Valve vaguely open to discussing being acquired, community reacts accordingly - by june gloom
addink on 7/8/2008 at 21:56
Quote Posted by catbarf
They produce same-y games year after year with minor improvements, have a marked lack of creativity and instead preferring to milk franchises dry, and in regards to their programmers they have decided that a man
is a piece of fruit.
Old news.
Since a year or two they've got a new head honcho that actively tries to address the reputation issues.
And, though EA has been naughty indeed, he does seem to stick to his word. The aforementioned Mirror's Edge, but also Spore and Dead Space are in no way IP rehashes.
Sure they still churn out generic movie IP based games, but that's just common market sense. Toy manufacturers aren't attacked when they release another set of MovieIP based dolls and action figures (how imaginative:
those haven't been done before). Why bother attacking the videogame developer that churns out another platform action adventure. Who really buys those? Also: do you really expect them to be Art?
---
As for buying yet another developer/publisher: The EA trackrecord is very sad indeed. We can only hope that they've changed their policies on that front too. But its too early to tell, BioWare has only recently been acquired and Valve and Take2 have not been acquired yet.
I'd hate to see another Origin, Bullfrog or Westwood story. However I did always wonder what would have happened if EA had not stepped in.
All of these companies basically whithered because their main driving forces, the top creatives, had stepped out.
Often the finger is pointed at EA for causing this, but if there's a good succesful creative team at work, it doesn't really matter who is at the receiving end of the cashflow, creatives are happy when they can excercise their creativity and get paid. The only problem that new management for a succesful team can cause is forcing decisions that the team feels are bad. And strangely you never really hear about those.
So I'm wondering could it be that the creatives were becoming unhappy to start out with, and that EA was just fuel for the fire. Would Bullfrog or Westwood ever have been able to top their legacy as it stands now?
Look at Lucas Arts they managed to kill themselves without any help from EA.
Just wondering..
CCCToad on 7/8/2008 at 22:27
What s done.....
Lets start off with a list of good studios which have been acquired by EA, and have since (in my opinion, obviously) taken a hit in terms of game quality. Others on this list no longer exist, or have seen their IP's cancelled or fallen victim to "madden syndrome" (yearly sequels even more buggy than the last installment)
- Bullfrog
- Westwood Studios
-Maxis.
-Origin
-Novalogic
-Tiburon
Now, a list of game series which have withered (and often, died) under EA's management and possession of the IPs. Only games I liked in their prime are on this list:
- Command and Conquer series.
- Comanche
-Simcity, and related series.
- Populous
- Ultima
- JANE's combat series.
- System Shock
And one in particular that bugged me, was Earth and Beyond. From the beginning, the game was under-financed and under-promoted by EA, which is a pity. If the game had stayed under westwood's management, there is little doubt in my mind that it would currently be Earth and Beyond, not World of Warcraft, as the leader of the MMORPG genre. However, EA's controlling nature is apparent in particular aspect of the game's history.
As revealed by the game's storyboard documents, released after its closing, the game's overrall story arc was to be a three-part affair: The first part was to involve a civil war between the game's three factions, the second an insurrection by the "psis"(not taking the time to explain here), and the last arc would involve a conflix with the "V'rix" aliens seen traveling around the game-world since open beta.
EA's marketing division, in their infinite wisdom, decided that this plotline wasn't "cool" enough to attract players. So they told the game's developers to make the storyline involving the alien conflict take place first, so they could advertise a conflict with the "mysterious alien race". As a result, the game world suffered: Instead of the smooth, natural progression, the game's storyline and gameworld became a somewhat disjointed, confusing affair.
yes, the other companies are bad too. But there are my reasons for hating EA: They have killed off more of favorite series from when I was younger than any other publisher in the business. Of course, I still dislike Ubisoft for what happened to Sierra, and Microsoft for what become of FASA. But neither of those compares with the number of my favorite series destroyed by EA.
Zygoptera on 7/8/2008 at 22:35
Quote Posted by addink
Old news.
Since a year or two they've got a new head honcho that actively tries to address the reputation issues.
Oh dearie.
FYI EA's (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Riccitiello) New Dear Leader was it's Old Glorious Leader from 1997-2004. You know, the time when it was went through its last cycle of acquiring successful studios, driving their creatives out, shutting them down. But I'm sure he's changed, after all, he says he has.
sergeantgiggles on 7/8/2008 at 22:55
Isn't anyone else going to bitch about the online activation DRM on Mass Effect and Spore, or am I the only one?
redrain85 on 7/8/2008 at 23:26
The main reason why Valve keeps making awesome, is because they're a private company and can do whatever the hell they want. They don't have to answer to greedy shareholders, who only give a fuck about how well their shares are doing.
Take that away, by becoming a part of a publicly traded company, and the suckage will start to creep in. Slowly, but surely. In spite of EA's assurances that they want to clean up their act.
Valve is notorious for missing promised release dates, in order to perfect their games. EA's shareholders will absolutely loathe them for that, and no doubt try to put pressure on Valve through EA, any way they can.
BlackCapedManX on 8/8/2008 at 02:29
Agreed with above.
Valve looks at a game like Narbacular Drop says "this is cool, we should have some of this, lets drop barrels of money on these guys" and then fucking does it. Hence Portal.
If EA possessed Valve, would that happen? I think the mere potential for the future of gaming would suffer greatly if Valve is absorbed by another entity, to say nothing of the actual games that could get made.
Plus Valve seems to be sitting pretty on a really solid money making setup ("here, you guys make a game, for you know, whomever, and we'll sell it online, so you make some money, and we make some money") why would they want to get rid of it? Also wasn't it not to long ago that someone at Valve had buyouts by EA or Microsoft mentioned in an interview and smuggly replied "we're not currently interested in purchasing either company"? (I could find the article as I'm sure I saved it, but I think I found it through here anyway, plus, lazy.)
icemann on 8/8/2008 at 06:01
I`m still waiting to see what the vivendi / Activision merger results in. I`m just hoping that blizzards games stay at their same quality.
CCCToad: You forgot to mention the Crusader series (Crusader No Remorse, No Regret etc). A 3rd game was in development until EA came along. That series of games kicked ass. The Ultima rpgs died far more because of Ultima Online than EA really. They did release Ultima 9 after UO came out, but the game reeked of UO and sucked ass.
ZymeAddict: That video was very bizare, though strangely amusing.
And I agree alot that Valve is the kindof company that they are, because they are a privately listed company and not one that relies on its shareholders agreeing with their decisions. Just look at Take 2`s current issues with its shareholders.
sergeantgiggles on 8/8/2008 at 06:03
I meant again, in this thread, since we're EA bashing and all. It's rare to see that sort of thing actually exhausted in its thread.
I'll leave quietly.
Maddermadcat on 8/8/2008 at 06:32
I'd like to see valve get acquired just so I can watch their fanboys bitch and moan in agony. :ebil:
