When did EA start to go bad?

[FakeSympathy]

I remember EA being a great publishers that gave me great games such as Dragon Age, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, and Mass Effect 2 (which is debatable).

But what the hell are these shits i'm looking at? BF4 and SimCity disastrous launch? Mediocre Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition? DLC supplemented ME3? Battlefield Hardline's cash grab bullshit? Oh, let's not forget our newest member to the family, Battlefront EA (I REFUSE to put SW at the beginning).

Seriously, what happened, EA?

 

[Skops]

I was discussing this with a friend the other day actually. We felt that the full turning point of EA becoming what we know today was "Project 10 Dollar": if you bought a game USED, the online content of the game would be locked unless you paid $10.

Prior to that, I can only say that the years of 1998 - 2009 were practically the golden years of EA. Almost every franchise they had were releasing with quality one after another (Need For Speed, 007, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Command & Conquer, BLACK, Dead Space, The Godfather, SKATE, and even the sports games were better than their competition)

While I can definitely tell you that monopolizing the NFL & NHL licenses has killed their motivation to improve their sports brands, I'm not entirely sure what cause the shift to straight up evil practices from 2010 onward.

 

[Andy Shandy]

When they ruin Mirror's Edge Catalyst.

Serious answer: The lifetime of Project Ten Dollar.

But at the moment, I think they're alright. Maybe even good.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Depends, for me I have hated them since 1990 or 1991 (cant remember exact year was a while ago) with their constant sports games update bs and its just been a downhill ride ever since. So yeah thats when they went bad for me as for in the 80s I seem to remember them being not that terrible.

 

[DoPo]

When did they start? Well, that would be quite a while ago, actually. They began their career as something like the Jesus of game companies yet, over time they became...well, bigger. Even though people have pointed out Project 10$ as the start that's more like when they started peaking, actually - there have been shady things around EA from before that era, only it wasn't as prominent. When they acquired Westwood, for example, there were rumours and accounts of some people leaving because of EA and similar things but overall we still got RA2 and we were happy.

But that just shows that there were bad things surrounding EA from even before the Project 10$ thing - by the time that hit, EA had managed to fuck up more frequently and with greater magnitude, thus starting a very downward trend in public eyes. Since then they continued to flail around causing more mishap and thus reaffirming the picture they had painted of themselves.

Until relatively recently, they didn't really seem to care much about fixing that image, however, for roughly the last two years, they did put some work into actually becoming better. Probably winning worst company award two times in a row did strongly nudge them in that direction.

I remember EA being a great publishers that gave me great games such as Dragon Age, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, and Mass Effect 2 (which is debatable).

Erm those would be games that were after EA was started to widely be considered bad. People lamented BioWare being bought by EA because they were just working on DA:O and ME at the time. I think ME might have been release just around the time EA got them, while DA:O was certainly in the works and heavily advanced. There were many that feared EA would meddle but the game turned out to be alright despite the fears. Yet, ME2 and DA2 didn't have such luck and many held them as examples why EA was being bad at the time. Mirror's Edge, in particular, is actually an infamous example of "EA being bad" as, while many like the game, even they admit that the fighting seems shoehorned. And indeed it is, as by many accounts it was explicitly requested by EA for there to be shooting mechanics. The bugs and other problems of the game are also chalked up to EA - partly because of the tacked on shooting and partly because the game was rushed. And I'm pretty sure that when Dead Space came out, critics did use it as an example that EA can still make good game, and as such, as a tool to criticise them for not actually doing it more often.

Point being, the games you point at proving EA being "great publishers" were actually the opposite - at the time, many were reminded of what EA was missing in the rest of their games. And indeed, sequels of these games did get quite criticised for going downhill.

 

[Scarim Coral]

After the SNES era?

In saying so that was before broadband existed so I didn't get to read and understand a collective opinions that EA is bad.

EDIT- Now I think about it more, they could had went stale around the early 2000's? I mean that was when they started to swallow the smaller companies like Westwood Studios and craping out poor version of their games under their brands.

 

[Zio_IV]

Well I remember playing quite a few of their games back in the early 90's onward, and back then things were pretty cool. Granted, widespread gaming news was basically nonexistent to the average guy, but purely from a gaming perspective, the EA games I was playing were good, and I have nothing but positive memories of them.

I don't really know if there ever was a specific point at which they went downhill. Could be around the time they started making those shock ads like with Dead Space 2. Or when they intentionally gave themselves controversial PR, like with Dante's Inferno.

For me personally, though? I'd say it's when this got replaced:

Spoiler: The classic

 

[stroopwafel]

Probably around the time they shoehorned co-op into Dead Space 3 and considered every game that sold less than 5 million copies a 'failure'. Right there it shows a company no longer having any kind of affinity with videogames whatsoever and only caring about money. Though it is something EA has in common with other dinosaurs like Activision and Konami.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

EA has always been bad. It is practically their business model (besides yearly releases of fifa, which I think are actually fine). Their basic pattern has always been to find excellent, highly acclaimed studios that make amazing games, buy that studio, and run it into the ground exploiting the good name of the acquired studio until gamers have lost all faith in the brand, at which they close the studio. They have been doing this for more than 20 years, the earliest examples of this that I experienced was EA acquiring and trashing the brilliant Bullfrog in 1995 and Westwood in 1998.

Mass Effect was not made by EA. Bioware was acquired by EA right about at the time Mass Effect was released, it was complete before EA bought them. Dragon Age was already deep in development at the time. Neither can be attributed to EA.

Now, EA has made some decent games, like Dead Space. In fact, I would say they are better now than ever. They have done some stupid things recently, but they did far, far worse in the past.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

Some say Project Ten Dollar, but I say go deeper and look at the events of late 2004 and early 2005. You see, back at that time there was a strong competition between 2K and EA on the sports genre, and this competition was no stronger than the annual NFL-licensed game. Except, on this year, 2K's NFL 2K5 managed to beat EA's Madden 2005 on overall ratings in a time when critics were a definitive source of opinion for games. Now, given the competition, how could EA strike back? Would they try building a better game? Well, back then, the NFL games were made with permission and non-exclusive contract to use the NFL teams and players via the Players' Association. So what EA did was change the terms of that contract to be exclusive, and thus EA was the only one who could make officially-licensed and commercially sold NFL games. 2K, left with nothing, eventually had to cancel NFL 2K6. However, in a move to strike back, 2K pulled the same trick with the NBA and MLB, which is why you don't see basketball and baseball games made by EA anymore.

This is where EA's desire to not compete, or bend the market's rules to be more uncompetitive, begins.

But an earlier problem exists, and it's one few don't bring up. Back in 1991 EA entered the public market, meaning ownership could be traded off via shares, and thus the corporatizing of the company began. As the video game industry's revenue increased with each year, investment firms grew more interested in companies like EA, and thus chose to buy stock. Those shares grew, and these firms have little experience in the industry - Thus they have a large percentage of what goes and what doesn't, and if something doesn't show possible returns, they will not be in favor of it.

So it's not EA that's entirely bad, it's investment firms who don't understand what (nor want to) they're investing in that's bad.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

For me, I'd say it was when they picked up Pandemic and proceeded to murder them. Though I know others will point to the Maxis or Westwood buyouts as well.

 

[Fat Hippo]

As some have already said, they've always been shit, in particular adept at studio-murdering. They killed Maxis, Mythic, Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin and Pandemic. And they're in the process of doing the same with Bioware and DICE, in my opinion. Well, Bioware is already dead to me personally, but they may exist as an organization for a while longer. I will just think their games have become shit. Ditto for DICE.

Also, it makes me sad that some people here actually think EA can be thanked for series such as Command and Conquer, Battlefield or Bioware RPGs. EA just bought the studios that were developing them and then milked the fuck out of their existing franchises. They never had "golden years". Though some periods may have been slightly less crap than others, you'd need to take a closer look at each year for that.

 

[KingOfGreyfell]

Look to the death of the Ultima franchise with their ruination of IX.

 

[dohnut king]

2004, when they got exclusive rights for football from the NFL. The 2K football games were better and much cheaper than Madden. Instead of competing, EA threw a wad of money at the NFL and got exclusive rights, which in turn led to Madden's descent into mediocrity.

 

[Rastrelly]

They were never good, but they lost the right to exist when they killed Westwood.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY Back in the 90s was when EA went bad.

Buying out and axing Westwood, Maxis, Origin etc.

They have been Evil ever since, but weren't always... (Right click and view image to read the full thing)

"Mr. Internet, How did Electronic Arts die?"

"A young company named EA helped the Corporation hunt down and destroy Gaming Companies. He betrayed and murdered Electronic Arts. Now good gaming companies are all but extinct. EA was seduced by the dark side of the Market"

--------------------------------------

"Mr. Internet never told you what happened to Electronic Arts"

"He told me enough! He told me YOU killed them"

"No, I AM ELECTRONIC ARTS!"

 

[Frankster]

EA was once good?

news to me.

Let me tell you a story, albeit a not very exciting one..

What if I told you there was a time when EA games came with little seals of guarantee in their manuals with the following sentence (more or less, im paraphrasing): We at EA are an association of electronic artists who are passionate about our craft strive to make the highest quality products and the best games around, we hope you greatly enjoy this product and that EA will continue to make the best games for gamers for many years to come and that when you see the EA title, you know you are guaranteed to the highest quality gaming experience.

I butchered it but the sentiment was more or less like that. I only remember this because I was surprised to find see a company make such a passionate statement, and also these were the days when everyone still read the manuals because they were usually quite informative.
Game in question was Road Rash for the genesis/megadrive if anyone is curious.

Then at some point...Well let's just say at some point the idealistic small guy turned into an emotionless titan, but I couldn't tell you when it happened exactly. And that Titan got progressively more anti consumer and greedy as its importance swelled.

 

[HybridChangeling]

"Mr. Internet never told you what happened to Electronic Arts"

"He told me enough! He told me YOU killed them"

"No, I AM ELECTRONIC ARTS!"

Quote of the day. Electronic Art's has always been a company first and a game maker like tenth. I can't think of a time in my life when people didn't complain, from using the Sims IP as one of the first mass market DLC platforms, to ruining SimCity. I always hear that Sports Games are hugely flawed.

"It's in the game."

 

[RandV80]

After the SNES era?

In saying so that was before broadband existed so I didn't get to read and understand a collective opinions that EA is bad.

Pretty much, and this is a good way to show the age of the general populous around here. I mean I don't know the exact details of how it went down, but EA probably made a lot more money than other developers on the strength of their sports titles, and around the end of the SNES era was when they started down the path from a games developer to being the Corporate Borg. Once they started buying up other devs and sucking the life out of them at the behest of the investment groups who held their shares is when you can say EA 'turned bad', and that process began in the 90's.

And yeah I remember a time too when an EA game was a guarantee of quality.