Actually ,it's not "brain damage", it's greed. In a recent interview, EA's CEO Andrew Wilson stated that he wants games to fail "for the right reasons." Reported here. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...Wants-Its-Games-to-Fail-For-the-Right-ReasonsAtmos Duality said:
Now, some time back, EA / Maxis guru Will Wright (who has mysteriously disappeared from the company) promoted a really cool game called SPORE. In it, you played a small organism struggling to survive and as you explored your world you earned "evolution points" you could spend on evolving your organism. The demos Will Wright showed at gaming conventions was beautiful and the evolutionary steps as scientifically correct as possible (from single cell to aquatic to amphibious to land dwelling to flying) and at any point you could gain sentience and start making a civilization. The gaming community LOVED it! They BEGGED EA to fund the game, to give Wright a team, to make the game!
And EA released this --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(2008_video_game). A watered down, dumbed down, cartoony kids game whose reputation was IMMEDIATELY sullied by the appearance of creatures shaped like male genitalia from the on-line community. EA released two "expansions", one of which only gave you new part and the other changed the very nature of the game from a God-game to an RPG-shooter. The fans were upset and complain.
So EA dropped the project. The reason behind the drop was that, clearly, they had gambled on a game idea that no one wanted.
They are doing the same thing to SimCity. I will not be surprised if Cities of Tomorrow is the ONLY expansion that SimCity gets before the servers are closed, the site is shut-down and EA gets on stage and plays the abused servant trying so hard to please an insatiable master.
