EA Aims to "Broaden" Dead Space Audience

[Gitty101]

Still holding out hope for this one, but EA has clearly demonstrated they have COMPLETELY lost the plot this time round. Adding Co-Op in survival horror? Stupid. Look at Resi5. Trying to sell 5 million units? Very difficult in this market. Claiming 5 million units is the only thing to keep them investing in Dead Space IPs... ridiculous. They will NOT sell that many and by 'broadening' their target audience, it risks losing its identity and becoming yet another mediocre game on the market.

It seems EA really wants to have their cake and eat it.

 

[SecondPrize]

I hate to say it but sometimes I wish the video-game industry "dies" again because we'll come out the other side without these tools.

 

[Corporal Yakob]

I'm going to do my part because I want to see more arctic Helghast in DS4!

 

[jhoroz]

Like the way they "broadened" Mass Effect 3 with bullshit multiplayer and day one DLC? Yeah, fuck you EA. Way to turn another great franchise into a colossal cash-cow.

 

[iniudan]

Well, we'd make a horror game- but those don't make millions upon millions of dollars.

These are the same pricks who like a week ago claimed to want to be indie.

Although this does serve to illustrate a point. Namely that it takes EA precisely 3 games to ruin a franchise completely with their "broadening".

The simple fact that they've turned to Michael Bay for ideas should be proof enough of that. I mean Christ, the man only knows how to do two things:

Pimp military hardware & blow shit up.

And games have entirely too much of both at present.

Sorry but I don't find there is enough game of purely blowing shit up.

/go and play Blast Corps and Rampage. =p

 

[zachusaman]

bold move EA, giving your fanbase the middle finger and hoping to get 5 million new fans by saying that the scary parts are no longer scary and its now a call of duty in space clone...

 

[Lugbzurg]

EA,

Do you want to know how to ruin the appeal of a horror game? There are many ways, but subtracting any sense of vulnerability from the protagonist is a pretty good one.

Exactly. This is why I don't consider Left 4 Dead to be a survival horror game. It's fun, but, there's no horror whatsoever, and no survival elements, either.

If you need to sell 5 million copies for it to be profitable, something is messed up with your business strategy and/or management.

Yeah, really. These days, you only need to sell one million copies for a game to be considered a hit.

"broaden the audience" i.e. change core game dynamics in a vain attempt to market to people that didn't like the game previously

I just don't understand what logic people see in doing this.

Well, say goodbye to Dead Space after this, guys.

This.

EA... just wow. You literally cannot make shit up that's more wrong headed and greedy than what these guys come out with on an almost daily basis.

If any of my favourite game series were under the sway of EA I'd be fearing for their survival right about now.

I fear for FancyPants Adventures and Plants vs. Zombies.

Well, we'd make a horror game- but those don't make millions upon millions of dollars.

These are the same pricks who like a week ago claimed to want to be indie.

Although this does serve to illustrate a point. Namely that it takes EA precisely 3 games to ruin a franchise completely with their "broadening".

The simple fact that they've turned to Michael Bay for ideas should be proof enough of that. I mean Christ, the man only knows how to do two things:

Pimp military hardware & blow shit up.

And games have entirely too much of both at present.

They... seriously did that...? Wow... Stephen Spielberg, Tim Burton... They would make a lot more sense. But, Michael Bay? Who are they gonna go for, next? James Cameron!? And that whole "indie" thing... Just "wow"... They could just make smaller games with lower graphics levels and such. Super Meat Boy, Minecraft, and even Portal weren't big-budget projects or even big, at all! And look how popular they are, today!

EA spends more money on marketing than on actual development. How the fuck are they still in business?

What this basically means is something along the lines of this:

"We're not happy with how limited Dead Space fanbase is. So we're gonna use the name Dead Space since it's a well known IP, and we're gonna make it into another mindless shooter. It will piss off a lot of existing fans, but it will hopefully get us a lot of dumb shooter fans. So it's all good. Hey, maybe some of original Dead Space fans will still want to buy the game."

I couldn't care less. I don't like Dead Space. Sucks to be a fan of certain game series these days.

This is why I'm really missing Sonic, Banjo, Frogger, 007, and Army Men.

Thank god EA won't put it on sale though, wouldn't want to ruin an IP that you're actively trying to end.

But I guess Valve is just as bad as EA because... oh wait... at least we can blame the hate of origin on Valve fanboys right? right? fuck...

Valve releases games on PC CD-ROM, DVD ROM, PlayStation 3, and X-Box 360. They're going over to the Wii U, as well. However, they don't make these games have to be activated or have any connection whatsoever with Steam to do anything. They are very generous.

 

[V8 Ninja]

And THIS is why I say video game budgets are getting ridiculous; a game needs to sell 5 MILLION COPIES to be commercially viable? Not only that, but games are a premium entertainment; it's not like anybody can go buy a video game the same way they can go buy a movie ticket. On top of that, $60 multiplied by 5,000,000 is around $300m. Why is EA even throwing close to $300m into Dead Space 3? Does EA really expect sales to more than double just based off of a name alone? Look, EA, games sales do not act exponentially.

 

[Kerboom]

I enjoyed Dead Space.

The first one, not the second.

Nope. Not one bit. Dead Space didn't make me jump at all, but it was still entertaining.

Dead Space 2 was a bit crap. It felt like a mindless shooter, and if they're saying they'll make Dead Space 3 "more accessible", I'm definitely not buying it.

I would've liked to see how the story panned out, but oh well.

I might rent it or borrow it off a friend (though we all know I won't get access to half the content on the disk because I don't buy it first-hand).

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

I love how they bring up marketing and THIS franchise. Are we gonna be seeing "Your Grandma Hates Dead Space 3" ads in the near future?

 

[krection]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

So there solution to make Dead Space sell more is to remove any sense of originality it has, thus greatly expending the amount of IP's it has to compete with?

Seems legit.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I hope it goes down after this game I didn't feel Dead Space as in the story of Isaac going beyond a trilogy. I am for more people playing games but I don't like it when EA says appeal to a broader audience.

Although such ridiculous numbers is EA's fault for trying to push the thing into so many other forms of media before the game had achieved a status.

 

[weirdee]

so, in order for this to keep going, our moms will technically have to like this game or ELSE

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I loved Dead Space 1.

I never bothered with the rail shooter, the movies, the comics, etc.

I mostly hated Dead Space 2, and as a result DS3 (combined with what we can glean of their "new direction") fails to interest me.

As far as I'm concerned Isaac died at the end of DS1 and thats that.

Now, what I liked about DS1: It was suspenseful, I liked that the flamethrower didn't work in a vacuum even though it was one of my fav weapons. I liked how silent and tense the sections in a vacuum were and watching my air deplete was crazy.

I liked that the story more or less made complete sense, and had a little twist at the end, unless you were keeping track of the first letter of each chapter for some reason.

Things I liked about DS2: I liked that I had more control in zero G environments, even though it made them less tense. Hated pretty much everything else.

In both games the plasma cutter was easily the best weapon, and I was okay with that. They had pretty sweet flamethrowers though and the big rockdrilling laser thingy was fun d(^_^d)

 

[shrekfan246]

But it was in development for years before they were acquired by EA. If I remember right, they were working on it on/off for something like six years. It was only in the last year of development that they were acquired by EA.

Coincidentally, Dragon Age II had a development period of about a year and a half.

That's why I edited my original post to say "released" after the acquisition. Just because it started development before they were owned by EA doesn't mean it got out of the gate completely free of EA's meddling. And they were technically acquired in October of 2007, DA:O was released in November of 2009.

 

[Piorn]

Well, there seem to be enough people who like to buy the same stuff over and over again, so you really can't blame businessmen for jumping on the money.
I mean, look at animals. They don't kill because they're evil, it's just nature. The same goes for Businessmen.

 

[Tamrin]

"In general we're thinking about how we make this a more broadly appealing franchise, because ultimately you need to get to audience sizes of around five million to really continue to invest in an IP like Dead Space," he said. "Anything less than that and it becomes quite difficult financially given how expensive it is to make games and market them."

Then stop spending soo much on advertising when it doesn't pay off!


The first Dead Space sold over 2 million copies.


The second sold over... 2 million copies.

EA went balls out spending more money on advertising and it didn't pay off. Assuming most of the people who bought the second game were fans of the first you are looking at virtually no growth in the fan base, thus Dead Space survives solely by its cult status. How in the HELL do they think they can get 5 million copies sold by changing the game in a way that turns off its original fan base?

If more people do get engaged in the third release I can only see Dead Space 3 growing by as much as 25% - 50%. 5 million copies? More like 2.5 - 3 million at most. However, if some of the diehard fans actually boycott the game like they are talking about doing, rather than being like the CoD hypocrites, then the growth could be nulled and EA will pretty much be seeing the exact same numbers as the first two games.