Lumber Barber said:
Yeah, because devs just happen to become shitty and die after a few years of milking when they're purchased by EA?
Considering their track record... I'd be willing to say yes.
Westwood - Acquired in 1998, closed in 2003.
Mythic - Acquired in 2006, have only released
Warhammer Online since then.
Maxis - Acquired in 1997, died after
Sim City 4 and were folded into another studio. They had a final "Hurrah" with
Spore and whatever reanimated husk is being thrown at
Sim City 5, it's not Maxis.
Bullfrog - Acquired in 1995, released two decent games and a few "shovelware" games until 2001, closed in 2003.
Pandemic - Acquired in 2007, released three games, closed in 2009.
Origin Systems - Acquired in 1992, released their last game in 1999 and were closed in 2004. - These were the guys responsible for
Wing Commander,
System Shock, and the
Ultima series. And they still got crushed by EA.
DICE Canada - Closed after Digital Illusions CE was acquired by EA in 2006.
Maybe other big publishers have lists that are just as bad, and sure EA still has a bunch of studios still kicking around, but I'd say that's some pretty damning evidence if I ever saw some.
DICE tried to up the ante a bit with
Mirror's Edge, and so far that's mostly been relegated to a cult hit even though it generally had pretty decent reviews. So they're chugging along with
Battlefield titles with rumors of a sequel being sprung and squashed almost constantly.
Bioware has met probably the largest amount of scorn I've ever seen spewed out at once over
Dragon Age 2,
Mass Effect 3, and for some people
Mass Effect 2.
Crytek is living entirely off of the
Crysis series now (with
Far Cry having been sold off to Ubisoft), and most of the people who were fans of the first are all pissy about the different directions it's taken because of moving to consoles.
Visceral Games has had a studio in Australia close down recently, and the only thing they're actually known for in the last four years is
Dead Space (a decent if not particularly scary survival-horror third-person shooter) and
Dante's Inferno (the less said about the game, and how EA advertised it, the better).
Captcha: "face the music"