EA CEO: We Failed Well

[RobfromtheGulag]

"EA's options were either to "invest and re-tool for radical change," or to continue on its then-current path, and eventually die out altogether.

The company decided to do the former..."

I have the urge to post the picture of the pear asking what's going on at this point. What radical change?

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Pear [http://lolwut.com/layout/lolwut.jpg] [double post]

 

[The Human Torch]

Sales say otherwise.

Sales do not equal quality.

But apparently your opinion does. Sales do equal quality. Just because you may not agree with a certain title, does not mean that it's not of proper quality.

 

[Agayek]

Mirror's Edge and Dead Space both came out in 2008. Dead Space has already got a sequel and various off-shoot games. Mirror's Edge apparantly had a sequel in the works that got canned.

Games which are three years old cannot be called new. Mirror's Edge was seemingly a one-off, but Dead Space has gone from being an original IP to another established franchise. And EA has released bugger all in the way of original games since those two came out, back in 2008.

Sorry, but it annoys me when people bring up a pair of three year old games as 'evidence' that EA is investing in games outside pre-existing franchises.

* I would also struggle to call Dead Space particularly original. It's essentially Event Horizon with the gameplay of Resident Evil.

Nobody said they were new, or that their existence proved EA was invested in new IPs. It's fallacious to say that they don't count as original IPs just because they came out years ago.

Like I said previously, I fully agree with your sentiment. I just don't see the point in denying facts.

 

[Agayek]

But apparently your opinion does. Sales do equal quality. Just because you may not agree with a certain title, does not mean that it's not of proper quality.

Considering some of the best selling works of entertainment in the last decade are the Twilight movies/books, this isn't entirely true.

The Twilight books (if not the movies, I'm just not equipped to judge them) are provably bad. They suffer from terrible characterization, ludicrous plot, inferior prose and an incredibly distasteful message (though I will admit that last one is an opinion). It's simple fact that they are bad novels that for whatever reason have sold ridiculously well.

High sales numbers does not guarantee quality. All it guarantees is that the masses will buy it. No more, and no less.

 

[The Human Torch]

But apparently your opinion does. Sales do equal quality. Just because you may not agree with a certain title, does not mean that it's not of proper quality.

Considering some of the best selling works of entertainment in the last decade are the Twilight movies/books, this isn't entirely true.

The Twilight books (if not the movies, I'm just not equipped to judge them) are provably bad. They suffer from terrible characterization, ludicrous plot, inferior prose and an incredibly distasteful message (though I will admit that last one is an opinion). It's simple fact that they are bad novels that for whatever reason have sold ridiculously well.

High sales numbers does not guarantee quality. All it guarantees is that the masses will buy it. No more, and no less.

I could care less about Twilight, I thought that the movies were terrible (my girlfriend downloaded them and I had the bright idea of watching them...), but if so many people buy the books and see the movies, than that is quality to someone.

It's all in the eye of the beholder. I have had great fun with games that most reviewers said were shit, so yeah, I thought that it was good quality.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

I originally played Dragon Age: Origins on a console, and I didn't like it one bit. A year later, I tried it for the PC and I did prefer the PC version over the console version. If I'm not mistaken, there are a lot of stories that games had to retcon for their stories to make sense (For example... Warcraft retcons the Alliance ending and Warcraft 2 picks up after the Horde ending), but that's legitimate complaint. If I'm not mistaken, something like that happened in Mass Effect 2, when you talked to Conrad Verner in ME1, don't point a gun at him and tell him to go home (The Paragon option) and then you see him in ME2 saying that you pointed a gun at him.

The thing is, Dragon Age 2 retconed so much regarding characters from the first game that they make actually playing through the game and importing your save game useless.

To me, what flowed better was how the gameplay fit together for me. I wasn't struggling as much with trying to execute actions and it felt a lot more well rounded and well put together, but yes, I fucking hated the dialog wheel, and yes the graphics did seem a bit more flat in comparison to Dragon Age: Origins. I agree that those are legitimate faults in the game, some that could've been improved better as opposed to outright removing them.

They didn't make the graphics flat, they pretty much copy pasted areas over and over. Cities are exactly the same, dungeons are exactly the same, whole fucking zones are just copy paste of one area. This is not something you expect from Bioware. Still, the short development time of 9 months was the reason for this. EA wanted to cash in on the success of Dragon Age: Origins as fast as possible.

I understand how you might have struggled but frankly, I enjoyed the hard and tactical gameplay of Dragon Age: Origins. I'm not the sort of guy to enjoy hard combat since it feels tiresome and boring but what Origins did I enjoyed. It was tactical and it was fun. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Dragon Age 2 moved towards a more action oriented combat system whereas there was no need for tactical positioning. You could stroll through the game not giving a shit about strategy. In fact, that's what I did. Combat felt awesome at first but ended up feeling like a chore in the end.

And environments being the same? Buddy, have you played Mass Effect 1? You went to the same two fucking stations/bases a billion fucking times during assignments, and each one more dreary than the next. Case in point: Bring Down the Sky, and the Moon VI mission of ME1. At least ME2 did a better job in terms of trying to create an atmosphere for the environments. Purgatory had a great atmosphere, as did environments like the Collector base or Omega. I'd agree that Dragon Age II has this issue worse.

Actually, it was the exact same thing as in ME2. You had one or two unique environments but even those were reused. Remember the collector ship? The entire layout was basically copy pasted and used in the collector base. Mass Effect 1 had the same problem but you'd think they would fix that in the sequel. They didn't. They just gave everything an orange tint.

And I'll agree that Mass Effect 2's story wasn't as well put together, but if there's one thing to give them credit for, it's the characters that you met and recruited throughout the game. Some less than others, but Bioware did an excellent job nonetheless on putting personality into your squad and creating well thought out scenarios like Legion's loyalty mission.

The character loyalty and recruitment missions were great but then again those same characters were great in the first game and the most interesting ones, like Garrus got very little screen time and dialog and the same goes for Tali. They tried to focus more on the new ones but apart from Mordin, Legion and Jack they weren't all that well done. It's not that they're not good characters, just not that interesting. The thing is, if they wanted the characters to be the meat of the game they should have done that. Unfortunately everytime you were drawn in by a loyalty mission or a recruitment one they always had to tack in the main plot which, frankly, was absolute shit. I still don't understand why they had to kill Shepard in the first place and put him on a huge pedestal like he's the only hope for the galaxy. In the first game you wanted to get your revenge on Saren and when you uncovered his plot you tried to stop him. This all happened naturally. In the 2nd game however, you're all of the sudden the only hope humanity has. There is no natural progression towards a bigger goal like there was in the first game.

Now in the third game they're basically doing the exact same thing again. For some reason they've also made Ashley and Kaydan look absolutely ridiculous. Why does Ashley have to be like Miranda? In the first game she was a soldier with emotional issues. She was a believable character. In the 3rd game she looks like a fucking Bond girl. Kayda also decided to get a new haircut and look even more like a douchebag. I'm starting to believe Bioware is aiming the game as much as possible to teens. Instead of having a mature story with believable characters that develop as the game progress they choose to go for the T&A approach.

I definitely do see where you're coming from, and you're entitled to your opinion. Personally I feel that ME2 was more of "Two step forwards, two steps back" more than anything, but I had fun with it. Same goes with Dragon Age II. Again, you are entitled to your own opinion.

Of course I enjoyed parts of Mass Effect 2 and honestly, I can say the same for Dragon Age 2. In the end they all fell flat on the floor. When you buy a Bioware game, do you honestly expect an amazing action game or an amazing RPG? I guess if I had played those games with a different mentality I'd have liked them more but the thing is those games are sequels to already established great RPG's. It would have made more sense to continue strengthening the RPG parts. Still, even as action games they're not that good. Dragon Age 2 has this facade going on for itself of being a "strategic" RPG by giving you the pause button but even on the highest difficulty it's literally useless since position does not count at all. Then there's the action which isn't particulary good. If you're a mage you just spam flashy spells, if you're a warrior you spam flashy moves and if you're a rogue you pretend you're a warrior with stealth.

The one to blame for all this is EA. EA is cashing in on well established franchises whilst at the same time being dishonest by saying they've "changed". They haven't changed one bit. They're still doing the exact same thing they were doing before only this time they're copying Activision. I'm tired of all the lies and bullshit sorounding the gaming industry. Why can't companies be more honest? Hell, why do we even need publishers? It seems like all publishers do is stagnate the industry. The current business model of most publishers is to buy an established developer, suck it dry then abandon it. EA is doing this, Activision is doing this and so are most of the publishers in the industry.

From what I gather, Mass Effect 3 isn't suffering the same issue. From what I gathered, they started working on it after the release of Mass Effect 2, and considering that it's releasing in early 2012, I would say that it's a good sign. I personally didn't care too much for Ashley's redesign or Kaidan's, but that all depends on how they will be portrayed in ME3 in terms of their character and how much further they flesh them out. And from what I also gathered, its story will pace out a bit like the first game did. As for the whole "Shepard is dead" thing. I personally thought it was something that the player could use to tweak their character according to that event. In my case, my Shepard was good ME1, but in ME2 shortly after his death, he became a ruthless bastard. And for team-mates, Bioware is focusing more on reducing the size of it. There were many great characters in ME2 but it felt like there was far too many then there needed to be.

If anything, it shows that they are listening to the feedback from ME2, and they're changing it according to that. Whether or not that applies for the (face it, it's gonna happen.) inevitable Dragon Age III remains to be seen, but it proves that Bioware isn't totally screwed.

 

[roguewriter]

I'm glad EA feels they've "Failed Upward." Now, how about growing some testicles and cease bending over for the puritan wack jobs over on Fox News and committing to the new reality that the majority of Mature gamers like it when they're games are genuinely "mature" and don't hold back. The success of The Witcher 2 and L.A. Noire shows that gamers want experiences that don't feel watered down or censored.

I know people are tired of hearing about these as examples, but even though I loved *all* the Mass Effect games and the Dragon Age games, yes, it still burns my ass that we had diapers on during sex in DA:O and underwear yet again in DA2 as well as ME2. It's ludicrous. If my game would benefit from being rated R (i.e. Witcher 2, L.A. Noire) then frakking commit to that.

I know EA is afraid of getting "Bad Press" but when said bad press is coming from sources no one really listens to or cares about anymore, at least in gaming circles which is were EA should be concerned, then what the hell is the point of screwing over the level of quality and immersion the player-base would have ultimately had? So, EA, please stop "Failing Upward," and just start moving "Forward" into the modern age. It's been here for a while now and it's waiting for you to catch the Frakk up.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

From what I gather, Mass Effect 3 isn't suffering the same issue. From what I gathered, they started working on it after the release of Mass Effect 2, and considering that it's releasing in early 2012, I would say that it's a good sign. I personally didn't care too much for Ashley's redesign or Kaidan's, but that all depends on how they will be portrayed in ME3 in terms of their character and how much further they flesh them out. And from what I also gathered, its story will pace out a bit like the first game did. As for the whole "Shepard is dead" thing. I personally thought it was something that the player could use to tweak their character according to that event. In my case, my Shepard was good ME1, but in ME2 shortly after his death, he became a ruthless bastard. And for team-mates, Bioware is focusing more on reducing the size of it. There were many great characters in ME2 but it felt like there was far too many then there needed to be.

If anything, it shows that they are listening to the feedback from ME2, and they're changing it according to that. Whether or not that applies for the (face it, it's gonna happen.) inevitable Dragon Age III remains to be seen, but it proves that Bioware isn't totally screwed.

I really want to continue our debate but I've got a paper to finish and it's already 11. We'll continue this tomorrow.

 

[Pandabearparade]

Sales say otherwise.

They do for ME2, but not DA2. DA2 has sold (giving a generous estimate) slightly over half what Dragon Age: Origins did. That can't be the number they were aiming for.

Yes, I recognize that DA2 had a much shorter development cycle, and thus likely brought in the same or more in net profit, but that isn't the entire picture either. A huge amount of the sales (over 400,000 of them) were pre-orders, based entirely on the quality of DAO. They won't get that rush of trusting fans again for a long time, and certainly not if they develop DA3 in the same time period at the same level of quality. They cashed in their one chance to really bank on the success of Origins, and now the franchise has to stand on its own, because not many people are going to be thrilled to buy the sequel to DA2.

and that Dragon Age II didn't turn into a pure button-mashing/mouseclick fest akin to a 3D version of Diablo II.

If you say so.

One can whine whatever one wants about the changes made in the latest installments, but both games are still about the narrative, branching paths and whatnot. That's way more than one could ever expect from a big publisher before.

No, the game isn't about 'branching paths and whatnot', because there are no branching paths (speaking only of Dragon Age 2 now, I loved ME2). There is the illusion of choice with literally no difference in the ending, or the epilogue, at all.
No choice you make in the entire game matters, and Bioware could move forward with Dragon Age 3 and completely ignore choices in DA2 and be fine, because there weren't any. Honestly, that's likely why they used the 'framed narrative' in the first place, so they wouldn't have to worry about the headaches involved with factoring in player choice.. which is fine in most games, but not in a game where 'choices that shape the world' is a bullet on the back of the box.

 

[RJ Dalton]

This is my skeptical face.
*does skeptical face*

 

[Ghengis John]

snip

It's funny how the world works. When we're children, we're allowed to fail, we're taught that failure is simply a part of life and that what's important is to learn from our failures. When we become adults however, failure is no longer an option. The expectation becomes that we will always get things right and that we'll never make mistakes. And anyone who's ever been human knows that's just not possible.

I commend Ricitello for embracing and learning from his mistakes. However, I hesitate to believe he would brook failures from any of his subordinates if they simply professed to have "learned from" them. I'd hope he'd bear his own history in mind at any rate, but it seems unlikely.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Stats are what make an RPG. Without stats, the very thing that lets you personalize your character, you're just playing a shooter with the ability to choose what you say during dialog sequences.

Stats aren't nearly as important to a RPG as you think, here's the definition of a RPG:

A role-playing game (RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development.

Mass Effect allows you to do the most important thing in a RPG, which is deciding how your character acts and what your character says. There's very few video game RPGs that allow you to do the most important aspect of a RPG, the role-playing, the way Mass Effect does. JRPGs aren't RPGs because 99% of them don't allow you to have any say of what your character does outside of combat, what they say and do outside of combat is 100% scripted, and you have no control whatsoever. All the stats and equipment in the world do not make a RPG, it's the role-playing, and Mass Effect has that.

 

[crazypsyko666]

Let the EA bashing commence.

The way EA ruined the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises was just marvelous. I'm guessing "embracing failure" means buying good studios and turning their games into abominations of what they used to be.

And that's your opinion. I'll agree that DA2 was not what it could have been, but ME2 was worlds beyond it's predecessor.

Yes, but it was frustrating to its original fans. They were both fantastic for different reasons. Hopefully Bioware can understand that for ME3, and create something truly visionary (an FPSRPG that works as both).

I will say one thing about the DA2 hate, it's very justified, but Bioware always has a way of dragging me into the story, regardless of how ridiculous it is. I'm still considering playing through it again one more time.

 

[Agayek]

I could care less about Twilight, I thought that the movies were terrible (my girlfriend downloaded them and I had the bright idea of watching them...), but if so many people buy the books and see the movies, than that is quality to someone.

It's all in the eye of the beholder. I have had great fun with games that most reviewers said were shit, so yeah, I thought that it was good quality.

First off, "I could care less" implies that you do in fact care. "I couldn't care less" is the saying you're looking for methinks. Sorry 'bout the grammar-nazi schtick but that one bugs the hell out of me for whatever reason.

Second, "quality" is not a subjective measure. There are purely objective metrics over the quality of everything in existence. Whether or not it's "good", meaning enjoyable/workable, is subjective, yes, but "quality" is a completely separate beast.

Brief synopsis of "quality" metrics in literature (as I'm unqualified to do so for movies and don't want to put forth the effort to make a list for games):
-Plot - coherent, logical (in-universe, if nothing else), and concise
-Characters - distinct personalities and realistic, understandable behavior
-Prose - engaging and thought-provoking

If a work of literature meets these criteria, it's a high-quality piece of work, regardless of how well it sells or what people think about it. Similarly, if it does not, then it's a low-quality work, once more regardless of what people think about it.

People can like poor quality goods all day, and oftentimes they do. It doesn't mean anything bad, it just means a low-quality work appeals to their sensibilities.

Thus, sales does not equate with quality.

 

[-|-]

Whether or not people enjoyed the game is irrelevant. Mass Effect 2 was a bad sequel and a bad game.

Hahahaha. Trolltastic contradiction in one sentence.

 

[Vrach]

The way EA ruined the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises was just marvelous. I'm guessing "embracing failure" means buying good studios and turning their games into abominations of what they used to be.

Except that both Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins were made under EA as well and that whole thing called ME2 was widely praised as far better than the original.