Electronic Arts: Greed Is Not the Problem

[Trishbot]

Here's the thing...

EA. 2008-2009.

That was a GOOD year. This was a year that had me buying several EA games. New IPs. New blood. New directions. Gamer friendly. Quality products.

Bad Company. Dead Space. Mirror's Edge. Dragon Age: Origins. Brutal Legend. Army of Two. The Saboteur. Command and Conquer 3.

Risky game mechanics. Original game designs.

They were fighting Tim Langdell to win game developers the right to use "Edge" in their games again. They had their "EA Partners" program to promote indie growth and encouraged new ideas with good back-end pay for developers. They were funding quality games with substantial support, quality DLC, and gamer-friendly expansions and practices.

... It was all downhill from there.

The mountain dew. The doritos. The controversies. The online passes. The day-1 DLC. Origin. The broken and buggy products. The poor marketing. The alteration of genres and brands. The mediocrity of the games. The desperate, greedy ploys for money.

For around one year, it was nice. It was pleasant. I was ready to give EA my support.

Within another year, all that good will had been sucked away.

I haven't purchased an EA game in over two years now. In the span of 2008-2009, I purchases over 12. I think that says everything.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

I think of all the games of EA's that I used to enjoy before they became the behemoth that they are today. And then I cry.

Seriously good article though.

 

[lacktheknack]

Articles like this should be required reading for everyone at EA. God willing, someone will get a lightbulb over their head and realize how badly they've been screwing the pooch all these years.

It should also be required reading for people on this site, so I don't have to read awful bile-smelling posts about "it's because they're greedy" as if other companies aren't.

I loved this article, it's very concise and informative. Keep them up.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Articles like this should be required reading for everyone at EA. God willing, someone will get a lightbulb over their head and realize how badly they've been screwing the pooch all these years.

It should also be required reading for people on this site, so I don't have to read awful bile-smelling posts about "it's because they're greedy" as if other companies aren't.

I don't know the financial statistics, but isn't EA considered successful as a company? How much compared with Valve?

The writer of the article has a problem with incompetence and wasted potential - fine. But if EA went Valve's way and made better games without the microtransactions and fierce copy protection, could they also have made as much money as they did? If not, couldn't we consider the cause of the incompetence and wasted potential to be greed?

 

[Barciad]

What to do with EA? You say it is incompetence over greed, fair enough. Yet I believe that there is more than one type of greed. A choice quote from Tony Soprano:-
"Remember the story you told me about the father bull talking to the son? They're up on this hill and looking down on a bunch of cows. And the son goes to the father, "Dad, why don't we run down there and fuck one of these cows?" Now do you remember what the father said? Father says, "Son, why don't we walk down there and fuck them all?"
As of now, Valve is the Bull and EA is his son. EA wants massive profit and it wants it yesterday. Valve on the other hand knows that these sorts of things are pipe dreams. They have realised that great wealth is possible, but only through skill, effort and above all patience. That is the single key thing that EA lacks right now. They want the profit yesterday and they are prepared to go to any lengths to get it. And to hell with the long term.
Though you say that we are in the dark over why it has got so messed up at EA, I have my own theory. The question is, who has the final say on corporate direction; the productive side or the financial side? Valve it seems is run by the people that produce things. They know their product, they know their market, and they know how to sell it to them. Above all, they know that they need to be doing the same thing ten years down the line, so they need to plan ahead.
EA on the other hand looks like a company run by and for bean counters. They know nothing of the product or the market, and nor do they particularly care. All that matters to them is next quarter's figures. And yet despite all their efforts, they never quite do as well as they would like. Why? Because they no next to nothing about the market.
It all goes back to Henry Ford's dictum "Take care of the service side of the operation and the financial side will take care of itself". Words that EA would do very well to heed.

 

[Reyold]

Another excellent article Shamus. It's a shame that EA basically destroying itself from the inside, and isn't even aware of it.

 

[lacktheknack]

Articles like this should be required reading for everyone at EA. God willing, someone will get a lightbulb over their head and realize how badly they've been screwing the pooch all these years.

It should also be required reading for people on this site, so I don't have to read awful bile-smelling posts about "it's because they're greedy" as if other companies aren't.

I don't know the financial statistics, but isn't EA considered successful as a company? How much compared with Valve?

The writer of the article has a problem with incompetence and wasted potential - fine. But if EA went Valve's way and made better games without the microtransactions and fierce copy protection, could they also have made as much money as they did? If not, couldn't we consider the cause of the incompetence and wasted potential to be greed?

EA is only technically a successful company.

The REAL measure of success, stock share, has been a total gongshow on their end for years.

Also, I think that they totally could have made more money following Valve's business model. Origin client, for instance, is now "better" than Steam from what I can tell, seeing that they're roughly equal in terms of function, except EA now offers a refund policy. Had they have started out all in the way they've ended up (ie. like Valve), Origin wouldn't be fussed about, but it started poorly, and now they won't hear the end of it.

 

[Jumwa]

Greed is bad. It leads t hoarding of assets and especially in artistic and entertainment fields stifles growth.

Other than this, I don't know what to say. It seemed more like a PR piece for Valve, and I don't really think it's fair to pan an anti-competitive group while praising another.

Greed is, by definition, excessive. It is bad.

Can we all please drop the "Greed is good" nonsense? Greed is not a simple desire to improve or succeed, greed is excessive. It is destructive. And EA is a perfect example of it. They had it all and their greed for more led them to take harmful, self-defeating actions.

A little disappointed with this article by Shamus, first time I've not agreed with him that I can recall in years.

 

[Jumwa]

I don't know the financial statistics, but isn't EA considered successful as a company? How much compared with Valve?

There is no way to compare, since Valve is not a publicly traded company, it is privately owned. So therefore they are not compelled to release any statistics or numbers they don't care to.

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

Ugh all the comparisons to Valve, a company that tries to stuff increasing amounts of the same anti consumer bullshit down our throats (and bafflingly gets away with it too, unlike EA and Ubisoft). Why not compare to a company that is actually doing it right (CD Projekt) rather than one that is just as bad, if not worse?

Seriously. This whole article came off as a gushing love letter to Valve, not the supposed EA critique the header offered us. The only example Young could be bothered to provide of wrongdoing on Valve's part was the silly L4D2 fiasco?

Misleading journalism at its finest.

 

[Something Amyss]

Can we all please drop the "Greed is good" nonsense?

Especially since it wasn't supposed to be a positive slogan in the first place. Gordon Gekko was not supposed to be the bloody good guy.

A little disappointed with this article by Shamus, first time I've not agreed with him that I can recall in years.

I've disagreed with him before, but I could see where he was coming from. Not so much here.

I don't know the financial statistics, but isn't EA considered successful as a company? How much compared with Valve?

There is no way to compare, since Valve is not a publicly traded company, it is privately owned. So therefore they are not compelled to release any statistics or numbers they don't care to.

We can look at EA, though. EA has posted consistent losses over the last couple of years and seen hits to their stock price.

I don't know if Valve is doing better, though I have a hard time imagining a company where so much of their money is involved in DD doing poorly.

 

[dynath]

While I agree with all of your analysis of the organizations and their comparison I must protest that Greed is not the problem. Inherently I believe greed is the issue. Specifically it?s the exclusive pursuit of profit and the rampant belief that no force is as important to the industry as the bottom line.

If you ask any member of Valve or EA what the primary purpose of their company is they will likely say something along the lines of ?we make video games?. But if you follow them around for a month or more the majority of any given EA employ?s job would be spent on overhead work for maintaining the bottom line. Stuff like staff meetings, projections and analysis work, being micromanaged, conference calls, filling out paperwork. These activities are the sort of work organizations come up with when they are paranoid about wasting money or not meeting the bottom line. It is meant to keep people accountable for what they spend their time on and how they use resources but really it just justifies larger budgets, wastes the time of employees, and splits the focus of anyone who is really supposed to be creative. It also means to many people have the ability to say no to a project while not enough can say yes. Conversely doing the same for a valve employee would likely be the opposite, their meetings are likely clean and efficient with smaller oversight, less emphasis on keeping paper trails while more is placed on actual results. Creativity is likely encouraged as is collaboration, in EA a dev team isn?t likely able to go talk to a staffer in another department without managerial approval while Valves teams most likely intermingle.

I?ve worked in corporations that are publicly traded for ages and I see a lot of difference between a company like EA?s focus and one like Valve?s. yes they are both a business so they both want to make a profit. But EA?s view is that only profit matters, while Valve wants money too but they are open to other types of goals as well, from making good games to opening up new markets or building a device everyone wants in their home. They measure success in meeting a goal, any goal, not just quarterly share price and bushel game sales. Its a culture of fulfillment vs a culture of greed. You can be fulfilled by having money but money isn't the only way you are fulfilled. Usually a person can sense when a company is being disingenuous, its nice to have mission statements but when your mission is obviously just a formality while your actions are only about money, the result is low satisfaction and a lot of customer rancor. A company that can see their mission statement as a thing to fulfill them will succeed better than one that doesn't. The company that sees every action they take as a thing that fulfills them will succeed in spite of the odds and become a new Valve in their own time.

 

[Colt47]

EA isn't the only company suffering from the issues talked about in the article, though. Capcom is another company suffering from the same symptoms and public mistrust. Then again, major companies in the game industry tend to almost have a life cycle, as those companies that we grew up with have grown from perky start ups to large publishing houses that may or may not be slaved to a mind numbing group of shareholders, which may or may not be other companies/firms.

 

[Gezzer]

For the most part as is normal I agree with you with some exceptions.

The rally cry "Greed is Good" is not only over used but as far as I'm concerned a complete fallacy.
Making well deserved profit is good. Excelling in your chosen field and prospering from it is very good. Greed is the want of money for it's own sake and some of the worst evil has been justified in the name of greed or undeserved profit. How many workers standing up for their human rights have been gunned down in the name of greed? How many have died in completely perilous working conditions because of greed? How many people have had their lives destroyed in the name of greed? How many advances that would greatly benefited the human race have been squashed in the name of greed? How many people have been denied life saving products due to greed? How many products were thrust upon an unknowing public that were defective in massively dangerous manner due to greed?
Greed is one of the 7 evils for a reason. It can motivate people to unthinkingly do great acts of evil and dismiss them because it was necessary to maintain their level of wealth. Less greed would only change the world for better.

But I do agree that greed isn't EA's main problem. To me it's as you stated in your last paragraph a lack of direction and vision. Well I wouldn't say lack of, more completely wrong. I have to point out that there's one big comparison between EA and Valve you missed. EA is a public company and Valve is not. So what you ask? Well I've posted it here and in other forums that the current concept of maximizing stockholder worth is killing big business. EA isn't failing because of a lack of talent or IP. They're not failing due to laziness and incompetence. Their failing because their focus isn't making great games and entertaining experiences no matter what they say to the contrary.

It's because their primary focus is maintaining and improving stock performance, and they're not the only big company to fall into this trap. Anytime you point to a company making just stupid short sighted decisions, if you dig even a little bit, you'll find it's often as not the reason behind it. Microsoft's blunder with Win8 and their own branded tablets? Ballmer was having the screws put to him over the fact that MS was late to the mobile party. There's a reason that Dell took his company private. Too much stockholder input and control makes long term vision impossible to implement.

Every too early release is due to stockholder unrealistic expectations of performance. Every denial of missteps and mistakes is to prevent a potential run on the stock that honesty would bring. Every poorly thought out design decision is due to trying to maximize return to impress stockholders. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Gamers are not EA's customers, stockholders are. And everything that EA has done lately is because they're disappointing their true customers. The only thing that will change EA for the better is a (sigh, I hate this overused term) complete paradigm shift. EA needs to ask themselves how every decision will affect gamers, not stockholders. Until they do they'll continue to lumber along, close to death, but "too big to fail". And those that love this hobby will suffer for it.

 

[VaporWare]

I don't have a huge amount to add to this, but I do believe that while the basic desire for money may not be the problem fixation on bottom line is. There's a fine line between keeping one's eye on survival and outright gluttony.

I've often heard it said that we can't really blame companies for trying to make money at the expense of whatever particular cut corner is being discussed in a given conversation, because the purpose of a corporation is to make money.

I have something of a dispute with this notion.

If we can compare the body corporate to the human organism from which they emerge, it's a bit like saying the purpose of a human is to eat food. We need food to survive, corporations need money to survive as a matter of basic energy intake. But this is a means to any number of other functions, not an end unto itself. Treating it as an end tends to be unhealthy. You may do what you perceive you must to consume what you feel it is your purpose to consume, but with no inclination to accomplish any other purpose what are you really going to accomplish?

For most healthy humans, even in communities that are struggling, one fulfills a purpose for which they are fed or provided the means by which to feed themselves.

As an extension of that, the purpose of a corporation is to provide goods or services for which they are paid.

I feel that the first step towards correcting the pathological behavior of companies like EA is correcting this perspective. Until one does, they will continue to get caught up in trying to awkwardly ape the appearance of success in others without understanding the principles behind it as they have done for virtually every high profile failure they have exhibited over the past several years.

 

[Eri]

Very nice article~

I would not be surprised if EA ends up winning a 3rd consecutive worst company in usa award. God knows they haven't tried shaking their shitshow of an image.

I consistently find it surprising that the company manages to win this award. They do, after all, manage to make products liked by many and the atrocities to their name amount to little more than petty squabbles about what ten bucks ought to buy someone. While no means a bastion of nobility, to assert that a company that at the very worst makes a product you don't want is somehow the worst one in the US is silly.

Compare EA to any number of banks and investment houses, or a host of companies in the agricultural industry, or a selection of companies in petroleum exploration and exploitation or any of a variety of other firms. These are companies that have destroyed lives and communities and helped foster disasters on a global scale. How is it that EA somehow manages to be worse?

People expect companies like Bank of America to be utter shit. Game companies are supposed to be fun so to speak. When a bank acts like a bunch of assholes, everyone shrugs and says it's a bank acting like a bank. When a game company does it, not so much. People don't get invested (hah) in their banks, but they invest in their games heavily, so they take it more personally.

 

[Jumwa]

We can look at EA, though. EA has posted consistent losses over the last couple of years and seen hits to their stock price.

I don't know if Valve is doing better, though I have a hard time imagining a company where so much of their money is involved in DD doing poorly.

I don't doubt that, you're probably right about EA.

Back to the greed thing, EA being a publicly traded company, prodded by investors to continually produce increasing profits, probably has a lot to do with why they make so many greedy, dumb decisions that end up hurting them.

So many game developers, for instance, say that it's pressure from ignorant investors that pushes their executives to initiate DRM processes that do nothing but waste money and alienate customers.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I don't think greed is quite the same thing as making money. Greed is when you want money so much you don't care what you're doing to get it. When you're willing to screw over people to get it. Valve doesn't really have a problem with greed in that regard. They have other problems.
And while EA certainly does have that problem at times, I think you're right. EA's biggest problem is outright incompetence.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Intellectual Property is the most valuable asset a videogame company can have. Talent can come and go. Machines and software are regularly replaced. But creating and maintaining titles and brands is how you make your money.

Cue the posts screaming "BUT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DOESN'T EXIST!" Despite the fact that it is legally recognized around the world, and is valued and traded as property on the markets.

 

[Caiphus]

I agree with Shamus, although Greed might be the wrong word. Greed implies selfish excess. I'm not sure if it's something we should be encouraging, if only because of that implication. Meritocratic pursuit of success and profit? That might be more like it, if a little bit more difficult to summarise in one word.

But yes, the overwhelming point of Shamus' article is right. For a company that is clearly comfortable with focussing on their bottom line, they aren't very good at it. They haven't seemed to cotton on to the fact that systematically destroying their goodwill isn't actually going to make them any money. The amount of money that they'd make from Dungeon Keeper Mobile, for example, is probably going to be offset by the tremendous amount of bad press they got. Same with putting Simcity online, same with declaring that Steam Sales -much loved by the community, and generally profitable- are bad for the value of their IP.

Shamus is right: you'd be livid if you were a shareholder. Even if I only cared about EA's profit, and I don't, I just want to play their games, I'd still be annoyed by their general incompetence. I'd be annoyed by the fact that almost every news article about them or their management is negative, and even when it isn't the comments section is overwhelmingly negative anyway.

So yeah, it isn't just pursuit of profit. It's pursuit of short-term profit, with a rather outstanding lack of awareness or care towards the industry or their customers. Which is probably closer to the definition of greed* than just pure pursuit of profit, and yeah. It isn't good.

Anyway, good article regardless. Thanks Shamus.

*Edit: Depends on how you define greed, I suppose.