Hopefully, the title drew some attention. Now please, read my points before you tell me how much in denial I am about how they act.
First point: EA, as a corporation, needs to make money. Why? They are a publicly owned company, with shareholders. If they start losing a lot of money, shareholders will abandon the company, resulting in layoffs.
What does this mean, exactly? Well, they can't take very many risks in games they make. It's easy to tell them to make unique games like Double Fine does, but look at it from a monetary standpoint. What would make the most sense, using a tried-and-true formula until it doesn't work before changing it up, or changing things up every time and risk losing money? Let's be honest, Double Fine games, despite their critical success, tend to not make much in sales. And while for a smaller company like Double Fine, they can generally take the blow and keep going (unless it happens for several games in a row, or was a hugely expensive flop), when your company relies on shareholders, one flop could equal 1,000 shareholders jumping ship, which would be bad for employees.
Second point: Closing down studios.
I love this one. Apparently, EA is a vampire that sucks great studios dry, and casts their corpses aside in search for new blood. This ignores a few things. First, how can EA buy a studio that doesn't want the help? They can't. Why would a studio be willing to be bought out if they were successful on their own? They wouldn't. Let me take you through a journey back in time, to ye olde ages, when floppy disks were actually still a thing. EA is blamed for the demises of several companies. Let's see how they were doing before EA bought them.
Bullfrog: Last game before EA bought them was "Tube", a game without even a Wikipedia page. I could find very little mention of it, other than the game existing as abandonware. Generally, not a sign of a successful game.
Westwood Studios: While the last game before they were bought was the 1997 "Blade Runner" game, which was successful, before it was (possibly) the PC port of "Resident Evil", which they didn't get credited for if they did, and a PC version of Monopoly. Sounds like the awesome C&C company, doesn't it?
Maxis: They were successful at first, but as soon as they experimented outside of the sim genre, they produced flop ("The Crystal Skull", not to be confused with the recent Indiana Jones film) after flop ("Simcopter"). The breaking point was the acquisition of Cinematronics in order to make a game called "Crucible". When that flopped, and the studio felt a lack of direction, they started looking at acquisition offers.
Pandemic Studios: Another favorite of the "EA sucks" crowd. Here's the thing. In the year before they were acquired, they made two games, "Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers" and "Destroy All Humans 2", the latter of which was somewhat successful, and the first of which was received as an average game by critics. And true, the first game they made after EA bought them was was "Mercenaries 2", which was a mess. But their last two games were original games, and one of those was in a new universe. So while EA did shut them down, and they had a lot of success before EA, they were going downhill before EA bought them.
I could discuss other points, but this is already getting pretty long, so I'll leave it at the two main ones for now. In short, EA is in it for the money, but so is every corporation. Saying EA is evil is like saying McDonald's is evil, but Burger King is all right. As for "ruining" companies, if you take off the rose-tinted goggles and use a combination of research and common sense, you will realize that, until EA bought them, those companies were in trouble without any help from EA.
If you are still reading this, thank you. I'll thank you even more for not trying to get me banned for having a minority opinion.
First point: EA, as a corporation, needs to make money. Why? They are a publicly owned company, with shareholders. If they start losing a lot of money, shareholders will abandon the company, resulting in layoffs.
What does this mean, exactly? Well, they can't take very many risks in games they make. It's easy to tell them to make unique games like Double Fine does, but look at it from a monetary standpoint. What would make the most sense, using a tried-and-true formula until it doesn't work before changing it up, or changing things up every time and risk losing money? Let's be honest, Double Fine games, despite their critical success, tend to not make much in sales. And while for a smaller company like Double Fine, they can generally take the blow and keep going (unless it happens for several games in a row, or was a hugely expensive flop), when your company relies on shareholders, one flop could equal 1,000 shareholders jumping ship, which would be bad for employees.
Second point: Closing down studios.
I love this one. Apparently, EA is a vampire that sucks great studios dry, and casts their corpses aside in search for new blood. This ignores a few things. First, how can EA buy a studio that doesn't want the help? They can't. Why would a studio be willing to be bought out if they were successful on their own? They wouldn't. Let me take you through a journey back in time, to ye olde ages, when floppy disks were actually still a thing. EA is blamed for the demises of several companies. Let's see how they were doing before EA bought them.
Bullfrog: Last game before EA bought them was "Tube", a game without even a Wikipedia page. I could find very little mention of it, other than the game existing as abandonware. Generally, not a sign of a successful game.
Westwood Studios: While the last game before they were bought was the 1997 "Blade Runner" game, which was successful, before it was (possibly) the PC port of "Resident Evil", which they didn't get credited for if they did, and a PC version of Monopoly. Sounds like the awesome C&C company, doesn't it?
Maxis: They were successful at first, but as soon as they experimented outside of the sim genre, they produced flop ("The Crystal Skull", not to be confused with the recent Indiana Jones film) after flop ("Simcopter"). The breaking point was the acquisition of Cinematronics in order to make a game called "Crucible". When that flopped, and the studio felt a lack of direction, they started looking at acquisition offers.
Pandemic Studios: Another favorite of the "EA sucks" crowd. Here's the thing. In the year before they were acquired, they made two games, "Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers" and "Destroy All Humans 2", the latter of which was somewhat successful, and the first of which was received as an average game by critics. And true, the first game they made after EA bought them was was "Mercenaries 2", which was a mess. But their last two games were original games, and one of those was in a new universe. So while EA did shut them down, and they had a lot of success before EA, they were going downhill before EA bought them.
I could discuss other points, but this is already getting pretty long, so I'll leave it at the two main ones for now. In short, EA is in it for the money, but so is every corporation. Saying EA is evil is like saying McDonald's is evil, but Burger King is all right. As for "ruining" companies, if you take off the rose-tinted goggles and use a combination of research and common sense, you will realize that, until EA bought them, those companies were in trouble without any help from EA.
If you are still reading this, thank you. I'll thank you even more for not trying to get me banned for having a minority opinion.
