Originally posted by Lobotomist

Sign of the time.

I dont care much for EA but its clear now that game industry is in dire straits. And it has recieved a blow that would take years to recover.

Dont expect any good MMOs anytime soon.

 

And if Dragon Age is any measurment , SWTOR will suck

Well, unemployment hit 10%. I don't think games are really that high up on people's priority list.

Dragon Age is a phenomenally great game and the critics agree with me (gameranking score ~90%). If TOR is anything like DA, it will be a big hit.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Sign of the time.

I dont care much for EA but its clear now that game industry is in dire straits. And it has recieved a blow that would take years to recover.

Dont expect any good MMOs anytime soon.

 

And if Dragon Age is any measurment , SWTOR will suck

*sighs* Once again someone believing their personal opinion overrides the facts of the majority. The majority state Dragon Age is a phenominal game despite your own personal opinion. Then again its hard to expect much different from you since you are one of the most vocal negative minded individuals on this site.

The fact of the matter is there is no game that will appease the entire masses. Someone will always dislike this or that. There is no way anything will please everyone. If you don't like something...then that's fine obviously. We all have different taste. But making bold predictions based off solely your opinion is a stretch when it has to go against the voice of a majority individuals that differ with it.

As for EA this is a company that has dozens of games a year. They will obviously need to scale back and should have done so in the first place. They were pressing too much and it came back at them. It's unfortunate for those who worked for the company that have to suffer for this business direction EA had undertaken. Hopefully changing their focus and cutting back will aid them in the future.

Originally posted by Fuzzball1

Originally posted by LynxJSA

 

This isn't a new change or anything that should be seen as unexpected. Not only was this the direction they've been heading for a while, but they have said this is what they planned to do.

Link: http://www.artfulgamer.com/2007/11/10/electronic-arts-the-destroyer-of-worlds-sets-its-eye-on-bioware/

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EA Under Riccitiello

With the replacement of Larry Probst as CEO in 2006, there has been a brief glimmer of hope for EA. According to the New York Times, EA’s new CEO John Riccitiello has promised a whole new corporate structure and game development strategy,

“If the E.A. of four years from now isn’t a bunch of properties you haven’t heard of on a bunch of business models that aren’t familiar to you,” Mr. Riccitiello said, “and if most of them can’t be picked up the first time by your mother and she can’t have fun with it, we won’t be the company I want us to be.”

In short, Riccitiello sees the future of gaming in the casual games sector – a relatively untapped audience so far, apparently due to the complexity of the current games. But what does that mean? Is Riccitiello serious about a move toward innovation and original titles?

Partly. And this is why it is important to understand his vision in terms of EA’s history. Riccitiello is in fact making the same decision that Trip Hawkins made back in the day – that in order to reach broader audiences (and higher market penetration; profits), EA had to open itself up to new territories. In Hawkins’s time it was video game consoles, in Larry Probst’s time it was corporate growth through acquisition, and now Riccitiello has recognized the financial potential of the casual gaming market.

Hardcore gamers don't want casual games.  This guy is my enemy.

Casual gamers are far and away more profitable than hardcore gamers. Video games are a business and big business wants big money. Casual gamers are where the money  is at. That's just the sad reality.

The only thing you can do to combat this paradigm shift is buy, not pirate, games made for "hardcore" gamers.

Originally posted by buegur

I'm a bit worried that the high Smucks in the gaming industry will give up on making MMO's as the cost to develope them are just too high for what they net.  After all, there is only one MMO that made it big, WoW.  I'm not sure if thats because of our high expectations, but nothing in the recent past has caught on.  It doesn't seem to matter if the game had years of development or just a couple of years, none has meet our expectations it seems.  Sure they all have some fans but not enough to make the venture a big success.  How long will it be before companies quit trying (maybe now if your EA), and use their capital in a less stressful market like the solo/small grouping games?  This may be the first shot fired, a farewell to our beloved MMO's! :(

Actually I'd say single player games are suffering more from MMOs.  There's also the dominance of the FPS genre and its elements.

Heck just look at few great single player RPGs on the PC and even the Xbox 360 feels lighter this generation.

DRM on the PC was just another method to force preparations to people playing single player by bringing them online via activation/activation limits.

People saw through that and boycotted against companies like EA.

We are seeing a homogenisation of the gaming genre. This is what happened to the film industry when Hollywood took over. You get one kind of film which tries to draw in the successful elements of every film that’s been a success.

Driven by the desire to maximise profit, game companies are trying to make games to a recipe for success. Even when they have a game which they know is going to be a winner, they still incorporate unneeded elements to maximise appeal.

So GTA 4 and Prince of Persia were dumbed bed down. Dark Ages gets one member survives and you all do. Every game released wants you to be part of their social network. Adventure puzzle games start getting object finding elements of play as Object Finding games are very in currently.

It just goes on and on, we are ending up with a mush of gameplay stew where no game will have a distinctive play style or lore.

Aw.. That's too sad and come to think of it. It is christmas season already.

I find the cutting thing very odd.  I understand they are not doing well on a global level.  But here in BC there was an announcement a week or so ago that the gaming industry has grown by 7% year over year and is projected to do the same for the next few years.

Just odd.

Venge Sunsoar

I could care less if Mythic got fired or not.

Mythic ruined my favorite MMO, DAoC, and continued to be an awful company.

I hate mythic.

Originally posted by SaintViktor

Mythic Entertainment was apparently particularly hard hit. Unconfirmed reports estimate that over one third of the EA-owned, Virginia-based shop was laid off following disappointing sales of its massively multiplayer online role-playing game Warhammer Online.

It is sad, but after playing WAR at launch it doesn't surprise me that Mythic were where they shed the excess load. Like AoC in theory it could have been great, but sloppy development and game issues lost them all those players, and there were a lot of players at the game launch in EU/NA.

Originally posted by Gamesmith

Originally posted by Fuzzball1

Originally posted by LynxJSA

 

This isn't a new change or anything that should be seen as unexpected. Not only was this the direction they've been heading for a while, but they have said this is what they planned to do.

Link: http://www.artfulgamer.com/2007/11/10/electronic-arts-the-destroyer-of-worlds-sets-its-eye-on-bioware/

---

EA Under Riccitiello

With the replacement of Larry Probst as CEO in 2006, there has been a brief glimmer of hope for EA. According to the New York Times, EA’s new CEO John Riccitiello has promised a whole new corporate structure and game development strategy,

“If the E.A. of four years from now isn’t a bunch of properties you haven’t heard of on a bunch of business models that aren’t familiar to you,” Mr. Riccitiello said, “and if most of them can’t be picked up the first time by your mother and she can’t have fun with it, we won’t be the company I want us to be.”

In short, Riccitiello sees the future of gaming in the casual games sector – a relatively untapped audience so far, apparently due to the complexity of the current games. But what does that mean? Is Riccitiello serious about a move toward innovation and original titles?

Partly. And this is why it is important to understand his vision in terms of EA’s history. Riccitiello is in fact making the same decision that Trip Hawkins made back in the day – that in order to reach broader audiences (and higher market penetration; profits), EA had to open itself up to new territories. In Hawkins’s time it was video game consoles, in Larry Probst’s time it was corporate growth through acquisition, and now Riccitiello has recognized the financial potential of the casual gaming market.

Hardcore gamers don't want casual games.  This guy is my enemy.

 

Casual gamers are far and away more profitable than hardcore gamers. Video games are a business and big business wants big money. Casual gamers are where the money  is at. That's just the sad reality.

The only thing you can do to combat this paradigm shift is buy, not pirate, games made for "hardcore" gamers.

 

 

yeah ... casual gamers are so much more profitable that EA didnt have to fire over 25% of their employees in the past 1-2 years.......

"and if most of them can’t be picked up the first time by your mother and she can’t have fun with it, we won’t be the company I want us to be.” - EA’s new CEO John Riccitiello.

So that is where we are headed, roll on ‘Kitchen Age’ the new dark fantasy cooking rpg. These corporate morons are destroying the gaming genre. We cannot have difficult and casual games, everything must be casual so you, your mum, and soon your fucking dog can play it.

Sorry about that but this really is going to cripple the genre. Do we all have to read Janet and John, is the only programme on the TV the likes of Thomas the Tank Engine? There is room for literary and film greatness, but not gaming greatness it seems.