Richard Garriott Wants Blizzard and EA to Go Social

[ZeppMan217]

The question is, when the time comes, will Zynga have something better to offer than shitty browser games relying exclusively on micro transactions and the success of a social network it is placed in? Personally, I doubt so.
As for Lord British, I don't really see what the man is praised for. He made a bunch of Ultima games and then the franchise died. Well played.

 

[Antari]

The question is, when the time comes, will Zynga have something better to offer than shitty browser games relying exclusively on micro transactions and the success of a social network it is placed in? Personally, I doubt so.
As for Lord British, I don't really see what the man is praised for. He made a bunch of Ultima games and then the franchise died. Well played.

His old company Origin Systems made alot more than Ultima. EA eventually bought the company out and ended up running Origin into the ground. They just recently ressurected the rights to the name with a lame online service filled with spyware. And the games he made were well ahead of their time. While he was in control of Origin it was a great game company. Unfortunately he liked the large lump sum checks a bit more than holding onto Origin.

I agree since then his relevance in the industry has definately died off. Sid is the only real old school developer who keeps himself up to pace.

 

[Quellist]

Quite honestly I don't think Garriot should open his mouth except to say "I'm so so sorry about the betrayal of fans that was Ultima 8 and the pile of steaming, toxic monkey shit that was Ultima 9"

Until he does, he can flap all his lips as much as he likes, I wont listen.

 

[Mr.Amakir]

Please Lord British, make another smart and charming RPG again, the gaming industry needs something similar to Ultima!

 

[Chevy235]

Except that it is by necessity a shift in focus. The more time and money that are wasted on making casual games means that much less time and money is there to be invested in making proper games.

I reject the zero-sum theory of funding. These are, for the moment, niche markets which have not existed until recently, often targeting non-gamers. If a current company decides to expend a sum of money to get its foot in the door of social gaming, then yes, there'll be a slight dip in focus on its mainstream titles, but if the foray is successful, it will be a net increase in the amount of money available to the company - and it will pay for itself (by necessity) and more. Unless video game programmers are unavailable or the gaming market is completely saturated and will be for the forseeable future, then there is room for these companies to expand without sacrificing their main business. It is only when the market shrinks or one product is superceded (or has a much lower margin) that companies tend to refocus.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Blizzard won't refocus, but it isn't by necessity, not by any means, that they would do so.

 

[tetron]

With Sims and various sports stuff I'm pretty sure EA has casual timesinks covered. And it has that Popcap thing.

Blizzard has WoW, which is the biggest social/casual sink this side of time. Once WoW has pet battles I bet Zynga is going to start looking at the MMO market.

 

[BrotherRool]

Not just PopCap but playfish too. And casual sims games aplenty

 

[Anjel]

The problem with large companies like EA, Blizzard and Valve is that they are quite happy to consider a particular casual/indie game to add to their catalogue in some form but when they do it stops becoming an indie game (obviously) and may as well drop it's Casual tag as well.

Take DotA for example, it was just a mod and now Dota 2 is being developed by Valve you can bet your ass it's going to retail at the price of a regular game.

On the other hand, Plants versus Zombies is still very popular yet hasn't been adapted into some bizarre 3D engine based game where you have to terraform an alien world using the powers of your army of sunflowers whilst being attacked by zombie models that are worthy of the silver screen in Plants versus Zombies 2 *cough* don'teventhinkaboutitEA *cough*

And let us not forget Angry Birds - such a simple, casual game with a few paid addons, loved by millions (billions?). You watch what happens when that damn movie hits the screens, there will be Angry Birds clothing selling at more than your average tee, Angry Birds 'official' toys that you have to sell a kidney to afford, and then it will just get stupid like Angry Birds toothbrushes and panty liners.

Disclaimer: I actually like Blizzard and Valve as developers and this isn't a dig at what they produce, as they roll out some quality games, but the whole "see something doing well, buy rights to it, change it so it's barely recognisable and make a crap ton of profit off of it" attitude needs addressing.