DICE: EA Gets "Too Much Crap for Not Being Innovative"

[DTWolfwood]

I'd call it innovative if they went back to WWII with their Battlefield Series

I'd love to see a remake of 1942 with the Frostbite 2 engine.

P.s. if you are looking for innovative within a franchise one need look no further than Creative Assembly and their Total War Series. To non-players it all looks the same, but the tweaks and new features within each game are amazing additions.

 

[nodlimax]

A >>>>general manager<<<< is protecting the company he's working for. What a surprise. A suit defending the actions of other suits.

Nothing to see here, move along!

EA still is a company I wouldn't buy anything from anymore.

 

[Zipa]

protecting existing IPs EA? Bullfrog Westwood and origin studios would like a word with you .

 

[RJ 17]

"Innovation is something that actually changes something for the better, renews something -- and I think we do that all the time," he added. "But some of them are big and some of them are small, and some people disagree, saying, 'That's not an innovation!' and it's like, 'No, maybe not for you, but for the people playing the game it's a big thing,'"

So that's what innovation is. Alright. So what do you call it when EA takes a survival horror franchise and turns it into a co-op 3rd person shooter? Is that innovation or homogenization so that you can, quote "reach out to a broader audience because if this game doesn't sell 5 milliion copies the franchise is getting the axe"?

Sorry. Mr. DICE, but your argument falls flat when a game like Dead Space 3 cries out in agony "I coulda been somebody! I coulda been a contender!"

 

[TheMadJack]

He does have a point.

Problem is, nothing in what he says apply to EA.

Also, as others pointed out, a tiny innovation in a game doesn't make a full IP innovative. It just add a little good thing.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I'd just like to point out that DICE only co developed NFS: Hot pursuit, and I'm pretty sure the same can be said for Medal of Honour too.

The only major new IP DICE has released is Mirrors Edge (which was fantastic imo) and yet that is what hasn't been re addressed often. Medal of Honour is getting another sequel, and that reboot from a couple of years ago sucked big time.

EA probably does get more crap than they deserve you're right, but they still deserve to get crap.

 

[Shinsei-J]

Huh, you make some good points DICE, to bad that all of 'em get squashed by EA's yearly games being as stagnant as a white turd.
Glorified patches I tell you.

Now let's talk about "niche markets" shall we? Hmm?
Think of them as a small hole at the back of gaming that gets filled nicely by smaller developers.
This is where EA jumps in and buys out these "smaller" guys, but EA is not happy with the size of these hole.
So EA starts cramming extra things in to stretch the holes out, this may make some extra room eventually and this pleases EA but over time it does nothing but damage the hole and make it too stretched out to be filled any more.
In the end EA leaves the hole, damaged and hurt, because EA can't fill it any more and doesn't want to anyway.
It will take awhile for this hole to be fixed and sometime for someone else to want fill it.
Thanks EA the hole has been broken, just because they wanted a bigger, looser hole.

 

[WashAran]

If they had the ability to repackage literally the same game every year and charge full retail price for it, they would.

sarcasm?

 

[snekadid]

Ahem... Changing the font is not innovation and neither is changing the color of your HUD.

When i first read this one major thought jumped into my mind, who the hell is DICE? Then i read the list of games and thought, "ok so they made mirrors edge and... o god what is this drivel."

Developers of some of the least innovative games in the history of gaming don't have the right to support other peoples ability to innovate. They make crap, and making a game like mirrors edge doesn't remove the stain of mediocrity that covers them from head to toe. Saving a child from a fire does not excuse a life of mass murder.

Atleast the pokemon series generally adds more than just a updated roster of new vermin that you have to collect, like you know... a story.

 

[Something Amyss]

"innovation" is a meaningless buzzword. Sure, they're "innovative," I'll give them that, because it's an empty word.

But what of the games he listed besides Battlefield? Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit even taks its name from a prior installment in the franchise that has had a yearly release for most (if not all) of that decade he references. And a MoH reboot.

the only game left is Mirror's Edge. Congrats, you worked on one new and different franchise in the last decade. You also made 9 gazillion Battlefield spin-offs.

Even if we accept that "different titles=innovation," which I don't, you're not helping your case.

Tbh I dunno why Nintendo gets away with it as much as they do though. That is a pretty good point. Wiimote radiation or something.

People love Mario and Zelda. >.>

 

[Formica Archonis]

Not my first complaint about EA, but whatever.

My artistic problems with EA aren't so much that it's "not innovative", more that it's creatively bankrupt. Retooling a franchise from one genre to make it more like your biggest sellers in the hopes of dragging along the IP's fans and bringing in the fans of the homogeneous pap you already release is a nakedly cynical cash grab with no respect for buyers, and has less artistic merit than the blood spatter pattern at a murder scene.

"Not innovative" is painting multiple paintings that are similar. EA is running around the art gallery and painting over everyone else's stuff.

 

[Vrach]

Of course every game they release is innovative. Just about every game that gets released these days has something that could be seen as new. People take offense because of EA's perspective; they don't care about innovation, or even putting out a good product. If they had the ability to repackage literally the same game every year and charge full retail price for it, they would.

They do. It's called EA Sports

 

[Immsys]

Of course every game they release is innovative. Just about every game that gets released these days has something that could be seen as new. People take offense because of EA's perspective; they don't care about innovation, or even putting out a good product. If they had the ability to repackage literally the same game every year and charge full retail price for it, they would.

My goodness, it almost seems like they are some sort of... business. Next you will be telling me that they actually plan to try to make money in the most efficient way possible, especially if that means as little cost for the most profit available. EA makes what sells, if you have a problem with that take it up with humanity, not with some guys trying to get paychecks.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Another day, another hackneyed EA employee defence.

EA aren't innovative even on their best days. Would they ever take risk with a Limbo, a Braid, a Dear Esther? Never. They'll always be behind because they are interested in what statistically gamers would buy, not what would make an interesting, fresh idea for a game. That's good business, but it's not innovation. Innovators always disregard the audience and focus on the product.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

I would take his statement seriously if it weren't for, well:

 

[Something Amyss]

EA IS very innovative: they keep thinking up new and exciting ways to rip us off.

y u h8 ppl who make money

 

[paketep]

Look who's talking: DICE, whose only innovations are called lying about having to pay for map packs and following CoD's lead in removing features from their flagship game.

Oh, the irony.