General Discussion

Interesting article in Business Week Online about EA's soon purchase of Bioware and Pandemic. EA says they will let these company's operate independently. Lets hope so...

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/oct2007/id20071029_312839.htm

   Same exact thing they said about Origin when they bought it .. then proceeded to fook up 1 of the best MMos ever in UO .   They lie .

Originally posted by Scorchien

   Same exact thing they said about Origin when they bought it .. then proceeded to fook up 1 of the best MMos ever in UO .   They lie .

EA didn't mess up Ultima Online.  EA purchased Origin about 5 or so years before Origin ever release UO.  Probst greenlighted UO and gave Garriot the necessary funding to make the game.  Garriot and his team messed up origin to the point that EA had to cut a lot of fat in the company.  EA tried to give them a ton of money and let them run their division as they saw fit but some people aren't capable of handling that much power and Lord British himself said they messed up Origin and gave EA no choice but to come in and clean house. 

So if you want to blame anyone for the fall of Origin and UO blame Lord British and not EA.

History WILL repeat itself

Q1 of 08 Bioware announces Star Wars MMO

February 08 EA announces cancellation of WAR and tells us Mythic employees and resources ment for WAR will be moved to Bioware.

OR..

Q1 EA announces cancellation of WAR and that Bioware will be merged with EA Mythic, all assets will be used to release UO: Age Of Neon Pink Cyborg Apes of Happyland.

It's just happened sooo many times I no longer trust EA at all.

Originally posted by mrgrimrpr

Originally posted by Cabe2323

 

Originally posted by Scorchien

   Same exact thing they said about Origin when they bought it .. then proceeded to fook up 1 of the best MMos ever in UO .   They lie .

It is misinformation like this that makes me mad. 

 

 

EA didn't mess up Ultima Online.  EA purchased Origin about 5 or so years before Origin ever release UO.  Probst greenlighted UO and gave Garriot the necessary funding to make the game.  Garriot and his team messed up origin to the point that EA had to cut a lot of fat in the company.  EA tried to give them a ton of money and let them run their division as they saw fit but some people aren't capable of handling that much power and Lord British himself said they messed up Origin and gave EA no choice but to come in and clean house. 

 

So if you want to blame anyone for the fall of Origin and UO blame Lord British and not EA.

Not going to lie to you. You're a toolbag. Origin is not the only example of game companies that were bought by EA only for their intellectual property assets. Pagan and Ascension were the games that shown EA's effect on Origin. They both lacked quality, because EA pushed these games out like steaming feces onto the public. Westwood, Bullfrog, Interplay, Maxis, etc. all were screwed by EA's business practice.

Some TRUTH:

EA Aquired Maxis in 1997. 

Games released by Maxis after EA aquisition:  The Sims (2000) and the Sims 2 (2004)  only the best selling PC game series of all time. 

On top of that Will Wright still works for EA in the same role as he did when Maxis was a solo company.  He has complete autonomy and that is obvious.  His next huge game (Spore) is going to be a PC/DS/Wii title, do you honestly think that EA wouldn't make him port it to Xbox 360 and PS3 if they were this evil company that you think they are?  Plus wouldn't Will Wright have already left considering he is one of the Gaming Legends?

About Origins:

www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_45/269-The-Conquest-of-Origin

You might want to read here in this article and see Richard Garriot's comments about what led to the downfall of Origin. 

Also there are some interesting comments by Warren Spector.

I will highlight them here:

Spector: "For the first couple of years, EA's acquisition of Origin changed the place for the better in nearly every way. EA brought some much needed structure to our product greenlight and development processes. And we certainly got bigger budgets! We were able to do more and cooler things than we'd been able to do before. In most ways, though, EA gave us a lot of rope - enough to hang ourselves, as it turned out!"

Garriott: "We doubled the size of the company from 200 to 400 that first year. We went from 5-10 projects to 10-20, and staffed those projects almost entirely with inexperienced people. It won't surprise you to learn those projects were not well managed. That was totally Origin's fault. We failed, and we ended up killing half of those products. That's probably what set up the EA mentality that 'Origin is a bunch of [deleted],' pardon my French."

Spector says, "Mattrick told me I needed to make games more like Richard and Chris - swing for the fences, go for the megahit, spend a ton to make a ton - instead of consistently turning out smaller games, making some money every year. I thought he was nuts at the time. Took me several more years to admit that, like it or not, he was right and I was wrong."

Could EA have handled Origin better?   Yes of course they could have but they treated them like big boys at first and Origin proved they couldn't handle it by Garriott's own words.  EA gave them a ton of money and pretty much autonomy and Origin ended up mismanaging a bunch of products and looking like asses.  So then EA did the only thing that any company would do and they straightened it out.  They brought in Mattrick who was a programmer turned Executive (who by the way had his own studio that EA had aquired and turned into EA Canada) and had him over see Origin's operations.  He went ahead and started trimming fat and giving direction to Origin. 

Like I said before it could of been handled better but if Garriott had been a better manager I think Origin would still be making games just like Will Wright is still making titles. 

But of course nothing I say matters because the EA Haters are going to hate no matter what the truth is.

Playing uo now for over 8 years.

They ship the ea developers to their mythic counterparts, though promising before to keep them separate.

So why would thy not ship the bioware people there too.

One QA tea, developers closer together and can help out if there is the usual EA mess.

They might keep them alone for a bit, but their shareholders demand cuts for maximum profits and two separate teams just aren't it.

And as far as UO goes EA, due to inactivity and incompetence really messed the game up and that it still lives is only due to the good foundation that game has.

Anyone remembers the 500.000 players that would soon be playing SIMS Online

:)

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Originally posted by kishe
It's just happened sooo many times I no longer trust EA at all.
 

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And yet, you'll buy the game anyway.

I'm starting to wonder now.  After seeing the whole "Groundbreaking Interactive entertainment product," is it really a MMO or even a game?  What if they are doing something totally new?  Like their own console?  or something just totally bonkers?  Seriously, if it was to be a MMO, or even a game. . .why didn't they say that instead of interactive entertainment?  I wouldn't put your money on KOTOR 3 or MMO.