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EA: "We blew it with Bullfrog, Westwood"
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 11th February 2008
John Riccitiello admits that EA blew it with developers like Bullfrog and Westwood.
"We at EA blew it, and to a degree I was involved in these things, so I blew it," Riccitiello bluntly.
"The command and conquer model doesn't work," Riccitiello told industry experts at the summit. "If you think you're going to buy a developer and put your name on the label... you're making a profound mistake."
EA bought up Bullfrog, made famous for games like Theme Hospital and Populous, in 1995 after head-honcho Peter Molyneux left. Unfortunately, a lot of the talent fled from the company after EA acquired the developer - much of it following Molyneux to Lionhead Studios in 1997, which was later bought out by Microsoft.
Riccitiello said that the problem occurred with other companies, including Command and Conquer developer, Westwood, and that it was probably because EA tried to enforce a management structure on companies which were used to more creative freedoms.
"When I talked to the creators that populated these companies at the time, they felt like they were buried and stifled," Riccitiello said.
So, what does this mean for the recently acquired BioWare and Pandemic Studios? Not a lot, hopefully. Riccitiello has promised that EA is working very hard to keep the company culture alive in those studios - but what do you think? Let us know in the forums.
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Zero Punctuation is the funniest thing on the net.
There will always be a place in my blackened, shriveled heart for Bullfrog's classic Dungeon Keeper. It's the only RTS-ish game that's really worked well for me. And who could ever pass up a game whose slogan is, "Evil is Good"?
Back on thread. Agreed with comments above. EAs reputation is less than perfect for sure. Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes.
Nor does it seem like the expansion willl...
Nor does their shooter "Tiberium" seem poorly made...
I mean I miss Westwood but still...
CnC hasn't been rubish lately...
Reason behind that is because Mike Verdu, CEO of Westwood (at the time) works at EA LA, and APOC seems to be a good guy with alot of knowledge on the C&C universe.
Sam
EA looking out for Mass Effect, and almost gamers as a whole, and now admitting they screwed up when they bought smaller companies.
Who's taken over EA?
sadly, DK2 sucked in comparison - seems to happen a lot with EA
Does this mean C&C4 (or whatever) will be a good game, made with originality? (i somewhat doubt it)
also:
Well, we now know what you spend your time watching...
I'm guessing that they will continue with the Red Alert story line, as excluding generals they have alternated between storylines with each game. They make one GDI vs. Nod game, then an expansion, then make one Red Alert storyline game and an expansion, then start over again.
I don't really need them to make an original storyline, but it would be nice to have some new units and maybe some more gameplay choices(generals abilities style maybe?) in it.
*******s
it did bring back live action cut scenes though which was awesome :D
That's great and all, i liked the old games, but i don't see the point paying £30 (or more) over and over for practically a remake (or expansion)
Anyway, generals sucked, renegade is OK online but the SP is rubbish, Red Alert 2 was the last really good C&C game (IMO), Also, DK3 would have rocked, and another theme hospital would be very cool (if its done right)
So many good games, destroyed by EA (either by killing them off or making them rubbish)
IMO it was (except perhaps sins), back to good old tried and tested C&C formula. Some things are great how they are, if you revolutionise the way C&C works too much, it just wouldn't be C&C anymore.
Oh wait, I'll just go play it.
Score!
(*warning, not intended to be read by people who like EA*)
EA pushes for too many too similar games with too small expansions within a too short timeframe without proper Quality Control and pretty much zero effort to fix bugs after release.
Look at any major series EA owns...
NFS: Too many similar titles within short distances.. where has the creativity gone? the replay value? the quality? all gone in favor of pushing out a new title every year.
Tomb Raider, another shining example of what failure EA is...
Battlefield series, selling expanisions and extra content that all could have easily been included in the game itself? no thx.
Sims: Milking the market with a billion expansions....
All their sports games: Uninspired piles of crap with non existant innovation but in return regular refreshes as full price titles.
Crysis: where is the gameplay innovation?
Command and Conquer, one of the best series ea has, i'm surprised how good they are despite having ea written on the box.
Dungeon keeper: RIP, EA killed you.
overall it comes down to ea succks.
what i find a bit weird though is that they say they screwed up with bullfrog and westwood, i mean they destroyed bullfrog but the Command and Conquer series is pretty much the best stuff any ea owned developer puts out, so its two completly different scenarios.
Edit: Bring back Dungeon Keeper. please.
I couldn't agree more, I mentioned this on the Ubisoft thread today, big and small games developers are both as bad as each other when it comes to source control, build and configuration management. They mostley leave it to the developers, which isn't a problem for a small application, but for major releases and updates this is not the case. Strange as it may be but Microsoft has been the only games developer that I have seen to impliment a decent code to customer build management.
Compare them to the likes of blizzard who have made games like the RTS Warcraft, Starcraft and now World of Warcraft series. You think of them and you think of quality and thats because its part of their culture and embedded deeply. They spent a huge amount of money and took one helleva risk with world of warcraft and i know this because i was following its progress. They never rushed it out into the market and maintained the attitude : "it will be ready when its ready, when were happy its the best it can be" and that delayed that game for god knows how much longer.
Once released it broke all known records for gamesales, its sitting at 10 million players online (im not one of them dont worry so im not preaching) and is possibly the best gaming experience iv ever played though i dont play it no more, i still regard it as a milestone in online gaming and the whole experience it provided.
EA's attitude is the next quick fix, look at the fifa games and all the sequels they provide - hell iv stopped buying any games affilated with EA because my experience has been that they simply are a loud of overhyped crap. I got crysis as a present and wasnt impressed bar the graphics which i think demanded way too much for what it shows and im running a 8800GTS 512mb card.
Theres a dozen other games out there and although i throughly enjoy battlefield 2142 which is the last game i bought, i put it more down to DICE than EA and i cant help but think it would have been allot better if the makers were left to their own devices.
EA is a franchise killer....