Corporate clusterfuck at EA

[MetalCraze]

Bioware? Who said anything about Bioware? I was thinking about Origin and Westwood Studios, among others.

Wasn't Westwood belonging to Virgin previously?

 

[Silellak]

Bioware? Who said anything about Bioware? I was thinking about Origin and Westwood Studios, among others.

Wasn't Westwood belonging to Virgin previously?

Westwood Associates merged with Virgin (prior to the original Command & Conquer) in 1992 - at which time they took the actual name "Westwood Studios" - then EA bought them in 1998. By 2003, they no longer existed.

You can pick apart the semantics if you want, but the reality is that EA has a well-established history of buying and destroying game studios. Another example would be Bullfrog. Maxis still exists, at least in name, though many would argue its spirit has long-since been destroyed.

 

[commie]

One think I am having hard time to believe is that the budget is 300$ million. Come on. How the fuck can you spend that much on a game? By the way. Does anybody know just out of curiosity and to compare - how much did WoW cost to develop?

Well a non-brand piece of shit like APB from 'poor' Britain cost $100 million apparently to make, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that Old Republic costs that much. Probably cost far less initially, but knowing how these things get out of hand coupled with the 'it's too far done to cancel now' mentality means they are desperately throwing money at it now to make something they pray will recoup the money somewhat. It won't, but unfortunately EA has had the Sims over the last decade to keep themselves afloat, so they won't go down...yet.

 

[Black]

And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work

So that's why they kept on bragging how their game is fully voiced, as if anyone with a brain would give a fuck. They have nothing more.

 

[Archibald]

Fully voiced mmorpg...? Are they fucking retarded?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

They probably only show CGI movies because the gameplay looks boring as fuck on the rare occasions they show it.

From what I've seen of gameplay vids, not only is it boring as fuck, it also looks like shit.

Very next-next-gen. $300 million and this is what they came up with?

Jesus fucking christ. Couldn't they just steal the Jedi Knight 2 engine and do something with that? This is atrocious.

Fully voiced mmorpg...? Are they fucking retarded?

I think they intelligently looked at what they as developers were good (or at least not ridiculously bad) at and picked the right choice

 

[made]

Origin and Westwood

NEVER FORGET!

 

[Drakron]

Maxis still exists, at least in name, though many would argue its spirit has long-since been destroyed.

Maxis ceased to exist when The Sims 2 launched, they did keep the name for a while but the studio was gone.

The "Maxis" you see right now is a studio they created for Spore, its already been hit by lay-offs and by the look of things its only a matter of time EA stops throwing money at Spore and pulls the plug.

Also as SW:TOR already going into 300 millions seems a exaggeration but they created a entire studio in Austin just for it back in '06 so if we count the money spend on setting up the studio it could go that high.

 

[Mangoose]

Fully voiced mmorpg...? Are they fucking retarded?

Wasn't EQII marketed along the same lines? Pretty retarded.

 

[Silellak]

Origin and Westwood

NEVER FORGET!

 

[ComradeCommissar]

Sounds like the same old boring bull from some janitor that got fired.

 

[MikeJahn]

A fully voiced MMORPG? Wtf? Were they high?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Sounds like the same old boring bull from some janitor that got fired.

Possible. Probable? Not really.

 

[Jaesun]

Origin and Westwood

NEVER FORGET!

Origin was already destroying itself before EA bought them. Not sure on the history of the collapse of Westwood however.

 

[Alex]

Hey Jaesun, could you elaborate on that? I am sorry to be a pain, but origin is one of my favorite companies and I always chalked up their demise to EA.

 

[Sceptic]

Origin was already destroying itself before EA bought them. Not sure on the history of the collapse of Westwood however.

Bwuh? they had just released Black Gate and UW1 (as publisher) and were planning for Serpent Isle, Arthurian Legends and UW2. Not to mention, on the Roberts side, coming out of the WC2 Special Operations and planning for WC3. How is any of this even close to "destroying itself"?

IIRC, Westwood got bought while TS was being made. So they were out of making tons of money with RA and its expansions.

 

[MetalCraze]

EA just made Westwood make a shooter and a MMO - something they had zero experience in. And both failed.
What a bunch of morons.

 

[DalekFlay]

I really think the Star Wars name and KotOR connection will help that service break even at least though.

Star Wars Galaxies says otherwise.

I'm sure that broke even too... Let's say they spend 300 million and only end up with 500,000 steady subscribers. 500,000 times 15 = 7.5 million dollars a month. In less than 3 years they would hit profit levels, and that's without counting profit from sales of the client.

Plus it's Bioware, which adds a whole other section of fanboys to the Star Wars ones.

 

[MetalCraze]

Galaxies never had that much people playing from what I remember. And not for 3 years.

I remember there was a lot of drama because only chosen ones could be jedis so a lot of people stopped playing because they wanted to be a jedi but couldn't.
Then devs made it so that everyone could become a jedi.
And people who wanted to be a jedi but didn't want everyone else to be one stopped playing.

Now answer me - for how long an MMO where everyone is a jedi and just grinds poor mobs will last no matter how they put it?

 

[Archibald]

I really think the Star Wars name and KotOR connection will help that service break even at least though.

Star Wars Galaxies says otherwise.

I'm sure that broke even too... Let's say they spend 300 million and only end up with 500,000 steady subscribers. 500,000 times 15 = 7.5 million dollars a month. In less than 3 years they would hit profit levels, and that's without counting profit from sales of the client.

Plus it's Bioware, which adds a whole other section of fanboys to the Star Wars ones.

Maintaining game for 3 years brings another set expenses.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

I'm sure that broke even too...

It did. The fact that it's still in operation 7 years after launch is proof of that. The game actually had a successful launch in terms of sales and subscribers, particularly for a pre-WoW MMO. The rampant technical and gameplay problems drove some of those initial players away, but definitely by a year in they had a stable player base. It was only after the Combat Upgrade and especially the New Game Enhancements that the game started hemorrhaging players. Since then the game has been on life support, but evidently there's still enough of a player base to justify continued operation and updates.

 

[markec]

They probably only show CGI movies because the gameplay looks boring as fuck on the rare occasions they show it.

From what I've seen of gameplay vids, not only is it boring as fuck, it also looks like shit.

Very next-next-gen. $300 million and this is what they came up with?

Well you cant have too good graphics for a MMO because high system requirements can limit your player base. But there are games like Guild Wars that still look good and play good with medium strength computers but that is because the entire world was instanced.

 

[Twinkle]

They probably only show CGI movies because the gameplay looks boring as fuck on the rare occasions they show it.

From what I've seen of gameplay vids, not only is it boring as fuck, it also looks like shit.

Very next-next-gen. $300 million and this is what they came up with?

Well you cant have too good graphics for a MMO because high system requirements can limit your player base. But there are games like Guild Wars that still look good and play good with medium strength computers but that is because the entire world was instanced.

So? Even LOTRO has way superior graphics with several cosmetic DX10+ enhancements. SWTOR looks like something from 2004-2005 at best. Heck, you can argue that even WoW looks on par with it or even better. But the tech is not the main problem here - generic, atrocious art is.

 

[DalekFlay]

If it comes out around the same time as Guild Wars 2 it will look positively ancient. I don't think that matters though for it to be a hit, after all WoW looks like complete shit.

 

[Archibald]

But the tech is not the main problem here - generic, atrocious art is.

This. Graphics are good enough for me and i think would work for mmorpg without any problems but visuals themselves are, to say the least, bland. 20 years old games look more interesting than this.