Electronic Arts Drops Medal of Honor

[Andy Chalk]

Electronic Arts Drops Medal of Honor

Electronic Arts admits that Medal of Honor: Warfighter was "an obvious miss" but says reviewers saddled the game with scores that were "lower than it deserved."

In November of last year, analyst Michael Pachter warned [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120440-Analyst-Warfighter-Failure-May-End-Medal-of-Honor-Franchise] that the poor performance of Medal of Honor: Warfighter could be "fatal" to the resurrected franchise. Today, EA proved him right as it told investors that it would not be developing another game in the franchise.

But the problem, according to Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore, was not with the game, but with players and reviewers who just didn't get it.

"We struggled with two challenges: the slowdown that impacted the entire sector and poor critical and commercial reception for Medal of Honor: Warfighter," he said. "Medal of Honor was an obvious miss. The game was solid, but the focus on combat authenticity did not resonate with consumers."

"Critics were polarized and gave the game scores which were, frankly, lower than it deserved," he added.

Moore's remark echos those of EA Labels President Frank Gibeau, who review [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120411-EA-Admits-Poor-Medal-of-Honor-Warfighter-Sales] scored it a 2.5/5; in light of all that, I can't help but think that "authenticity" might not actually be the problem.

Whatever the reason, EA has stuck a fork in it. "This one is behind us now," Moore said. "We are taking Medal of Honor out of the rotation, and have a plan to bring year-over-year continuity to our shooter offerings." It's a good bet that plan will lean rather heavily on EA's far more successful Battlefield franchise.

Source: Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/30/3934302/electronic-arts-taking-medal-of-honor-out-of-the-rotation]


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[Bleidd Whitefalcon]

Wait. Let me get this straight. Michael Pachter was RIGHT about something. ...Excuse me while I go looking for flying pigs.

 

[Myndnix]

And absolutely nothing of value was lost.
Battlefield however, watch out. Cash cow efforts are about to be doubled.

 

[Therumancer]

What gets me is that game companies can insist they were wronged in the reviews and receptions, when a number of the reviewers, guys like say Total Biscuit, oftentimes include videos of them playing the games they are talking about, and if they are ripping them to pieces and negatively criticising them, they show you exactly why. I believe it was one of TB's videos that had me a bit stunned with what they did with this game, even as someone who isn't a FPS fan.

It would be nice if at some point we'd just have the industry admit it "yeah, we released a turd, it killed the series, we take resposibility for making a crappy cash grab of a game". After a while it gets kind of old, especially when the evidence is kind of right there even for people that don't play it. I mean what are they saying, that we're all mistaken and what we're seeing in videos like this are an elaborate hoax, or we're all wrong and what we think is a steaming pile is actually a good game? (using Bizzaro world logic).

At any rate, one thing about this game is that I will never forget Gavin's "Doorfighter" song, that made me laugh so hard when I first saw it.

 

[LtFerret]

2deep4u
This is why you don't try to compete with CoD by copying everything it does but doing it worse.

Wait. Let me get this straight. Michael Pachter was RIGHT about something. ...Excuse me while I go looking for flying pigs.

Well he has to be right sometimes. His predictions are either blindingly obvious or pure lunacy

 

[Full]

Killed by the trend it started [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/criticalintel/10026-The-Medal-of-Honor-Curse]. Damn way to go.

 

[BrotherRool]

My brother wanted authenticity, thats why he bought the game. It was the fact that it was badly made and not very authentic that put him off

 

[FEichinger]

Stop the fucking review blaming, EA. The game was shit, deal with it.

This honestly pisses me off to no end recently. Almost every bloody time something gets canned, either we the gamers, or the reviewers get blamed for it, either because "PIRAAAAAATEZ!!!!!" or because "You gave us unfair low scores! Y_Y" ...

I also love how critics can be both "polarized" and "giving scores that are too low".

 

[Antari]

Patcher predicting the death of a series thats been through more rinses than Rocky isn't exactly a feat of critical thinking.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Calling it polarizing is just straight up lying, EA.

When your Metacritic score is just 7 points higher than Sonic '06, which has shown up on many a "Worst Games of All Time List", it's just plain shit.

Well, at least Linkin Park won't be linked with that shit any more, although judging the internet's overall view of Linkin Park, many will just be glad they don't have to hear their music =P

 

[Bleidd Whitefalcon]

Stop the fucking review blaming, EA. The game was shit, deal with it.

This honestly pisses me off to no end recently. Almost every bloody time something gets canned, either we the gamers, or the reviewers get blamed for it, either because "PIRAAAAAATEZ!!!!!" or because "You gave us unfair low scores! Y_Y" ...

I also love how critics can be both "polarized" and "giving scores that are too low".

Maybe the critics were polarized about just shitty the game was and what low number to give it?

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

Poor Medal of Honor. Sure your last few games were either mediocre or straight up bad but that was due to EA's ham fisted, cash cow approach to everything.

At least I still have your older games to enjoy.

*salutes*

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Yeah fuck off with how much stock you put in review scores.

 

[snekadid]

Ea just has to understand that we aren't school yard bullies. We hate them for a reason, the games they make are mediocre and they back them up with sleazy practices. When they do something right we are all shocked but we accept it and move on, now if only they would do it more often than once a year. They just need to grow up and learn to accept responsibility for their mistakes.

 

[Erttheking]

EA "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MY GENIUS"

Go to Hell EA, just go to Hell

 

[Irridium]

No, EA. It wasn't player's or reviewer's fault the game did bad. I'd say it's your fault for releasing yet another damn modern-military shooter in a genre full of modern-military shooters. On top of that, there wasn't much marketing for the game.

Oh, and the game just wasn't that great. There's that too.

I'd say those are the reasons the game didn't do well.