Electronic Arts: Greed Is Not the Problem
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
The last thing this thread needs is another opinion, but screw it I'm going to say mine.
First off, I wouldn't exactly call Valve a model company, especially of late. They do some things really good, but they do some other things really bad. But that's not really what I came to talk about, just wanted to get that out of the way.
As has already been said (several times) by others, wanting success and money is not quite the same thing as greed. Someone suffering from avarice does more than want money - they want it so bad that they're willing to cross a few lines to acquire it, generally don't spend it on things that may benefit others because that would defeat the purpose, and often defend what they see as their rightful profit from others trying to earn money. Whether or not EA is completely given into greed is up for debate, but there are certainly some elements of this mental illness present that would cause the company to act so annoyingly.
And that's not to say I hate EA either - in fact, I like quite a lot of games they've put out, and like them very much. It's more the principle and logic of their recent decisions that irks me than the quality of their product. Their problems are more a problem in their mode of thinking than their decision making, I think. Following a certain train of logic, the decisions they're making could be seen as perfectly valid and clever. The only problem is that that logic is mostly bullshit.
First off, I wouldn't exactly call Valve a model company, especially of late. They do some things really good, but they do some other things really bad. But that's not really what I came to talk about, just wanted to get that out of the way.
As has already been said (several times) by others, wanting success and money is not quite the same thing as greed. Someone suffering from avarice does more than want money - they want it so bad that they're willing to cross a few lines to acquire it, generally don't spend it on things that may benefit others because that would defeat the purpose, and often defend what they see as their rightful profit from others trying to earn money. Whether or not EA is completely given into greed is up for debate, but there are certainly some elements of this mental illness present that would cause the company to act so annoyingly.
And that's not to say I hate EA either - in fact, I like quite a lot of games they've put out, and like them very much. It's more the principle and logic of their recent decisions that irks me than the quality of their product. Their problems are more a problem in their mode of thinking than their decision making, I think. Following a certain train of logic, the decisions they're making could be seen as perfectly valid and clever. The only problem is that that logic is mostly bullshit.
If memory serves secrurom also had a "small" issue of destroying your cd drive in some instances. Or that could have been one of activisions little gifts. It was a long time ago. In short, the drm screwed with cd rom in such a way that it was essentially bricked.Ed130 The Vanguard said:
EA's biggest problem is that they are a publicly traded company. This means that they (unlike Valve) have to appease stock holders. For some businesses, this isn't a huge problem; largely because they sell something that's easier to quantify. For a gaming company, however, it's damn-near suicide, because the games industry is still in a very-much experimental state. In the past 30 years or so, games have undergone several drastic changes while they work their way into a comfortable niche. This means that gaming companies need to be free to experiment and take risks to keep-up with the new trends. I mean, really, look at just about any product 30 years ago and usually it's sold in the exact same way today as it was back then (which is to say, you go to your local department store and buy it). Meanwhile games have hopscotched between arcades, home consoles, portable devices, and PCs at seemingly random intervals, and digital distribution is just a whole new element to add to the jumble; and every failed experiment is millions of dollars lost.
In short, EA is doomed to its current fate until the gaming industry settles into a nice groove so that the investors can use their charts and figures to know the best way to market a game, rather than having to constantly play catch-up every time the trends change.
In short, EA is doomed to its current fate until the gaming industry settles into a nice groove so that the investors can use their charts and figures to know the best way to market a game, rather than having to constantly play catch-up every time the trends change.
I would be very hard pressed indeed to come up with more than a handful of positive outcomes from the system of public stock trading we have. It seems to push otherwise healthy, well-functioning companies to take destructive actions on a regular basis. The human cost to employees that are constantly "downsized", shuffled about or tortured with unreasonable expectations is immense, not to mention the hurt it often does to consumers as well.octafish said:
Gonna have to disagree with you on this one. Saying that an IP is worth more than the talent that made it is like saying Zero Punctuation is more important than Mister Croshaw, the man who does the video. That's like saying Movie Bob isn't important and that people will still come to see Escape to the Movies if you fired him and put some random schmuck off the street in charge of those videos.
Valve was able to make the new IP because they trusted themselves to make good content because they had top notch development talent at the helm. They knew that whatever they made would sell because the people who make their stuff are a group of the most talented individuals in the industry.
I disagree that its problem is that its public. Its that its badly run. Its hard to think of a metric where EA is considered a success. Compare https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:TTWO and compare it to ea (just click the box)WhiteTigerShiro said:
Just off hand I think everyone here would consider the makers of Grand theft auto much better then EA. (Even considering rockstar thinks all pc users are thieves like EA).
Well said. But just try to get anything actually changed.Shamus Young said:
The idiots in charge of EA will stay in charge indefinitely because the only skill they have is "Fail Upwards." Who's gonna make the bloodletting happen at this point? Consumers? Shareholders? Lawmakers? Industry partners? EA's management has them all fooled. They could win Worst Company On Earth ten years in a row and it wouldn't stop frat boys from buying Madden, and by god they are going to run every single IP they can get their filthy hands on into the ground until ten years after the well dries up.
You see, Shamus, in the minds of many young people, "Greed" is a shorthand for "old rich stupid people doing pointlessly cruel things for incredibly short-term gain and acting indifferent about the consequences." And actually, we probably need to unpack that a little bit further, because I said "old" when I meant "out-of-touch," "rich" when I meant "in charge of incredible wealth and power, such that they have the anomalous power to make their own rules," and "stupid" when I meant "willfully ignorant." Man, the vernacular English can get crazy when we use it emotionally, eh?
So all that shit I just said gets abbreviated as "greed." Once you understand that, a lot of seemingly misguided populist statements make a lot more sense. Why did the BP oil spill happen? Greed. Why are so many atrocities happening in North Korea? Greed. Why does EA suck so hard? Greed.
The assumption is that EA knows better, and they willingly chose this path anyway, because surely nobody's stupid enough to honestly think that they games they're putting out are good.
The idea that a room full of drooling fucktards somehow came into control of the most powerful video game company in the AAA industry is somehow too crazy to contemplate.
So here's my thoughts on the matter: Greed is specifically when you feel entitled more than what you deserve to have. This is why I don't really see Valve as greedy; they deserve to have the money that they have. EA, on the other hand, constantly craps-out lousy content and expects you to pay top dollar for it. Then, when a game does poorly, they act like it's anyone's fault but their own when they don't get the money that they don't deserve to have.
So while we might disagree on a semantic level (I'd say that greed is exactly the problem), we do agree on the fundamental issue.
So while we might disagree on a semantic level (I'd say that greed is exactly the problem), we do agree on the fundamental issue.
I very much enjoyed your article, Mr. Young.
It really encapsulated everything I feel about EA; specifically, that EA really has no idea how to run a game corporation and just randomly flails about, relying on accumulated IP.
I do wonder if some of the differences between the two companies has anything to do with the fact that Valve is an in-house developer/publisher while EA is really just a holding company for a whole stable of developers. I would think that Valve is inevitably going to be a more focused and nimble company-able to understand its consumer base and respond to it quickly-while EA is going to be pulled in multiple directions by its many wings. After all, BioWare and EA Sports are very different developers making different games for different audiences, yet the both answer to the same EA management staff.
I think EA is too diversified to successfully respond to its audiences. Unless EA truly decentralizes its operations, it will never be able to make the smart decisions that Valve does. There are far too many departments and layers to a business the size and scale of EA for it to be plugged in to the wants of its customers.
For another counterpoint, look at Zenimax. Zenimax is also a huge publisher-but the studios that Zenimax actually *owns* (i.e. Bethesda) tend to stick to a handful of genres and strong I.P.'s.
Valve too sticks to a handful of genres and strong I.P.'s-after all, we don't see any sports games or party games or real time strategy games coming out of Valve.
It really encapsulated everything I feel about EA; specifically, that EA really has no idea how to run a game corporation and just randomly flails about, relying on accumulated IP.
I do wonder if some of the differences between the two companies has anything to do with the fact that Valve is an in-house developer/publisher while EA is really just a holding company for a whole stable of developers. I would think that Valve is inevitably going to be a more focused and nimble company-able to understand its consumer base and respond to it quickly-while EA is going to be pulled in multiple directions by its many wings. After all, BioWare and EA Sports are very different developers making different games for different audiences, yet the both answer to the same EA management staff.
I think EA is too diversified to successfully respond to its audiences. Unless EA truly decentralizes its operations, it will never be able to make the smart decisions that Valve does. There are far too many departments and layers to a business the size and scale of EA for it to be plugged in to the wants of its customers.
For another counterpoint, look at Zenimax. Zenimax is also a huge publisher-but the studios that Zenimax actually *owns* (i.e. Bethesda) tend to stick to a handful of genres and strong I.P.'s.
Valve too sticks to a handful of genres and strong I.P.'s-after all, we don't see any sports games or party games or real time strategy games coming out of Valve.
NO NO NO. If a game comes out that isn't polished and is incredibly buggy AND it has no brand inertia going for it, then it's just fucked. So rather give developers more time to finish a game and polish it to a mirror shine (see: Titanfall, Team Fortress 2, Guild Wars 2, L4D/2, Half-Life 1).Frozengale said: