Will EA go down by contuing to persue the strategy that made them big in the first place?
The reliance on sequels and licensed media properties, he said, is "dampening the creative spirit."
Lawrence F. Probst III, chairman and chief executive of Electronic Arts, dismisses that view. "The teams that work on the franchise properties have a great deal of pride in constantly looking to improve the product," Mr. Probst said. Besides, he said, sequels, because they have a steady following among consumers, appeal to Wall Street investors.
If this is really the EA view than I fear for EA's future in the long term.
Well, in all fairness (I wonder how many replies I've started with this recently), it's hardly exclusive to EA, and not entirely their fault. Gamers in general eat up sequels like they were the mana of life, and this applies to everyone, mainstream and niche (the only difference is generally which sequel someone will pick up). As for licenses, well, even great developers like Konami, Capcom and Treasure rely on them to bring in money.
EA is definitely an obvious poster boy, but the problem is much more widespread, and has become an unspoken but accepted aspect of gaming.
Fat Cobra wrote:Either that or we could see another rebirth of the good ol' days and shmups would flood the market.
Boy oh boy, I can't wait until they start churning out piles of submedicore shmups to milk the masses.
jp wrote:Maybe if the market crashes people will have to make good games again...
Because we all know that the good-to-crap ratio was infinitely higher back in the day, that the average Wal-Mart customer is deeply concerned with innovation and fresh gameplay, and that EA loses millions of dollars by churning out Madden year after year.
The n00b wrote:Oh no's another video game crash could happen and then the market will be flooded by stupid Japanese "rpgs!"
Hey, I like some Japanese RPGs........
Either that or we could see another rebirth of the good ol' days and shmups would flood the market.
Sorry but I think most Japanese RPGs are merely an oversimplied form of the RPG genre. They have overly simple stories, extremely linear gameplay, and, by and large, boring characters.
You might want to try something from the RPG genre like the Fallout series, Baldur's Gate series, Planescape Torment to see what I mean.
Now I do enjoy some Japanese RPGs like Chronotrigger but seriously games like the Final Fantasy series and the Dragon Warrior series have sold far too much for being soo sooo crappy.
Acclaim was also Wall Street's golden boy once, and look at them. At least EA doesn't make games that completely suck. Batman Forever on the SNES... God, that and Rise of the Robots are two reasons why the Apocalypse is coming down on us.
jp wrote:Maybe if the market crashes people will have to make good games again...
Because we all know that the good-to-crap ratio was infinitely higher back in the day, that the average Wal-Mart customer is deeply concerned with innovation and fresh gameplay, and that EA loses millions of dollars by churning out Madden year after year.
