Honestly at this point I can't even bring myself to blame EA for doing what it does to developers that sell themselves to it.
I hate EA for doing it, make no mistake about it. A lot of good talent is wasted by them for doing this.
I just can't help but point the finger at the dev group instead for:
1. Selling everything to EA, with or without strings attached in an effort to pretend they're still themselves. (As it matters not one bit of difference in the end.)
2. For the people that stay with the company as they witness their group go from making great games to being instructed on putting out trash, knowing full well how people will react to it, and knowing full well that EA will close their doors after just 1 or 2 poorly received games.
The thing is, this has happened WAY too often already. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. They all knew what was going to happen, they should have started looking for new jobs the second their original boss sold the company. Especially after the boss jumps ship. For the employees and spouses of employees working there that went "This was a complete shock/surprise!" ... well, they obviously haven't been paying attention for the last decade or two.
This is likely due to the latest stinker the company made, the new Dungeon Keeper mobile game that was very poorly received by the masses. From what I remember reading about it, you didn't play the game so much as let it run itself while you wait hours/days for your few minions to finish whatever task you assigned them.... unless you paid real money to speed things up. Seriously, any game developer should have been able to look at what they were doing and said "fuck... I better brush up the resume."
I completely agree. Nowadays, future devs can't possibly not know that selling their company to EA is going to be the kiss of death... yet it continues to happen. Despite the fact that at this point in time it seems more like EA is like the kid in kindergarten that can't stop himself from eating paste or whatever... they simply seem to be unable to prevent themselves from mismanaging these companies and running them into the ground, because they just don't know how to operate otherwise. It's as if it's their very nature to do this sort of thing, whether they actively want to or not.
As such, then, any company that sells themselves out to EA in this day and age deserves every terrible damn thing that will happen to them. Yes, it sucks to lose companies like Mythic or BioWare (and yeah, BioWare, your days are surely numbered too) or whoever, but they should have goddamn known that this bullshit would happen to them the instant they allowed themselves to get bought by EA.
But you mentioned the higher ups in the company that jump ship... yeah, what the fuck do they care if their company gets run into the dirt later. They got theirs. They just take the money and run (and then blame it all on the fan reaction (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/602143.html)). It would be great if the rest of the company could just stand up and say, "Look, you stupid, greedy assholes, if you're going to sell to EA then we'll be walking out the door tomorrow and you won't even have a company to sell into ruin anymore," though.
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chiming
no subject
Date: 2014-05-31 03:42 pm (UTC)From:I hate EA for doing it, make no mistake about it. A lot of good talent is wasted by them for doing this.
I just can't help but point the finger at the dev group instead for:
1. Selling everything to EA, with or without strings attached in an effort to pretend they're still themselves. (As it matters not one bit of difference in the end.)
2. For the people that stay with the company as they witness their group go from making great games to being instructed on putting out trash, knowing full well how people will react to it, and knowing full well that EA will close their doors after just 1 or 2 poorly received games.
The thing is, this has happened WAY too often already. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. They all knew what was going to happen, they should have started looking for new jobs the second their original boss sold the company. Especially after the boss jumps ship. For the employees and spouses of employees working there that went "This was a complete shock/surprise!" ... well, they obviously haven't been paying attention for the last decade or two.
This is likely due to the latest stinker the company made, the new Dungeon Keeper mobile game that was very poorly received by the masses. From what I remember reading about it, you didn't play the game so much as let it run itself while you wait hours/days for your few minions to finish whatever task you assigned them.... unless you paid real money to speed things up. Seriously, any game developer should have been able to look at what they were doing and said "fuck... I better brush up the resume."
no subject
Date: 2014-05-31 04:50 pm (UTC)From:As such, then, any company that sells themselves out to EA in this day and age deserves every terrible damn thing that will happen to them. Yes, it sucks to lose companies like Mythic or BioWare (and yeah, BioWare, your days are surely numbered too) or whoever, but they should have goddamn known that this bullshit would happen to them the instant they allowed themselves to get bought by EA.
But you mentioned the higher ups in the company that jump ship... yeah, what the fuck do they care if their company gets run into the dirt later. They got theirs. They just take the money and run (and then blame it all on the fan reaction (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/602143.html)). It would be great if the rest of the company could just stand up and say, "Look, you stupid, greedy assholes, if you're going to sell to EA then we'll be walking out the door tomorrow and you won't even have a company to sell into ruin anymore," though.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-31 05:47 pm (UTC)From:http://i.imgur.com/zFrTB.jpg
Frightful how easy it was to google this up.