EA Aims to "Broaden" Dead Space Audience

[Spaloooooka]

Huh. Do the math here: say EA makes half the box price on each unit sold (and that's being conservative)... 5 mill x $30... that's $150 million dollars... to keep a franchise viable?!?

You want to stay in business EA (much less keep Dead Space going), I suggest you summarily execute some of the folks making spending decisions...

$30?! WHAT??
MASS EFFECT 3 SOLD FOR ~£44.99!! THAT'S ~$70.01

DEAD SPACE SOLD FOR ~£42.99 SO $66.90

9358 units of deadspace 2 shifted in the uk so far (vgcharts) ...so 9358*42.99 = £40,200.42
40,200.42*1.642= ~$66009.86

but I've heard $60 being thrown around so that's more like $300 mill they want to make.

these guys put ~$10 million in the DS2 (plant xbox) but they get paids about $18 mill each! (google around) :/ last year they made a profit of over a billion (ea website). Grrr.

They will crash in the next decade.

http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_9268/Game_Development_Budget_Somewhere_Around_25_Million

[ http://www.vgchartz.com/game/36807/dead-space-2/UK/ ]

 

[12th_milkshake]

but EA need that money to hire a unicorn for the AGM next year... Come on have some heart!

 

[cricket chirps]

If EA ran every company in the industry I wouldn't play games anymore.

Honestly, i feel the same. I'm about to just stear clear of anything with "EA" on tied to it. :/ no point in loving a series and knowing the company controling it is gonna kill it.

 

[MDSnowman]

5 million copies to remain viable?! Well it was nice knowing you Dead Space. Its been a good run these last couple of years and its a shame to see you go. I'll remember you fondly.

Yeah I think that article was someone's subtle way of saying Enjoy Dead Space 3, it'll be your last chance.

 

[littlealicewhite]

Oh dear.

I was holding onto hope that DS3 would stay true to its original survival horror feel, but this is... it's just a blatant slap to the face.

"Expanding the audience" just means watering it down into another bland shooter, EA. Please don't beat around the bush about it. If you're gonna fuck your consumers over (and not for the first time!), at least be upfront about it.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

Who knows, maybe they'll pull the rug out from under us and deliver the scariest game in a decade.

But yet again, I'm afraid I must quothe the Spoony by saying

BETRAYAL!!!! BE-TRAYAL! BETRAYED ME!!! THIS GAME SUUUUUUUCKS!!!!!!!

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Genius! Nothing increases sales like turning off the loyal fans of the franchise, by making their game worse, while trying to sale to people who couldn't give a damn in the first place.

 

[Skorpyo]

So...

Dead Space 3 is going to rip off every over-hyped AAA title that's come out in the past 10 years, and then satisfy no-one?

That's all that it can possibly mean.

 

[Zer_]

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.

Right you are. Dead Space is a freakin' horrer game, not Gears of War.

I'm not a Dead Space fan, not in the least, but I'm angry for all those who are fans.

 

[Dangit2019]

So here's EA's thought process:

"Ok, how do we sell more copies of the next Dead Space? Hmm, we could improve on the horror aspects and make some viral campaigns to bring more hype for it than the others...OR, we could turn the franchise into a broad brown-n-gray shooter that will alienate all existing fans while also alienating anyone who's not interested in survival horror by having the words "Dead Space" on it. This will leave us with the absolutely HUGE demographic of "people who want to play a Gears of War type shooter but with clunky survivor horror controls". IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!

...

But wait, afterwords, we can create an ultimatum: 5 million people have to buy DS3, or we won't make another one. GENIUS!"

If you're a Dead Space fan, don't buy this game. Let the series die with a last shred of dignity before it turns into the survivor horror version of Sonic.

 

[Callate]

You're not wrong, Mr. Chalk. You're not wrong.

The conspicuously missing part of that "In general we're thinking about how we make this a more broadly appealing franchise" comment is what should have been the rather obvious "...without alienating the existing fanbase of the franchise."

Combine a lack of that awareness with unrealistic sales expectations, and I think Dead Space has probably entered the guillotine line.

 

[Erttheking]

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

They did that...they honestly did that............

 

[ThunderCavalier]

EA Executive: Yeah, we were thinking of putting a Team Deathmatch where people run around congested hallways with fairly identical but still aesthetically different guns with killcams, killstreaks, and whatnot, but we couldn't fit it with this engine. Dead Space 4 will be converted entirely to FPS format to accommodate for these new adjustments to appeal to the broadest audience possible.

 

[UrieHusky]

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*

 

[martyrdrebel27]

dammit EA! when will you learn?! when you "broaden the audience" all you're doing is trying to appeal to a larger group of people by making the game as generic as possible. it's Mass Effect all over again! what Dead Space DOESN'T have is the huge fanbase that Mass Effect did. I played and enjoyed the first Dead Space, but when I saw what was being done to DS2, i knew it wasn't worth playing, and now with DS3, it's even MORE bland and generic? You don't get it, you didn't sell millions of copies of each of the lesser Mass Effects (2 and 3) because the dumbing down made it BETTER. you sold them because I, and many others, decided we were already going to buy the next Mass Effect games after the first one, no matter what it was like.

STOP RUINING FRANCHISES YOU DISGUSTING CORPORATE WHORES!

 

[ScruffyMcBalls]

As an abused Resident Evil fanboy, I can only say sorry to y'all Dead Space fans. Seems nothing can survive the meat grinder of mediocrity and bad business practice these days.

 

[I.Muir]

Is this where we find that EA is a company run by rabid monkeys? Come on man they need that money or they won't be able the no.1 sports car or they will have to settle for no.3.

Also more accessible apparently only applies to drooling, pre mature, gun fondling cod fans apparently. Not more races, strong female leads, people that don't like shooters, age groups or anything else at all really.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

And it surprises people how?
Ultima, Dungeon Keeper, Command&Conquer, Mass Effect
And those are only IPs I personally care for (from those I can remember from the top of my head)
How much more IPs they butchered over years, how much companies went along?
Dead Space 3 will suck?
No shit, Dead Space 2 already started to suck.
.

actually I think Dead Space 2 was better in alot of ways

That might be true but you can't argue it wasn't dumbed down already. This should be a lesson to anyone STOP BUYING DUMBED DOWN SEQUELS. Doing so sends a message to EA and other developers that WE LIKE OUR GAMES BEING DUMBED DOWN.

 

[Vault101]

That might be true but you can't argue it wasn't dumbed down already. This should be a lesson to anyone STOP BUYING DUMBED DOWN SEQUELS. Doing so sends a message to EA and other developers that WE LIKE OUR GAMES BEING DUMBED DOWN.

how was it dumbed down? (Its been a while since I played DA1)

and I'll buy a game if I like it...regardless if some people think its dumbed down

 

[TornadoADV]

Oh EA, why do you do this to a series I enjoy so? You had it perfect with DS, but then you made it more shootery and added MP of all things to DS2. For Shame!