EA Aims to "Broaden" Dead Space Audience

[BrionJames]

"In general we're thinking about how we make this a more broadly appealing franchise..."

Oh god... here we go again.

So to make a game have a "broad appeal" is really just PR speak for: Just make it a shooter.

Ever heard of the word genre EA? Go look it up, I'll wait... Yes, that's right. You made a game in the survival horror genre, not that anyone would know it.

The same thing happened to FEAR by the third installment and arguably Mass Effect 3 as well.

The videogame industry should be thinking about ways to make these individual genres more popular instead of diluting them further with the carcinogenic tumor that is the chest high wall.

Agreed sir! I've watched some good franchise travel this road to ruin, the most noteworthy being Mass Effect and that was extremely disappointing. Dead Space isn't a great survival horror game but it had some good ideas, its sad to see them fuck it up like this.

 

[Carnagath]

Broadening DS3's audience, EA? Does that include my mom?

I giggled, then I punched my desk. Thanks for reminding me this.

 

[gamegod25]

Dragon Age = Ruined
Mass Effect = Ruined
Dead Space = Ruined

And let's not forget C&C and the Ultima series. There really is nothing that EA can't ruin is there?

 

[Wolf In A Bear Suit]

Until games like Call of Duty Gears of War and other big shooters stop making ridiculous ammounts of money, publishers will continue to replicate mainstream shooters in an attempt to earn big. We might say no-one wants this to happen to a great game but it DOES appeal to the unwashed masses (example black ops 2 massive preorders) and this saddens me deeply

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

You know how some game starts to sell 5 millions or more? It does something good. And then each sequel keeps getting better and better at it. The CoD series is a good example of casual shooter which kept evolving as a casual shooter (although now it's getting worse). Bethesda Elder Scrolls - open world RPGs that evolved and got better at being open-world fantasy sandbox. GTA, modern open-world game about criminal in a big city that got more and more robust and complex with each iteration.
Now, what EA doing is ruining Dead Space sales. Well, if it evolved as a survival horror until it became most well known and truly polished survival horror on the market - I could see it selling 5 million copies someday. As it stands now, DS3 will fail because casual shooter fans buy CoD and existing DS fans will abandon it to a degree. So it won't come close to DS2 sales.
The problem with EA and videogame industry is that executives don't know jack about stuff they sell and think that videogames are like shoes. They are not.

It goes like this - some guy in charge of making decisions remembers that he used to work on shooter XXX and it sold a lot - so if they make DS a shooter it will sell a lot. This logic works if you sell shoes, or cars, or even smartphones. This logic eventually makes you bankrupt in videogame industry.

 

[Vault101]

-Much MUCH easier
-Talking and personable protagonist as opposed to a hidden, non-talking one
-Variety. People like variety, even if it spoils the atmosphere
-Take away the map and turn the game into a giant linear pathway

1. I don't know abotu the difficulty thing, on one hand you have people sayings its hard, on the other people are saying its easy...hard to judge...I found it easy enough when I knew what I was doing but then I died plenty of times

2. a talking protagonist has nothing to do with dumbing down..this wasn't an RPG and I gues some peopel don't find a silent guy with a bucket on his head all that relatable...thats pure personal taste

3. and people complained about repetitiveness/back tracking in the last one didn;t they? linear is not bad in of itself....

 

[The Great JT]

Well I'm going to go ahead and transfix the "Stamp of Death" on Dead Space 3 now. To EA, 'broaden the audience' is just technical jargon for 'dumb down in order to reap the maximum amount of money.' It happened to Mass Effect, it's going to happen to Dead Space. Not a single fuck was, is, or will be given by EA, they just want more money.

 

[samaugsch]

TRANSLATION: "We're gonna sit on dead space's head and take a shitty shit shit!"

WHY do people keep giving them money and defend these big publishers (and publisher owned devs)??

These decisions aren't about making a good game, it's about meeting quotas and pleasing shareholders. This is why people lucky enough to be around during the golden age of gaming get so mad; people who make most of these games are no longer calling the shots on development, instead being ordered around by a corporate suit to meet sales quotas and then we have to hear the kiddies today keep repeating "entitled" when pointing out how bad the situation or product is.

I'd think not buying enough of their product would have more of a negative effect on them than any criticism anyone can make about the publisher.

 

[Mistah Poole III]

*sigh*

Chalk up another series that EA has ruined.

 

[samaugsch]

If there's one thing you can say about EA, it's that they never stop trying, even if it doesn't work.

W
T
F

Please tell me this is fake.



Also, captcha is "time lord" Ha!

Nope! This crap is real.

Suddenly, I'm not so sure about the Indoctrination Theory anymore (I watched a video supporting it and it made some pretty good points. Now it just seems like EA likes to piss people off). :/

 

[samaugsch]

This is why I'm glad I took Yahtzees mindset and stopped being a "fan" of any particular game series.

After all the time Squeenix spent slapping me across the face for being a fan of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy it wasn't a hard transition, since then I've noticed just how often fans get exploited and worse completely betrayed in favour of money from different audiences.. it's a true shame

As for Dead Space, I won't lie it never really grabbed me (Mostly cause I'm a big girl who doesn't like paying to be scared, even if the game is apparently terrible at it) but it's still an incredible shame that they've gone the "mass appeal" route with it... I truly hope we can get past this so we can get back to having games made for people to have fun or a challenge.. like in the good ol' days!

*Shakes old man cane while wearing rose tinted glasses*

"A big girl"? Why does your profile say that you're male?

 

[thethird0611]

So let me see.

5 Million units = 300 million dollars at $60 dollars a game.
2 Million units = 120 million dollars.

So your telling me 120 million dollars cant cover the creation and distribution of a game, with a tidy profit? This isnt including the DLC we know is going to be in Dead Space 3. I... I mean CMON! No. This is "We can only keep an IP like this going if we make oooodles off of it."

EDITED

 

[thethird0611]

So let me see.

5 Million units = 300 Billion dollars at $60 dollars a game.
2 Million units = 120 Billion dollars.

So your telling me 120 billion dollars cant cover the creation and distribution of a game, with a tidy profit? This isnt including the DLC we know is going to be in Dead Space 3. I... I mean CMON! No. This is "We can only keep an IP like this going if we make oooodles off of it."

your math is off by a few zeros

5 million units by 60 dollars each is 300 million

Just caught that. Thats what a 30 hour work weekend will do to ya Thanks man.

 

[natster43]

Thanks EA for killing an interesting franchise. Stay classy.

 

[Evil Smurf]

is it a fun game?

 

[Slayer_2]

I actually didn't mind Dead Space 2, it wasn't as scary, sure, but it was still okay, if not as interesting as the first. EA is just greedy and retarded, though. Math time, I suck at this, but it's pretty simple:

5,000,000 x 60 = 300,000,000. So they need 300 million to cover costs? Even saying they want to make 150 million to waste on other exploits (like making Origin even shittier). That's 150 million. I haven't developed any AAA titles lately, but I highly doubt that a 9-figure sum is really necessary to cover expenses. It's likely they'll use the same engine, perhaps with a few graphical tweaks, as well as a lot of the same assets. Then maybe salaries for two years for maybe 100 people. So the only explanation I can come up with is that they want a 400% profit margin or something.

Honestly, how fucking greedy can you get? Here's a genius money-saving idea EA: stop using shitty marketing tactics, you'd stand to save tens of millions and a lot of face.

For comparison, Battlefield 3 has sold 18 million units before March 31, 2012, and the giant Modern Warfare 3 moved over 15 million in the first two weeks. These are two of the largest shooters out there, and they expect a more niche game with a far smaller fanbase to pull in a third of industry-dominating shooter games... End rant.