EA and Activision. The automobile companies that tried to eliminate public transportation?

[Aircross]

I'm probably exaggerating things here (and at worst making a complete fool of myself), but is what EA and Activision doing similar to what the automobile companies to public transportation a long time ago?

A talented video game company churns out great and memorable games that pushed the medium forward to a better tomorrow (mass public transportation). They make a lot of money, and eventually get bought up by a bigger publishing company (EA, Activision). Then EA and Activision (the car companies), caring more about money than video games as an interactive media, suck the soul out of the once talented developers by forcing them to release more games (quantity over quality).

Again, I'm sorry if I make any ignorant statements (enlighten me please) or if anything was unclear.

 

[Raijha]

I can definitely see what you are trying to say, but it seems to me its more like if, say Ford, bought out Ferrari, and instead of ever allowing them to make a new type of Ferrari, they just forced them to release the same model, over and over and over, in different colors.

 

[mezorin]

Thus is the nature of the circle of development life: small ballsy company comes out with a great new game or concept, then they are bought out by the suits who smell money potential. If anything, the pattern of how music bands work is a little more accurate to this model as opposed to cars.

The thing is, while EA/Activision-Blizzard might own the names, IPs, and what ever, they do not own the people who make the games themselves. If the people who make these games do not like how the Mega-Publisher is treating them, they can take their bat and ball and go play in another lot. The Infinity Ward exodus of last year, and the people who make Torchlight are two examples of this.

http://www.torchlight2game.com/

Runic Games is mostly people who worked on the original Diablo, and Torchlight is a fantastic little indie series dungeon crawler game. Torchlight 2 is coming out this year at some point and is 20$ with no BS DRMs like Diablo 3 will, LAN support, and moddable and I highly recommend picking it up day 1.

 

[WaywardHaymaker]

I can definitely see what you are trying to say, but it seems to me its more like if, say Ford, bought out Ferrari, and instead of ever allowing them to make a new type of Ferrari, they just forced them to release the same model, over and over and over, in different colors.

I agree with this, because comparing games like Mass Effect to buses just doesn't seem right.

 

[Matt9102]

This reminds me a lot of Bioware recently. Mass Effect 2 was good, sure, but Dragon Age 2 was completely horrible.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

And here I thought this was going to be a thread about the war on used games -- which I still see as a better application of your metaphor.

OT: No, they aren't buying out smaller studios to put them out of business. They're buying them out in order to get the rights to their IP, so they can add yet another cash cow to the pasture. These companies are more like Disney, Anhueiser Busch, and the Coca Cola Company in that respect; they keep making acquisitions in order to enhance their own market share. Putting other companies out of business is just a side effect.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I would agree that when companies join the major developers their games do tend to get a lot more... bland. It's probably because before they had a lot more freedom, but now they have to keep the EA shareholders happy, and pretty much everything they do has to be vetoed by the marketing departments of the developer they are under (and we all know EA's marketing department consists of Stalin, Caligula and the Merchant of Venice)

 

[James Milamber]

This reminds me a lot of Bioware recently. Mass Effect 2 was good, sure, but Dragon Age 2 was completely horrible.

Dragon Age 2 is only horrible so long as you look at it as a stand alone game - which it isn't, it's a bridge between Dragon Age: Origins, and the eventual Dragon Age 3. I don't think Bioware is the sort of company to let ANYONE push them around, even EA.

Besides, EA also owns DICE, and no one can say they rushed Battlefield 3, and it looks utterly awesome. Also, these days Blizzard is one of the biggest developers around, and no one would be silly enough to say they rushed the dev cycles for either Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3. We'll get the game when it's perfect, and not a second before, and anyone who complains about the wait can just deal with it.

I think partially you're right - many games are rushed out because they need to make Christmas sales, or some other rubbish. KOTOR 2 comes to mind, the end of that game is utter rubbish because Obsidian were given a completely stupid deadline. But there are plenty of really important games being done right by the big guys, too.

 

[targren]

Runic Games is mostly people who worked on the original Diablo, and Torchlight is a fantastic little indie series dungeon crawler game. Torchlight 2 is coming out this year at some point and is 20$ with no BS DRMs like Diablo 3 will, LAN support, and moddable and I highly recommend picking it up day 1.

I thought Torchlight used SteamWorks DRM. Shit, if it doesn't, I'll have to buy it, and the new one, because I loved the hell out of it when my buddy bought it, but I'll only buy digital data if it's not DRMed (Future proofing, and no, I don't implicitly trust Valve enough to believe their statement about freeing the DRM if Steam ever goes dark).

 

[Pandabearparade]

Dragon Age 2 is only horrible so long as you look at it as a stand alone game - which it isn't, it's a bridge between Dragon Age: Origins, and the eventual Dragon Age 3. I don't think Bioware is the sort of company to let ANYONE push them around, even EA.

A full-price purchase needs to stand on its own, not just be the boring bridge between two games. Hopefully Dragon Age 3 won't suck, though I'll likely wait and buy it used to avoid getting burned like I did with Dragon Age 2.