase.
In the end there just isn't a big market for quality games.

[alexpoysky]

That's the thing, the definition of "quality" is in the eye of the beholder. If, for example, EA's sales for sports games dwindles, yet they see a trend increase in open world rpg's with deep gameplay mechanics, you can rest assured they will throttle back on their sports themed games and double-rush the action-rpg-deep open worlded games.

The way it works with them is that they WILL come out with the "regulars" at least once a year, I:E sports games, sims, etc. The tried and true stuff that does sell a lot. Then they will take random "stabs" at different genres. Rpg and Action, Strategic sims, etc, with new and unused LP's. EA released kingdoms of amalur earlier this year to "ho-hums" and promptly went back to their typical stuff due to not wanting to wade to deep into new waters. They probably will salvage KOA sometime in the future, but only when the trend is on the rise, maximizing their sales potential.

As odd as it sounds, it is simply business. These people don't love games, they sell them, and they couldn't give a damn about anything else. I'm not saying this generalized to EA, I mean publishers in general. They will force smaller dev groups to cater to their strict (VERY strict) schedules to accomodate their sales margins for winter/summer/festival sales ALWAYS, it's not going to change ever, it's the way businesses work regretfully.

[Darvi]

Seriously I can't be the only one who thought of this upon reading the title am I?

[Leatra]

Copies sold equals the quality of the game for the corporations. Money talks. If the consumers are a bunch of brainless walking money bags waiting to be consumed by big evil corporations it isn't the fault of big evil corporations.

[AussieGuy]

I don't get why people call EA a 'evil' company, to be honest. Sure they rehash the same game over and over again but that's because the consumer buys them. Basic supply and demand here. If people stopped buying them, they wouldn't sell them, easy as that.

[BurnedToast]

I'm not surprised by this at all, the most surprising thing is that it didn't happen earlier. It sounds like they are getting out of games for good, which is unfortunate, but maybe they will be back some time with a new company and make games like the old bioware did.

I love many of the games they've worked on, and wish them the best in their luxury retirement     But for the life of me I will never understand why they sold Bioware to EA.  I assume, and hope, that they cleaned up, because if they didn't get anything from the sale then no one did!

They didn't sell bioware to EA. EA bought the holding company that owned bioware (and pandemic) - I'm not sure if the doctors had any say in the matter at all.

Fun fact: the holding company (VG Holding Corp) was brokered by (and for a while run by) none other then..... John Riccitiello, who I'm sure you know is the current CEO of EA. Funny how that works out huh?

[Knirisk]

I don't get why people call EA a 'evil' company, to be honest. Sure they rehash the same game over and over again but that's because the consumer buys them. Basic supply and demand here. If people stopped buying them, they wouldn't sell them, easy as that.

With hyped-up games like Spore and EA's general extreme money-grubbing (yes, we know it's a company), it's not hard to see why EA is looked at negatively. Unlike, say, Valve, they are not recognized for particularly spectacular titles. They pick up studios like Bioware, who have made great games like Knights of the Old Republic...and then they turn out TOR. Not to mention that the more hardcore gamers look upon the sports genre with derision, while the sports genre is probably EA's big moneymaker, knowing how much money they sink into it.

A lot of gamers have a negative view of EA already. From there, it's a hop, skip, and a jump to "evil".

[Sergius]

This seems on-topic:

http://lparchive.org/Sentinel-Worlds-I-Future-Magic/Update%2006/