ITT:we discuss EA

ITT:we discuss EA
What did Visceral do to deserve its fate?
Why did respawn agree to EA's deal despite their reputation?
Who is next on the chopping block?

They had something EA wanted.
They probably didn't have a choice, it isn't hard to imagine a scenario where EA basically forced them to take the deal.
Whichever studio EA's wandering eye sets on next.

what the fuck is that thing on the left?

It was a branch of EA from the beginning so why should you care?
Because they're retarded sellouts
Hopefully Bioware. Then I hope EA itself.

...

i don't think bioware deserved it either, i'm just amazed they managed to keep the brand alive for so long.

They do deserve it. They've shat out nothing but garbage, which is good for ruining EA's reputation but they still need to die.

They're only human after all.

They made a deal with the devil.

Even though you only had 1 good game, and 1 mediocre game, you will be missed

Why must studios make a deal with the devil?

Their portfolio wasn't big enough. Dead Space was all that they really had, and the latest iteration underperformed. EA is big on trends, and if something underperforms, they vault the IP, can the studio, and pass it off to a new generation of underpaid new faces when the demand for it returns in cyclical demand.
Because Activision fucked over West and Zampella with their whole "Project Icebreaker" bullshit, and tried to undercut them out of their own billion-dollar franchise that they built. They went to EA as a fuck-you to Actvision, and a resalvaging effort with Respawn.

What's worse about this, is that EA's clause for Titanfall 2 was to release in the same window as Battlefield 1. Not only did EA make these two companies compete against each other (Old Battlefield talent vs. old Call of Duty talent), but that release actively sabotaged the underperforming party, enabling EA to buy their remaining assets at a steep discount due to the underperformance that EA themselves enabled. It was 100% deliberate, and it was a win-win for EA, and a loss for everyone else.

BioWare. Anthem is going to be a mediocre release, much like Destiny 2. It'll give EA the leverage to finalize the transaction and bury them. Expect mass BioWare layoff news at the end of the Summer.

Good. Their products suck ass.

Isn't Bioware just a brand name at this point? I don't think any of the original people who worked on anything of substance from the company are even there anymore.

but that's just ea. bioware was gone in 2004, maybe 2008 at latest but the brand has lived for so long.

Why did they wait so long to axe visceral anyway?
Dead space 3 came out in 2013

i wonder how much of the original crew worked on 3, i don't expect it was much.

Yup. Has been for a while, but it finalized when Zeschuk and Muzyka were "invited" to quit. It's just been a branded studio since.

A few factors here. Most of the original team was already gone after Dead Space 2. About 60% of the Dead Space 3 team were transfers from other EA-branded studios, most were former EA-Redwood alumni. Visceral had a two year timetable for a 2013 release, this is atop of a corporate reshuffling in September 2011, followed by the decision to integrate multiplayer into the game halfway through completion, while still maintaining that deadline. The team did really fucking well with all things considered.

Lastly, the limitation to Origin didn't help things. At all. Dead Space 3 underperformed on PC by a huge margin. (30%) - That reduced installation base was chalked up to being a studio fault, and not a platforming fault. Which even further devalued the perceived demand of Dead Space, and Visceral as a whole.

Reason why it took this long is stock value. Too many closures in a short enough quarterly timespan will raise flags for investors, and they'll think something is wrong at the top. If you don't hear from a studio for a while, the safe assumption is because they're working on something, when the reality is is that they were leasing empty office space with a barebones support team under the guise of productivity.

Now that it's been four years without any follow-up release, the closure can be written off as developer shortcoming, and investors won't give it a second thought, when "trimming the fat" will give the impression of upward growth.

The real question at this point is why investors fall for it. Are they just buying into a mutual fund for gayming without checking anything, or what?

That would require most investors to even remotely give a shit about gaming beyond it turning a profit.

When will AAA reform or die?
I'm sick of their fucking garbage and even normalfags are railing on most releases nowadays either because they're of poor quality or are kiked up the ass.

That's the letter R in braille.

Investors fall for it because they take everything at face value. They don't give a shit about the industry or anything within it, all they care about are green arrows and green numbers in their stock portfolios.

Shareholder meetings, you will find a lot of the same names present. JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola all hold sizeable stakes in the industry, each with their fingers in a lot of pies. If you have a company that inks a pact to mutually (and artficially) boost each other's gains, everyone at the table wins, even if the industry as a whole loses. That's business, and they'll bank on it until it's time to cash out.

Or to put it more succinctly:

So long as money talks, bullshit will always walk. The only way it'll reform or die is:

Not out of fear or pessimism here, but things are going to become worse before they become better. This new influx of DLC/lootboxing is the tip of the iceberg for games, and it's going to bring a whole different set of investors into the playing field.

I don't get how anyone still sales their franchise or studio to those monsters. I mean they probably make a massive amount of money through the deals, but to be honest if i were a developer i would rather have less money and take the pressure than allow EA or another big studio to kill my legacy.

Maybe EA isn't so bad after all
I mean valve rejected their offers and look at the fucking state they're in
Hell we might have even gotten a half decent half life game out of it

Dead Space 2 sold only 4M copies. They had to shut the studio down after such abysmal sales.

You kids are all probably too young to know this, but once upon a time, EA - with the square, circle, triangle logo that looked kind of like ECA - used to distribute good, fun C64 games without castrating developers or any of this current bullshit. They just… published good games.

Wasn't vicereal actually working on a game though? I heard the reason the entire studio was shitcanned was down to the fact that EA wanted a multiplayer lootbox when the studio was working on a single player star wars game, and they didn't want to change the game to accommodate the features.

How is that even possible ?

Made shitty games.
>Dead Space 3: action game with microtransactions, fun to play when so blackout drunk you don't even remember half of it but still solve a puzzle without much trouble

Does anyone know the deal with how Respawn was founded? According to Wikipedia, Activision fired the CEO and CTO of Infinity Ward for unspecified "insubordination", and then they poached 3/4 of Infinity Ward to come work for Respawn. Is there an expose/timeline on what the fuck went down there?

No, but from what i remembered the guy was jewed by activision for the cod franchise, and there was a lawsuit involved.

To be specific, the respawn entertainment CEO was fired becuase him and another founder filled a lawsuit against activision who apparently hadn't paid the company in weeks.

how long until they jump ship and start the cycle again?

money. It all revolves around that. The business owners are free from liability. The employees will either be retained or let go because of this deal. At the end of the story, it's the talent within that shitty company that will affected. Most business owners aren't the creative drive (just like mighty no. 9) and are just there for the shitty money and ego.

Why didn't they just go independent and get a kickstarter going? Even normalfags are sick of the direction CoD is headed in and want a game more like MW1, they would have the crowdfunding necessary to make such a title in less than a day.

I'm very disappointed about respawn, could've been something special.

Its too early yet for hope to be lost
Lets see if titanfall 3 sucks ass first

Think of EA as a necessary evil, like Doctor Jack Kevorkian. It takes dying cancerous companies and puts them out of their misery.

very well

I know it's going to be awful.. I want a game with cool robot suits and monstas. I won't play it though unless there's a crack

I am the Holy Cleansing Sacrificial Fires of Lucifer and you will Bow Down before your God

you're 15 away there faggot

Too early, Notsatan

But Respawn isn't cancerous.


Are you even trying?

EA used to be a seal of quality. The c&c series, nfs up to hp2, if it had EA on it's cover it was almost always good. But look how cancer they are now, everything that has EA written on it is bad.

that comic made by reddit? I am pretty sure it was made by reddit. Because reddit is gay and they don't know what they are talking about. According to reddit the only bad thing about EA is that they shut off studios and the fact that they release unfinished games. But reddit is okay with all the other cancer they pull, like pre orders, dlc, origin, paid cheat codes and downgraded games. God I hate reddit and normalfags.

...

Titanfall 2 was cool though

sorry kid I don't play call of duty games.

I am honestly surprised that you managed to live this long with cancer.

...

...

are you baiting? BL2 was cancer, writing was gay, dlc's are gay, season pass didn't include every dlc and gameplay got downgraded because of consoles. I could name issues all day long, like level cap ruining the balance.

There were lots of good shooters after 97, like ut99 and 2k4, half life, cs, and yes even the early cod games were decent. You have to be autistic to hate those games.

Guess you missed out on Tribes 2 then.

Even Battlefield 2 was a okay shooter, 055290 is total cancer and baiting.

What a faggot

Nice
Did you do that edit?

nah, found it on one of the previous webm threads

Aye, thanks