Electronic Arts: Greed Is Not the Problem

[Shamus Young]

Electronic Arts: Greed Is Not the Problem

I don't have a problem with companies making money. I don't think "greed" is a bad thing. I don't have a problem with people getting rich. What I do have a problem with is wasted potential and disgraceful incompetence.

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[Insideout Ink Demon]

Nice comparisons, a really enjoyable read.

 

[Kieve]

Articles like this should be required reading for everyone at EA. God willing, someone will get a lightbulb over their head and realize how badly they've been screwing the pooch all these years.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

Very good read, but it could be better if there were any proposed solutions. What EA does not need is someone else telling them they suck again. as stated, the world has already done that, twice.

They need an executive bloodletting and a transformation of company focus. Until then, they will continue to be a meatgrinder that turns talent and potential into outrage and disappointment.

This is a tangential solution to a difficult problem because the mass public, in this case gamers in particular, have no visibility into the share holder meetings. The problem is less likely the publicly flaunted CEO and more likely the shareholders themselves. The more stress a publicly traded company gets, the more the shareholders try to be backstreet drivers. I mean, that is exactly their right as a shareholder, but it is often where more problems arise.

IMO the best way to start a transformation here is to get very public visibility into the high-up meetings. This would force people to own up to their words and help highlight where and why the crappy decisions are made. Unfortunately, this will never happen.

To change the way a big company thinks you have to completely change the company, because so long as any of the original investors or decision makers remain, there will always be the exact same requirements being passed down from on high.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

A good write up as always Shamus. You're column is always enjoyable to read.

Now that the gushing is out of the way, a word about EA.

BLEEEEEEEEEECH!

That is the word, and it's the only one I can find to describe my disdain for them as an entity in gaming in 2014. I cannot believe that in a company who employs thousands of people, no one seems to know one simple premise; No one ever got to number one by following someone else. Their current model is a map drawing them to the lower tier.

See Activision run, Run EA Run. See Activision milk modern military shooters, milk modern military shooters EA, milk!

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

All they need to do is shut up and let the developers make the games they want to make. Don't pressure them to make the next CoD killer, WoW killer etc. Just let the creative people use their talents. They are so incompetent that doing nothing would be preferable to what they are doing.

 

[Hiramas]

I wrote this in the FB discussion, but they never go anywhere, so here again:

The problem is: EA won't change, their failure is written in their DNA. Nobody would care for EA if they stopped buying companys. They are just a corporate zombie, feasting on the creative brains of successful devs. And if the aquired devs and IPs dont meet the corporate nutritional needs, the get axed. But even then EA doesnt offer to sell the IPs, maybe even to the fired devs which are making a new studio, no, they sit on it and let it rot (Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital...) It is the inner rot of an ultra-capitalist company.
EA approaches the game market like the movie or tv business, but games are not TV shows. Additionally, gamers and devs resist to this burning of creative energy. At least as much as they can.

But i have to disagree on one point: Yes always on and forced multiplayer were bad decisions, but Sim City hit the cliffs of its own ambitions. Their new simulation engine is a genius bit of work that just does not work for a city builder scale. In this ONE case, maybe it would have been better for EA to step in and demand "more of the same", because thats what we wanted. A modern, updated Sim City 4.
I despise EA with an energy that is amazing to myself sometimes, but on this one, its Maxis fault, imho.

 

[Petromir]

I'm not sure it's fair to say everything EA puts out is shit. Theres usually some at least good stuff in their output every year, but nothing like as much as they should be able to put out.

 

[Barbas]

I think I need to learn the fiddle so I can play it gleefully when that company finally burns. What isn't going to be funny, though, is the number of people who will end up losing their jobs.

Well written article, Shamus.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

All they need to do is shut up and let the developers make the games they want to make. Don't pressure them to make the next CoD killer, WoW killer etc. Just let the creative people use their talents. They are so incompetent that doing nothing would be preferable to what they are doing.

This. A publisher publishes games, ideally. A publisher shouldn't have to milk franchises ruthlessly or scramble to destroy and reassemble a popular IP because it desperately needs the shortfalls from IAPs.

We don't need games that are made with an Excel spreadsheet and a checklist. We need games that ooze passion and that go back to that core tenet EA's eighties' incarnation wanted to stick to.

Can a computer make you cry?

I don't know if it can, I even doubt it can; but this kind of ethos, this basic question, suggests that game-making should come from the heart, not from some sort of fiscally mandated do-or-die arbitrary "success". If they can ever manage to go back to that, EA's going to regain at least a fraction of its dignity.

 

[TheMadJack]

There is no way I can say how much I agree with this.

EA offers no value in the vast majority of its products, they've been throwing any semblance of intelligent management out the door for quite a while and the end result won't be a beauty to behold. Within 10 years top they'll be sold to, hopefully, an entity that will know what to do with it.

 

[Eri]

Very nice article~

I would not be surprised if EA ends up winning a 3rd consecutive worst company in usa award. God knows they haven't tried shaking their shitshow of an image.

 

[MoltenSilver]

As much as I wish it would be for the sake of the IP under it's control, I simply don't think it's possible for EA to change at this point; it's a titanic entity that can't even find its own feet most of the time, much less keep track of anything else going on inside it; everything is is well-entrenched in the 'this is how we do things, because it worked once and we refuse to believe the market will/has changed', and I'd be amazed if the boardroom was anything but an echo-chamber with only ruthlessly-spun positive facts being allowed to be vocalized without the implied threat of getting thrown out the top-story window. Even in a hypothetical future of major shakeup reform, I firmly believe the company would rip itself to shreds from too many perspectives pulling in too many different direction rather than successfully rejuvenate itself.

Bluntly the best-case scenario right now is something catastrophic happens and kills it quickly so the IP can finally wind up in hands who actually have ideas how to use them.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Very good read, but it could be better if there were any proposed solutions.

"Be more like Valve"?

/OP I don't have anything against EA but it's nice to round up all their shit for a crash course on why-it's-evil.

 

[teamcharlie]

So they're...not-Valve? That's EA's problem? I don't think there's much EA can do with that without pretty much demolishing everything and starting from scratch. And 'incompetent' is not a criticism so much as it is an insult. There's nowhere to go from incompetent aside from firing somebody.

Perhaps you could say the problem is a lack of trust. The big-wigs don't trust their creatives to do their jobs effectively, so the big bosses farm out work to a whole bunch of technically proficient but largely unconnected people instead of fewer and less-reliable but more inspired individuals, focus group everything (poorly it seems) to avoid offending people but also to tailor things to whatever their demographic is which ultimately renders the content pretty samey, and advertise things to death with that same blunt pandering-to-the-demographic brush.

What could solve that? I dunno. However you solve trust issues, I'd imagine. Therapy, friends, hang out with the creative teams more often, trust exercises, whatever. Point is, EA is not dumb. Quite the opposite. Their tactics just aren't tailored very well to the games industry.

 

[Rawbeard]

On the upside every company EA takes over starts to bleed talent and rot from the inside. Wait...

 

[Something Amyss]

Greed is bad. It leads t hoarding of assets and especially in artistic and entertainment fields stifles growth.

Other than this, I don't know what to say. It seemed more like a PR piece for Valve, and I don't really think it's fair to pan an anti-competitive group while praising another.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Very nice article~

I would not be surprised if EA ends up winning a 3rd consecutive worst company in usa award. God knows they haven't tried shaking their shitshow of an image.

I consistently find it surprising that the company manages to win this award. They do, after all, manage to make products liked by many and the atrocities to their name amount to little more than petty squabbles about what ten bucks ought to buy someone. While no means a bastion of nobility, to assert that a company that at the very worst makes a product you don't want is somehow the worst one in the US is silly.

Compare EA to any number of banks and investment houses, or a host of companies in the agricultural industry, or a selection of companies in petroleum exploration and exploitation or any of a variety of other firms. These are companies that have destroyed lives and communities and helped foster disasters on a global scale. How is it that EA somehow manages to be worse?

 

[Frozengale]

All they need to do is shut up and let the developers make the games they want to make. Don't pressure them to make the next CoD killer, WoW killer etc. Just let the creative people use their talents. They are so incompetent that doing nothing would be preferable to what they are doing.

You're MOSTLY right in that respect. But you do need to keep pressure on the devs. When it comes down to it Video Game are a business. If your devs have no money left, are begging you for a few more months to polish up a new IP that has no real hype or guarantee of selling then that's when the business side has to come in and push it out the door in hopes of recouping your losses. The problem is that EA doesn't do this with risky IPs. They do this with their biggest guaranteed hits. They tell Bioware to make Dragon Age 2 in one year and then the Dragon Age IP suffers for it. They then tell Bioware to release Mass Effect 3 early, forcing the lead writers to cram in a script that hasn't been reviewed and edited by the rest of the team. They force Sim City out the door before all the server issues have been resolved, or even tested. These are the games that you KNOW will sell well, so you should be giving your devs huge amounts of lee way time wise. Instead they get worried about their quarterly earnings and explaining that to the Investors, so they force the games and act like there isn't any problem with it.