EA Rethinking Its Release Date Strategy
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
"Its about fucking time."
A hell of a lot of potentially good titles in the past have been ruined by greedy publishers pushing incomplete products out the door before Christmas, only to witness the unfinished game go under in the sea of releases, at which point they close the Developer.
Its nice to see that somebody with a voice at EA see?s that the Christmas release rush is hurting sales, because its been hurting games for year?s.
Take for example, Christmas of 2004.
Vampire:Bloodlines, KOTOR2, Tribes:V, a handful of titles I picked up in the bargain bin a year after release. All three games where released in the leadup to the Christmas of 2004, competing against titles such as HalfLife2.
All three titles where good games. All three titles where critical acclaimed. All three titles where follow-ups on previous, sucessful games. All three titles where made by good developers with great games under their belt.
All three titles where pushed out the door early after sub-standard development cycles, unfinished, and broken, at the whims of greedy and stupid publishers keen for the Christmas rush with limited or no support. Another month of development for all of them could have done wonders, six months, we could have seen pure gold. But instead, they where pushed out incomplete, buggy and unpolished.
As a result, two failed completely, and one barely scraped by riding off the release of its predecessor a year earlier.
One developer, Trokia, responsible for some of the greatest RPG?s ever made, Arcanum, a developer with so much potential and skill; tanked.
Irrational was bought up Take2 and became 2K Games Boston/Australia, then went on to Produce Bioshock, free of the yoke of their Vivendi slave drivers, the same publishers that Valve sued to get the rights to their IP back.
Obsidian was lucky, KOTOR2 still sold, riding fresh off the success of KOTOR, but it was still a broken game and is to this day a sore point for Obsidian. Six months, even using Bioware?s engine, is still not enough time for a game to be made.
As a testament to these titles brilliant yet broken states, players of the games have devoted hundreds of hours to filling the gabs and repairing the damage, bugs and problems form their rushed development. T:V has nearly 4 gigabytes on my machine alone of community made content, mods and patches. Bloodlines has its famous and ongoing fanmade patches, fixing (and sometimes creating) many of the games bugs, restoring cut or unfinished content, and improving the game. And then there is the Restation Project for KOTOR2, though it looks like Duke Nukem Forever will come out before they finish their work?
A hell of a lot of potentially good titles in the past have been ruined by greedy publishers pushing incomplete products out the door before Christmas, only to witness the unfinished game go under in the sea of releases, at which point they close the Developer.
Its nice to see that somebody with a voice at EA see?s that the Christmas release rush is hurting sales, because its been hurting games for year?s.
Take for example, Christmas of 2004.
Vampire:Bloodlines, KOTOR2, Tribes:V, a handful of titles I picked up in the bargain bin a year after release. All three games where released in the leadup to the Christmas of 2004, competing against titles such as HalfLife2.
All three titles where good games. All three titles where critical acclaimed. All three titles where follow-ups on previous, sucessful games. All three titles where made by good developers with great games under their belt.
All three titles where pushed out the door early after sub-standard development cycles, unfinished, and broken, at the whims of greedy and stupid publishers keen for the Christmas rush with limited or no support. Another month of development for all of them could have done wonders, six months, we could have seen pure gold. But instead, they where pushed out incomplete, buggy and unpolished.
As a result, two failed completely, and one barely scraped by riding off the release of its predecessor a year earlier.
One developer, Trokia, responsible for some of the greatest RPG?s ever made, Arcanum, a developer with so much potential and skill; tanked.
Irrational was bought up Take2 and became 2K Games Boston/Australia, then went on to Produce Bioshock, free of the yoke of their Vivendi slave drivers, the same publishers that Valve sued to get the rights to their IP back.
Obsidian was lucky, KOTOR2 still sold, riding fresh off the success of KOTOR, but it was still a broken game and is to this day a sore point for Obsidian. Six months, even using Bioware?s engine, is still not enough time for a game to be made.
As a testament to these titles brilliant yet broken states, players of the games have devoted hundreds of hours to filling the gabs and repairing the damage, bugs and problems form their rushed development. T:V has nearly 4 gigabytes on my machine alone of community made content, mods and patches. Bloodlines has its famous and ongoing fanmade patches, fixing (and sometimes creating) many of the games bugs, restoring cut or unfinished content, and improving the game. And then there is the Restation Project for KOTOR2, though it looks like Duke Nukem Forever will come out before they finish their work?
EA's obviously got some history with folks, and thankfully, that combined with the current state of the economy has finally given their stockholders pause. In the MMO sector, it's fairly obvious to those who followed its development that Warhammer Online was rushed out the door to get ahead of both Christmas and World of Warcraft's expansion release. The result was a game that is doing ok, but could have benefited so much more from a 1st Q2009 release.
All that being said, I tire of the whole "EA hate" stigma that seems to be going around whenever EA does, well, anything these days. You see it in every thread and every discussion including this one - all the players who want to get in their little jabs and jukes at EA because they read about the DRM or the EA Widow's blog a while back. I'm not saying EA didn't do anything wrong, but they have to work double or triple as hard for sins of the past that frankly have lost their shine.
John Ritticello has made some statements this past year or two that have at least shifted my opinion about EA back into the positive (at least cautiously). Like I said, EA's hands are dirty, but geez, for some people it's like they'll never be clean no matter how hard they scrub. Give them a fair shot.
All that being said, I tire of the whole "EA hate" stigma that seems to be going around whenever EA does, well, anything these days. You see it in every thread and every discussion including this one - all the players who want to get in their little jabs and jukes at EA because they read about the DRM or the EA Widow's blog a while back. I'm not saying EA didn't do anything wrong, but they have to work double or triple as hard for sins of the past that frankly have lost their shine.
John Ritticello has made some statements this past year or two that have at least shifted my opinion about EA back into the positive (at least cautiously). Like I said, EA's hands are dirty, but geez, for some people it's like they'll never be clean no matter how hard they scrub. Give them a fair shot.
Well it is about time, my budget ran uncomfortably thin when I bought Fable 2, then Fallout 3 on their release dates. Maybe now I can get brand new game for my birthday in April!
EA laid off all the wrong people if it took those remaining this long to get this particular clue.
Their cred is shit amongst PC gamers with activations and DRM nonsense, nonsense that idealogically blocks people from purchasing even if they want to, which is the height of stupidity. Riccetello's cred is shit from the day he publicly stated all those complaints about Spore DRM were from pirates or morons.
EA is worthy of bashing because they could do things so much smarter than they do, but they don't, or it takes them years and losses and missed chances to figure it out. They're too detached and typically corporate, and that is always going to be a major failing if they don't pull their heads out.
EA's proven they can produce moneymakers, but their insistence on allowing those properties to lie fallow or broken after inital release, making more problems with DRM than a property is worth, and adhering to a rule by MBA committee will keep them low. They could do better, much, much better, but it's on them that they don't.
Their cred is shit amongst PC gamers with activations and DRM nonsense, nonsense that idealogically blocks people from purchasing even if they want to, which is the height of stupidity. Riccetello's cred is shit from the day he publicly stated all those complaints about Spore DRM were from pirates or morons.
EA is worthy of bashing because they could do things so much smarter than they do, but they don't, or it takes them years and losses and missed chances to figure it out. They're too detached and typically corporate, and that is always going to be a major failing if they don't pull their heads out.
EA's proven they can produce moneymakers, but their insistence on allowing those properties to lie fallow or broken after inital release, making more problems with DRM than a property is worth, and adhering to a rule by MBA committee will keep them low. They could do better, much, much better, but it's on them that they don't.