Vapourware LOL ELECTRONIC ARTS: The EA Thread

[Bulba]

those companies failed because their games sucked or their management or both since people tend to buy more than one game from the same genre if they are good

 

[BlackAdderBG]

FIFA Manager was always an EA title(old FIFA Soccer something is early 90's franchise) Not sure what you talking about,they never had a lead in the football sim market.

Now that Mobygames is back to normal we can sort this out. ;-)
If you look at the Fifa Manager series page you can see that the first version 2001 was only released in Germany.
You can also see that Gerald Köhler and Jörg Langenberg are credited for all FIFA Manager games (credits for the 2001 version are not in the database, but that was them as well) as well as for all Anstoss / On the Ball games up to 2000. EA simply made the lead designer and lead programmer an offer they couldn't resist.

Software 2000 (Bundesliga Manager series) (which held the Bundesliga license until EA bought it) filed for bankruptcy in 2002.
Ascaron (Anstoss series) went into its first bankruptcy in 2001.
Ikarion (Hattrick series) went bankrupt in 2001.
Greencode (which was the basic BM team from Software 2000) survived a little longer. They switched to making Handball and Ice Hockey Managers.

In Germany, FIFA Manager was the bestselling manager all the time. Football Manager isn't even available here, due to EAs licensing.

These are pretty obscure football sims(Hattrick like the web game?).Maybe in Germany things are different with all that licensing,but been only available does make you dominant.Why don't you guys just pirate the better ones?Namely CM/FM and USM

 

[:Flash:]

These are pretty obscure football sims(Hattrick like the web game?).Maybe in Germany things are different with all that licensing,but been only available does make you dominant.Why don't you guys just pirate the better ones?Namely CM/FM and USM

These were not obscure, they dominated the German market in the 90s. Initially I just wanted to explain why FIFA manager has a German economy sim history and therefore plays different than other football managers. EA deliberately went for the German market (for whatever reason, perhaps they considered it easier than a market dominated by CM/FM), as shown by the fact that the first one wasn't released anywhere else.
In the 90s around here it was always either Bundesliga Manager (which had the license) or Anstoss (which many considered the better game). When EA moved in the made a point of "now we have the license and the team that made Anstoss".

Fun Trivia: When EA bought the Bundesliga license, they wanted to prohibit Software 2000 from using their traditional name "Bundesliga Manager". Software 2000 quickly made a deal with the Austrian football association, not because the Austrian league is that interesting, but because it is also called "Bundesliga" and thus allowed Software 2000 to keep the name.

 

[Bulba]

can you actually stop someone naming their game bundersliga? I'm not familiar with german laws but common sense tells me otherwise... it sounds like that scrolls and bethesda thing where they can try suing me, but have like -1 chance of winning it.

 

[CSM]

PopCap CEO retiring, studio co-founder taking over

As of January 8, PopCap CEO Dave Roberts, who joined the studio nine years ago, will be stepping down. Replacing him in the head role is John Vechey, one of the studio's original co-founders. The only remaining one, in fact, as co-founder Jason Kapalka is leaving along with Roberts, though he will remain a creative consultant for the company.

On the heels of the release of both Peggle 2 and Plants Vs. Zombies 2, it seems an interesting decisions. Apparently PvZ2 didn't monetize as well as EA would have liked and Vechey, speaking with GamesBeat, said of PopCap, "We need to get back to the place where we used to be and not just in mobile."

 

[buzz]

There's some really retard juju at work with EA if they can't correctly monetize casual games out of all fucking things. How the fuck did they get so big in the first place?

 

[Infinitron]

PopCap CEO retiring, studio co-founder taking over

As of January 8, PopCap CEO Dave Roberts, who joined the studio nine years ago, will be stepping down. Replacing him in the head role is John Vechey, one of the studio's original co-founders. The only remaining one, in fact, as co-founder Jason Kapalka is leaving along with Roberts, though he will remain a creative consultant for the company.

On the heels of the release of both Peggle 2 and Plants Vs. Zombies 2, it seems an interesting decisions. Apparently PvZ2 didn't monetize as well as EA would have liked and Vechey, speaking with GamesBeat, said of PopCap, "We need to get back to the place where we used to be and not just in mobile."

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/02/p...-over-the-plants-vs-zombies-studio-exclusive/

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

There's some really retard juju at work with EA if they can't correctly monetize casual games out of all fucking things. How the fuck did they get so big in the first place?

Simple. They were giving money to make good games.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Plants vs zombies was pretty fun.

 

[DraQ]

If you want to play tower defense game, play Netstorm instead.

 

[TedNugent]

If you want to play a tower defense game, this is the only game you need

 

[DraQ]

But why should I play Warcrap 3 *at all*?

 

[TedNugent]

I'm glad you asked, mah boi.

http://www.eletd.com/

 

[DraQ]

I'm glad you asked, mah boi.

I'm not.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

 

[Giskard]

Remember when SimCity ABSOLUTELY HAD to be online? Not any more – fancy that!

Gamers will soon be able to play Maxis's SimCity offline – despite the company's earlier insistence that the game absolutely had to be connected to the internet to work.

The turnaround was announced by Maxis studio manager Patrick Buechner in a blogpost on Sunday. He said Update 10 for the latest installment of the long-running urban modeling game series will include an exciting feature known as "Offline Play." This revolutionary technology lets a game work without a connection to the cloud!

Careful observers may remember that when the always-online, always-connected SimCity launched early last year, the cloud servers it relied on flaked out, rendering it unplayable. In response, Amazon temporarily yanked the game from its store after receiving more than 800 one-star reviews for the lobotomized game.

Maxis, meanwhile, insisted that the online components were fundamental to the game, and claimed at first that it simply wouldn't be possible to run the game offline.

Soon after that an enterprising bod ginned up a hack that let the game run offline. The next day Maxis published a blog on the topic: "Always-Connected and why SimCity is not offline experience."

In that blog post Maxis argued that the always-online component was not "a clandestine strategy to control players" (though it did serve as a form of digital rights management to combat piracy), and that the game "made innovative use of servers to move aspects of the simulation into the cloud to support region play and social features."

As many pointed out at the time, it was hard to see why Maxis didn't simply lop off the "region play" and "social features" for a less complex, local-only variant. Maxis did not respond to queries from The Register on this subject.

Now, about 10 months later, Maxis has brought the game offline.

"All of your previously downloaded content will be available to you anytime, anywhere, without the need for an internet connection," the Maxis manager wrote. "Keep an eye out for more information on Offline shortly. We'll be releasing more information on how it all works." ®

So online only play was a SCAM was all along.

P.s Sorry if already posted.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Just fucking die already EA.

 

[kris]

it's not opinion, it's facts and numbers: in football manager you have control only over staff, players, tactics (less and less during years), training (less and less during years) and market.
in fifa you have also control over youth teams, youth schools, merchandise, tickets, stadium, objectives and expectations of players, events of any kind...
facts and numbers.

and no, no game has ever ended with 40 shots on goals and 40 posts hit.

Numbers, you say these things like it is something good and positive. Doesn't matter how many things you can control when the game is shit. When the football played doesn't resemble football and the simulated footballers don't resemble footballers. That is the only important part, not whether you can sell merchandise. that is of course something a real football manager have no control over

 

[sea]

I can't wait until they add offline mode in as a $15 DLC option.

 

[Jick Magger]

I can't wait until they add offline mode in as a $15 DLC option.

In the ninth generation of consoles, people will have to pay a monthly subscription for the right to play their consoles offline without being monitored 24/7 and all their information kept by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Fuck Maxis and EA. I hope there is a Hell because they have seats waiting for them.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it's not opinion, it's facts and numbers: in football manager you have control only over staff, players, tactics (less and less during years), training (less and less during years) and market.
in fifa you have also control over youth teams, youth schools, merchandise, tickets, stadium, objectives and expectations of players, events of any kind...
facts and numbers.

and no, no game has ever ended with 40 shots on goals and 40 posts hit.

Numbers, you say these things like it is something good and positive. Doesn't matter how many things you can control when the game is shit. When the football played doesn't resemble football and the simulated footballers don't resemble footballers. That is the only important part, not whether you can sell merchandise. that is of course something a real football manager have no control over

did you see i recalled "player manager"? do you know what's "player manager"?
i couldn't give a smaller fuck about "proper simulation": i've been a real football player, no videogame can recreate that. i want a managerial game way wider than the "select 11 names and hope for the best" football manager provides, fifa manager gives exactly that.

 

[kris]

it's not opinion, it's facts and numbers: in football manager you have control only over staff, players, tactics (less and less during years), training (less and less during years) and market.
in fifa you have also control over youth teams, youth schools, merchandise, tickets, stadium, objectives and expectations of players, events of any kind...
facts and numbers.

and no, no game has ever ended with 40 shots on goals and 40 posts hit.

Numbers, you say these things like it is something good and positive. Doesn't matter how many things you can control when the game is shit. When the football played doesn't resemble football and the simulated footballers don't resemble footballers. That is the only important part, not whether you can sell merchandise. that is of course something a real football manager have no control over

did you see i recalled "player manager"? do you know what's "player manager"?
i couldn't give a smaller fuck about "proper simulation": i've been a real football player, no videogame can recreate that. i want a managerial game way wider than the "select 11 names and hope for the best" football manager provides, fifa manager gives exactly that.

you been a football player WOW.

I still play football, I been both coach/manager and referee. Amazing huh.

By the way, "a player manager" that is a position that don't really exist, not in any top nor amatuere club I heard of. Unless this is some sort of American expression for the manager = Mourinho, Ancelotti.

So you want to do it more as a financial simulation than an actual footballing. NOw if you think FM is "select 11 names and hope for the best" then that just means you are not very good at the game and possibly know little about the sport you play. FMs weakness is mostly in how the AI fail at transfers which means you will create the best team quite easily.

The FIFA ones have the problem that the football don't really feel like real football games and their player database is pretty shit. (not that I played the last ones, maybe their database is better now).