What, specifically, has E.A. done? *I seriously don't know*

[Sorryflip]

My only question is if it was a 5 year contract and they left when they were done. And EA was the most horrible part of that industry. Why arn't they here now?

I mean that 5 year contract ran out 9 years ago now. So what am I missing?

Not sure if I understand your question but if you mean what happened to Westwood studios?

Westwood Studios was a video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Westwood Associates and was renamed Westwood Studios when it merged with Virgin Interactive in 1992. The company was bought from Virgin Interactive by Electronic Arts (EA) in 1998, and closed by EA in 2003.

If you mean where did the ex-westwood staff go? All over the place obviously, a large chunk of the remaining employees who left EA when Westwood was shut down formed Petroglyph Games. The remaining staff was merged with Danger Close games to create EA Los Angeles.

If you look at the actual source of the wiki article: http://money.cnn.com/1998/08/17/life/q_ea/

You can read that the founders of Westwood both signed a 5 year contract. So no they did not abandon ship.

The 2 founders did not, but we don't know the extent of the other senior employees as mentioned in the Wikipedia note, which your article does not mention. And founders tend to be somewhat removed from the development process.

First of all that wikipedia note has no source, but if you're presented with a new contract by EA and you read the EA Spouse article I can understand why many employees parted ways. I imagine many left after their products were victim to rushed realease aswell.

If you question this article, it resulted in lawsuits forcing EA to pay tens of millions of dollars for unpaid overtime. Bottom line not a nice company to work for.

I'm quite aware of the EA Spouse fiasco. But having worked crunch before, it's a failure of the studio and its managers to set reasonable deadlines to maintain the health and well-being of their employees. Not the parent publisher who usually says "Here's your budget and deadline, go" and just cares about deliverables at various milestone dates. Of course the parent company would want people to work non-stop 24/7, but they're pretty removed from the actual dev process - it's up to the project managers to, you know, manage their people.

Well maybe you should actually read the EA Spouse article and you'll notice it's not just a regular crunch, the employees are exploited and being lied to by management.
If the parent publisher has control of the flow of money and sets the deadline, how come you blame it on the studio? How can you set reasonable deadlines to maintain the health and well-being of your employees, when the deadline for release is unreasonable?
Lets say for example you come with a 4 year development plan with some original features, publisher goes and sais: "I dont know about this, it should appeal to a wider audience and you'll get 2 and a half years." What are you going to do? (Keep in mind they can also say cut time, remove features halfway in development.)

Bottom line is we don't actually know what happened to Westwood exactly, atleast personally I can't find enough information on the web.
But this pattern repeats again and again and in the end EA keeps buying up and ruining gaming franchises. In the end 9 years after Westwood got shut down EA is still making money of the name Command & Conquer, yet the original developers have lost their franchise and we consumers are robbed of the quality that name used to offer.

 

[RipRoaringWaterfowl]

Fired mah Momma when Bullfrog got ate.

That's reason enough coupled with all the bullshit above me.

Wait... did your mother lose a job at Bullfrog as a result of EA's meddling, or are you kidding?

Just wondering.

 

[Charli]

Fired mah Momma when Bullfrog got ate.

That's reason enough coupled with all the bullshit above me.

Wait... did your mother lose a job at Bullfrog as a result of EA's meddling, or are you kidding?

Just wondering.

Errr yes, I was pretty young at the time, but all the free games I have from her job are from Bullfrog, so short of calling her up and reconfirming, and remembering that I lived not 10mins from Mr Molyneux at the time so I think it's one of the few game studios that was hiring at the time, She was let go around the exact time that was going on. It's annoying because she lost her direction somewhat after that.

I'm really just making a round about joke of a reason, it's what alot of companies do when they acquire smaller studios. But it's a hilarious coincidence for me not to use it.

 

[Sorryflip]

It was more that you made a point out of it being a 5 year contract. If EA closed it down then why bring it up that it was a 5 year contract? Why did that matter if the scenario played out as if EA had cull control anyway? WHy do you feel the need to put in this tidbit of information that doesn't change that EA had power over Westwood after the 5 years?

I did know a large part of the staff got jobs in EA Los Angels. I just wanted to make obvious if the 5 year contract meant anything, then they would still have existed after 5 years.

I only mentioned the 5 year contract because I was quoting this:

A big name publisher comes along and offers to buy your studio up for $$$ due to your pedigree.

Then after the buy-out, you and other seniors cash out, leaving the inexperienced devs still at the studio to pick up the pieces, thus the line of mediocre games continues, and quality continues to drop.
OH HEY, sounds similar to what happened to Westwood!

Also keep in mind those are personal contracts not 1 big contract for the entire studio.

as for your last bit

Bottom line is we don't actually know what happened to Westwood exactly, atleast personally I can't find enough information on the web.
But this pattern repeats again and again and in the end EA keeps buying up and ruining gaming franchises. In the end 9 years after Westwood got shut down EA is still making money of the name Command & Conquer, yet the original developers have lost their franchise and we consumers are robbed of the quality that name used to offer.

I am sorry it goes both ways and me listing off studios and franchisee that dies due to the developer is going to be just as long as the one you can blaming the publisher.

Like you said we dont have the information to draw a complete conclusion, yet here you are drawing one.

Who said Westwood would have done better with the franchisee?

My point is look at the studios EA took over, how many still produce quality games today?

EA even admit they screwed up!

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/02/riccitiello/

LAS VEGAS - Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello is very sorry about what happened to Bullfrog. And Westwood. And Origin Systems.

""We at EA blew it, and to a degree I was involved in these things, so I blew it."
Riccitiello said that the company's "one-management-size-fits-all" mentality with its acquisitions in the past only stifled creative freedom. "When I talked to the creators that populated these companies at the time, they felt like they were buried and stifled," he said.

EA Managment is simply a recipe for failure. They strave profit not good products which is toxic in any industry. The whole ideology behind capitalism relies on being rewarded profit for creating good products.

If you're not convinced listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6-u8OIJTE

I get that you say "EA ruined the franchise" but at least it survived. The same can not be said about every other franchise out there.

Anyway let us see what Ex-Westwood (Petroglyph Games) does makes out of End Of Nations. Maybe this is the direction they would have taken C&C if they had kept it. See if it is any fun. If it hits the original C&C mark then "yipee". C&C stayed in spirit with the original developers. If not then that kinda just hammers my point in even deeper.

EDIT: I just vent through the list of games that they have made without EA, and found they were the minds behind Universe at War: Earth Assault. I am now a 100% confident that having westwood work on C&C would not have been a guarantee for it being good.

Petroglyph Games is not Westwood, Westwood studios has been scattered. Petroglyph Games is just a fragment going it's own direction. The formula behind good c&c games has been lost, in the case of c&c 4 completely abandoned even, its a completely different game with c&c printed on it just to make more money. Yes I blame EA for that.

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

Personally it's the bloody online passes. I didn't buy Battlefield 3 for the single player only. I bought it as a package deal with both multiplayer and single player. Same for Saints Row. I could care less if a special code gets me something early or an extra gun or something but it's complete bull to lock entire game modes.

CURSE YOU PROJECT TEN DOLLAR!

 

[BeeGeenie]

EA doesn't understand the game business anymore.
People want good games, not just sequels to popular titles, by developers that have been bought out and forced to cut corners to meet unreasonable deadlines. Would some of those developers have failed anyway? Probably, but at least they would have failed on their own merit, and not because they were unable to conform to EA's unreasonable expectations.
They don't understand their target audience: Their marketing proves that they think their customers are all slack-jawed man-children.
As far as customer service goes, I don't have any horror stories, but DRM is just the very definition of bad policy: Punishing paying customers because pirates exist. I could understand the old CD-Key code thing, but always online and secuROM can suck my D!(%.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Well my ire against them first started rising with that Dead Space 2 marketing campaign, like really EA, are you trying to kill the industry? 'Cause you're going about it the right way. However the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was a story that popped up last year roughly around the time Modern Warfare 3 was released. Activision had just hired a new person for... something or other, I forget; and the guy had released a statement something to the effect of friendly competition or something. EA's response to this was to immediately cut the guy down and to allege that dirty mudslinging nonsense was par for the course and that he should get used to it. The article was here on the Escapist, although I don't know if it can still be dug up. Anyway, my thought after reading that was that any company that thinks that's normal is not a company I want to have anything to do with.

EDIT: To put it another way, I see EA as the forerunner of the corporatization of the Video Game industry which is the worst thing to happen to the industry since the great crash of '83.

 

[Easton Dark]

Hey look, it's those cool new IPs that EA gave an extremely high sales quota to reach or be cance-

awwwwww

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I just want to point out, to everyone saying EA is universally responsible for making bad games with good companies, take out your "System Shock 2" box. Now, look at the publisher. EA? Well, they didn't own either of the developers, so surely they didn't have much say in the game, right?

Well, actually, the game was originally designed to be an original game, which Looking Glass Studios approached Irrational games with, as shown in this interview [http://www.gamespot.com/system-shock-2/videos/system-shock-2-retrospective-interview-6109962/]. So how did it become the beloved sequel it is? When the pair were pitching the game around to developers, EA suggested making it into System Shock 2, EA owning the rights to "System Shock", and the story was rewritten to fit in with the System Shock universe. Proof. [http://www.edge-online.com/features/making-system-shock-2]

In other words, without EA, System Shock 2 would have never existed.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I just want to point out, to everyone saying EA is universally responsible for making bad games with good companies, take out your "System Shock 2" box. Now, look at the publisher. EA? Well, they didn't own either of the developers, so surely they didn't have much say in the game, right?

Well, actually, the game was originally designed to be an original game, which Looking Glass Studios approached Irrational games with, as shown in this interview [http://www.gamespot.com/system-shock-2/videos/system-shock-2-retrospective-interview-6109962/]. So how did it become the beloved sequel it is? When the pair were pitching the game around to developers, EA suggested making it into System Shock 2, EA owning the rights to "System Shock", and the story was rewritten to fit in with the System Shock universe. Proof. [http://www.edge-online.com/features/making-system-shock-2]

In other words, without EA, System Shock 2 would have never existed.

That was years ago.

Which makes the current EA look all the more worse, considering how far it has fallen.

 

[Sorryflip]

You still missed the overall point.

Westwood could have screwed it up just as badly. We have seen it before.

At least Westwood was giving 5 years of work and job opportunities afterwards. And as much as you might hate to admit it even if you say "Still produce quality titles today" they were the ones paying for the production of the titles then. What you have there is more a take on "they dont make good games anymore!".

Im sorry. I like Battlefield, ME, Burnout Paradise. You biases arn't universal.

No I think you miss my point, at the time when virgin sold westwood to EA Westwood seemed to be looking great. EA Even admit they screwed up.

Westwood could've screwed up sure everyone can, but they didn't even get the chance to since EA screwed it up for them. They could've succeeded on their own aswell, they could've succeeded with EA if they didn't push the release dates maybe? But what's the point about debating what could've happend? Fact is that it happened like this,and it's not just Westwood my point is that its a consisting trend. You can already see it happening to Bioware and unless EA actually learns from their mistakes the name Bioware is gonna have it even harder.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I just want to point out, to everyone saying EA is universally responsible for making bad games with good companies, take out your "System Shock 2" box. Now, look at the publisher. EA? Well, they didn't own either of the developers, so surely they didn't have much say in the game, right?

Well, actually, the game was originally designed to be an original game, which Looking Glass Studios approached Irrational games with, as shown in this interview [http://www.gamespot.com/system-shock-2/videos/system-shock-2-retrospective-interview-6109962/]. So how did it become the beloved sequel it is? When the pair were pitching the game around to developers, EA suggested making it into System Shock 2, EA owning the rights to "System Shock", and the story was rewritten to fit in with the System Shock universe. Proof. [http://www.edge-online.com/features/making-system-shock-2]

In other words, without EA, System Shock 2 would have never existed.

That was years ago.

Which makes the current EA look all the more worse, considering how far it has fallen.

But it was also at the same time as the failings of studios that EA bought such as Westwood and Bullfrog. That's the part I'm pointing out. People point to those as examples of how EA sucks the life out of gaming studios like a parasite, while ignoring the good games EA was also responsible for at the time.

As for now, here's a list of studios EA bought out, besides Bioware, that are still open.

Spoiler: EA studios

Bioware
Criterion Games (Burnout)
EA Black Box (known as Black Box Games prior to buyout, known for "Need for Speed" and "Skate")
Popcap Games
Playfish (free-to-play social games)
Mythic Entertainment (Warhammer Online)
Maxis (The Sims)
EA Tiburon (formerly Tiburon Games, makes "Madden NFL")
EA Salt Lake (formerly Headgate Studios, makes Wii games)
EA Phenomic (formerly Phenomic Game Development, currently working on a "Command and Conquer" MMORTS

Just pointing out, EA isn't "sucking the life" out of all of its studios. In fact, for every studio that they've ever closed, there are two more still open.

What's this? People focusing more on the negative while dismissing the positive? I've never heard of that before!

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

You still missed the overall point.

Westwood could have screwed it up just as badly. We have seen it before.

At least Westwood was giving 5 years of work and job opportunities afterwards. And as much as you might hate to admit it even if you say "Still produce quality titles today" they were the ones paying for the production of the titles then. What you have there is more a take on "they dont make good games anymore!".

Im sorry. I like Battlefield, ME, Burnout Paradise. You biases arn't universal.

No I think you miss my point, at the time when virgin sold westwood to EA Westwood seemed to be looking great. EA Even admit they screwed up.

Westwood could've screwed up sure everyone can, but they didn't even get the chance to since EA screwed it up for them. They could've succeeded on their own aswell, they could've succeeded with EA if they didn't push the release dates maybe? But what's the point about debating what could've happend? Fact is that it happened like this,and it's not just Westwood my point is that its a consisting trend. You can already see it happening to Bioware and unless EA actually learns from their mistakes the name Bioware is gonna have it even harder.

Like I already pointed out. Shitty games will get made without EA and I still like Biowares products. The "Bioware is going to be lost" is hipster bullshit where "their best games were made by themselve". I like the games they have made with EA publishing them (with exception of DA:2). You keep drawing conclusions on your own biases.

I am typing this mostly to avoid a low content warning, because all I have to say is I agree with you completely. Hell, I think the Mass Effect series, after replaying the first one, improved after EA bought Bioware. In summary:

You are not alone.

 

[lapan]

For the record, Spore was the most pirated game for 2008, according to TorrentFreak. And it was released in September, so it got the most downloads in less than 3 months. Also, for reference, it had 1 700 000 downloads, while the second one (Sims 2) had 1 150 000[/footnote] - legitimate customers were most probably forced to pirate it, in order to play it. Aside from this basic disregard of people, EA is well known to have banned people and denied them access to their games for, get this, complaining on their forums. "Hey I don't like X..." "Sorry Fuck you, you won't be playing any of our games any more." You have to admit, OP, that is pretty disgusting thing to do.

Funnily i didnt have any problems with spore... until i got a new pc and found out they hid the savefiles in about 2 different temporary folders. Every other game is smart enough to either save them under documents or in their own folder. When i found out it was already to late :/

 

[Sorryflip]

You still missed the overall point.

Westwood could have screwed it up just as badly. We have seen it before.

At least Westwood was giving 5 years of work and job opportunities afterwards. And as much as you might hate to admit it even if you say "Still produce quality titles today" they were the ones paying for the production of the titles then. What you have there is more a take on "they dont make good games anymore!".

Im sorry. I like Battlefield, ME, Burnout Paradise. You biases arn't universal.

No I think you miss my point, at the time when virgin sold westwood to EA Westwood seemed to be looking great. EA Even admit they screwed up.

Westwood could've screwed up sure everyone can, but they didn't even get the chance to since EA screwed it up for them. They could've succeeded on their own aswell, they could've succeeded with EA if they didn't push the release dates maybe? But what's the point about debating what could've happend? Fact is that it happened like this,and it's not just Westwood my point is that its a consisting trend. You can already see it happening to Bioware and unless EA actually learns from their mistakes the name Bioware is gonna have it even harder.

Like I already pointed out. Shitty games will get made without EA and I still like Biowares products. The "Bioware is going to be lost" is hipster bullshit where "their best games were made by themselve". I like the games they have made with EA publishing them (with exception of DA:2). You keep drawing conclusions on your own biases.

While shitty games will get made without EA, imo EA is taking gaming in the wrong direction. Shittier games will be made with. I judge EA on their actions, facts I have collected do not look good. Does that make me biased?

 

[runic knight]

They represent everything wrong with the game industry. Can't put it any simpler then that.

Lets see.
1. They buy up then destroy properties and companies. One does not have to look deep into their history to see how often this goes down. Ah, poor spoony, I could feel the emotion when talking about what they did to Ultima...

2. They don't respect the customer. From the advertising campaigns that are outright offensive to gamers, to stupid statements released about being top dog in critic ratings rather then actually quality products, to releasing the same games year after year, to constantly bashing the competition... it all shows they don't think of the customer as anything more then a mindless drone with money. You don't want a quality game, you want what we say is the top game this year. We wont win you over with quality, we'll just bash the competition. You wont try something new, here, have the same shit repackaged, made more "mainstream", and so indistinguishable from anything else, you can't tell what game it is by looking at them side by side.

3. DRM. Nothing like preventing you from playing the game you paid for and own because of their insecurities, right?

4. Customer service is abysmal. That is all.

5. Over-saturation and lack of innovation or variation. Touched on before, but special mention is worth noting.

6. Offensive business practices. How many questionable legal moves have they done now, either to soot down or interfere with other publishers, game makers or anyone else? To say nothing about the rights of the gamers being non-existent in their eyes.

7. Annoying business practices. Worth mentioning just to add to the list. Day one/on disk DLC, content that shouldn't be locked since it came with the game itself and is just added to suck more money out of people. I don't think companies shouldn't be able to make dlc but some on, if you bought the game, you should get everything on the damn disk at least. If you are only selling part of the game, only charge me part of the price.

8. The heads of the company represent the worst attitudes in the industry. This is more specific, in that they are the ones not just encouraging but mandating the same behavior I have been listing up til now. It is these higher ups that cause the damage and it shows neither an understanding nor a care for ethical business practices, rather, a more money grub mentality where they are trying to squeeze the last cent before the holes in their money balloon let the last of their hot air out and they plummet to the ground, most likely jumping ship in a similar fashion as the people they seem to be having issues with at the moment. You know the ones who are being investigated for insider trading and the like.