http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-21-stock-ticker-why-eas-market-valuation-has-crashed?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=us-daily
Can´t help myself, but i have a big grin in myface.
Don't laugh. This malaise affects the whole gaming industry, not just EA. Maybe in the long run it's a good thing "creative destruction" and all that but it is a symptom of deeper underlining problems.
Notice in the article of how Activision-Blizzard is starting to show weakness. This is after Diablo 3 and right before the HOTS expansion for Starcraft2.
EA launching a subscription-based MMO is practically archaic these days and was bound to lose subscribers by the boatload. Doing business that way means that they're not seeing what customers actually want (in terms of purchases) which means they're not providing the services the customer wants (within reason) which makes subscribing rather pointless. Being forced to adopt a free to play business model is not necessarily a bad thing, even if it is embarrassing to not have launched with it from the get-go. The fact is, getting players to log on at all is the hard part, and a subscription requirement is one sure way to send them all packing.
On one end of the F2P scale you have players who log on now and then and maybe buy one thing or two but largely play as free as they can get. On the other end you have players who like the stuff available in the store so much that they're willing to part with their cash. It's not difficult to see that when you have a very large player base, this continuum of customers can generate far more business revenue than the subscription model. Sure the servers will be packed and they'll probably need more hardware to cope with it, but that's something which is fairly easy to scale, if there's a constant trickle of revenue.
Star Wars the Old Republic could be considered an EA hater's favorite game of all time.
Why not? Do you think there will be no games without big publishers?
I hope so!
Yes and thats no surprise. Maybe D3 is a good game. I don´t know. I haven´t played it. (there is path of exile ) But friends, who bought and play D3 told me, that they like it, but its obvious that Blizz. designed D3 with the AH in mind. Money is all.
What goes around, comes around.
EA has frustrated the quality of product in the gaming industry for a long time now, but for me the last straw was when Bioware was bought out.
Biggest. Mistake. Ever.
For all practical reasons, it would seem genious on the part of EA for this move. They gained a REALLY good gaming company and merged that talent and quality into itself to assist in the development of really good games in the future, right? NOPE.
A reality check shows them destroying a REALLY good gaming company and gaining nothing from it. They've lost the employees of talent and quality. They've ruined the gaming titles that Bioware was working on. They're destroying the PC gaming market by only offering console crap.
EA has got to STOP focusing on console compatability. It's destroying quality of gaming. It's also hurting their bottom line.
I won't buy EA. Dragon Age is the perfect example. When it was released, EA was still only a publisher for them. Since then, with the release of Dragon Age II, EA bought Bioware. The difference between those two game are DAY and NIGHT. LOVED LOVED LOVED Dragon Age.....tried Dragon Age II....quit playing it almost right away and reloaded it's predicessor for another go. I'd rather repeat the story line with a GOOD game than get a new storyline with CONSOLE CRAP.
/endrant.
This probably has more to do with the advent of free-to-play, and the aforementioned creative destruction, then anything to specific to EA. As much as I hate EA they still sell a lot of games and that's what really matters in the end. Big inflexible game companies are simply starting to look bad to savvy investors, with Activision Blizzard being the exception because of it's great IPs and profit. Add in Kickstarter and a more knowledgeable base and it seems obvious that the large dominate companies are going to lose some market share. No they won't go under or anything too dramatic but they probably seem overvalued to a lot of investors. Expect EA to churn out bad games for a long time to come even if a few less people buy them.
It turned out just like Westwood, 'cept the name "Bioware" still exists.
Another awesome company that outputted awesome games.
Why does EA keep screwing up the market and dragging it down??
Good news anyway. Hope it burns to the ground.
(Possibly just after Mirror's Edge 2, if it ever gets released).
EA killed Command and Conquer. For that there is no retribution. Burn Burn Burn Burn!
EA killed Westwood Studios, Pandemic Studios, and Bioware, and they will pay the price for their lack of vision one day.
I think you guys are forgetting that developers come and go pretty frequently. Very few people want to spend their whole life making command and conquer games. They get bored and want to try something new. Also, team sizes have grown over the years so as you add new people to the project you get new influences that will change the direction of the game.
Even if we didn't have marketing and other execs pushing the games in bad directions, the franchises we love would still drift in new directions, possibly for the worse.
EA and other companies are guilty of buying up companies and splitting the talent from the IP, usually valuing one over the other. This doesn't always happen though and there are some great games that never would have seen the light of day if not for the big publishers.
It's not about being "big": the issue is honesty towards the customers. Valve is big, and awesome on all levels. Blizzard is big and honest towards its customers (I don't like their policies at all, but still they try to deliver quality and users KNOW what they get into). Bethesda is big and more or less consistent and trustworthy.
EA's "trademarks" are the progressive dumbing down of each and every property, the ever increasing willingness to rush products, and the blatant dishonesty towards customers which borders on outright lying. They deserve to come crumbling down and never be spoken of again, as far as gaming companies go.
you guys all forgot Maxis.
even if the Sims did get repetitive, they were still better before Will Right was forced to resign because of what EA did to Spore.
look at these:
Original demo trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA
Post EA modification:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDUIDO-Njho&feature=relmfu
EA can swim in it's own sewage, it's their fault. I refuse to buy an EA game again.
First they killed Bioware with the abomination that is Dragon Age 2 after the amazing Dragon Age Origins.
Second, they came up with this Origin service which is mandatory. Uhhh, no. I know I'm not alone in that many gamers refuse to get an EA game because of the Origin requirement. Same for many Ubisoft games and their horrendous DRM.
So while I was super excited for Sim City 5, finally as Cities XL just isn't that good, it's an Origin exclusive. They killed yet another franchise for me.
Burn EA, burn!
I'm rarely the one to bring torches and pitchforks to storm a game company, but I hate EA. I really don't think that I can come close to saying that about any other video game company. I hate to be "one of those" internet people who sees in black and white and uses hyperbole like a fat man uses table salt, but I had a very bad feeling when EA purchases Bioware, and as much as I wanted to live in denial, everything that Bioware has released since has been underwhelming. But, to be fair, I didn't bother with Mass Effect 3.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5946-Why-Do-People-Hate-EA
If EA's first offense for you was Bioware, then you're doing much better than the majority of us who have been disappointed in EA games for quite awhile.
Heaven help everyone, when Electronic Arts buys Steam ...
[ Yeah, I know ... I've said this once before, in a different Discussion thread. ]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electronic_Arts
just say which one was the last straw for you.
me:
Westwood.
UbraAngel makes a terribly meaningless point. We are not mad because new influences drifted the games we loved. We are mad because EA took these franchises and crapped all over them with zero quality control. Go ahead and try to play C&C4. It is two games spliced together and neither well implemented because EA cut funding to both and then merged the teams, firing a few employees just before release and the whole rest of the team after. Great job. Burn in hell.
The last EA game I got (or played) was Spore.I had high hopes for that game.....That was pretty much the last straw for me...
I did download the Darkspore demo because I was curious about the creator in it... what a joke
That game was in the bargain bin in what, 3 months after release?
Have you considered that maybe they knew C&C4 was going to be crap anyway, which was enough reason to let the team go?
Aside from which, Generals 2 is on the way. Generals was way better than C&C2 or 3.
Honestly the only C&C series I still liked was Red Alert (Generals still isn't a series until 2 is actually out.)
I mean seriously, "I'm sorry your game is going to lose us millions and be a major black eye in our portfolio, here's a raise do it again!" does not seem like it would've been a logical response.
C&C 2 is Tiberian Sun, while somewhat buggy, its till better than C&C 3 because it was developed by WW, but budget and time were limited by EA and it got cut 75% through development.
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