More layoffs hit TOR team, EA hits 52-week low, CEO may be replaced. - Polidicks

[quote] Electronic Arts is one of the most divisive companies in terms of public opinion. They are [b]notorious for buying up studios and closing them after one game does poorly[/b]in the market. Several have gone this route: [b]Westwood Studios[/b](the makers of the Command & Conquer franchise), [b]Origin Systems[/b](the Wing Commander series), [b]Pandemic Studios[/b](Mercenaries and the Star Wars: Battlefront series), and [b]Bullfrog Productions[/b](Populous and Dungeon Keeper). The local studio here in Orlando, EA Tiburon, is best known for the EA Sports line of games; their goal of making a yearly iteration of the Madden franchise is secure as EA is the only company who can license NFL content. Things are not looking good for BioWare Austin though. They [b]recently released their one "bad" game: Star Wars: The Old Republic.[/b]This was their first MMORPG, and they were receiving help from another studio bought by EA: Mythic. The game opened to good reception and great sales. It managed to rack up 1.7 million subscribers within the first few months. The strongpoint of a good MMORPG is not in initial sales though; it's in recurrent subscribers feeding $15 per month to the parent company. [b]Star Wars: TOR lost 400,000 almost immediately.[/b]The game was an investment expected to grow over the course of the year, and it failed. Now people are being laid off, and [b]the game may go completely free to play.[/b] The [b]first to go was the producer[/b]Rich Vogel followed by several other lay-offs. A community website for the game is a sobering reminder that this economy is harsh to anyone jobless. While Star Wars: The Old Republic is a sub-par game, Electronic Arts runs their business in a cutthroat manner. The company is continuing to make poor decisions that may ruin it. [b]Dead Space 3 is changing[/b]from it's predecessors in order to "access a broader market," [b]needing to sell 5 million copies for the franchise to survive[/b]. Their main competitor series to Call of Duty, Battlefield and Medal of Honor, are expected to cost $10 more in the future. Their Origin digital distribution software, mandatory with Battlefield 3, was caught accessing tax documents on German's computer alongside having a bad end-user license agreement. It's getting to the point that the [b]current CEO, John Riccitiello, may be replaced by COO Peter Moore.[/b] Peter Moore should be a household name in the gaming industry; he was president of Sega of America during the Dreamcast years, and he moved on to Microsoft to help the Xbox and Xbox 360 compete in the market before moving on to Electronic Arts. Hopefully he'll turn around the company before they strangle another studio. [/quote] [url=http://www.examiner.com/article/electronic-arts-lays-off-several-at-bioware-austin-continues-poor-choices]Source (Examiner)[/url]

[quote]Their main competitor series to Call of Duty, Battlefield and Medal of Honor, are expected to cost $10 more in the future. [/quote] are you fucking kidding me

Wow. I did not realise just how badly TOR went. I knew it didn't have massive sales. But I didn't realise it lost that many subs that fast. Well, hopefully they do replace the CEO, their current one is a fucking nightmare for PR, and is just not doing to well. The speculated CEO seems like a good choice.

Haha $10 more for video games?, and they think they're going to be able to keep up with selling an adequate amount of copies?

[QUOTE=Meatpuppet;36838785]are you fucking kidding me[/QUOTE] They'd probably get more income by lowering the price so a lot more can buy it, instead of raising it.

I'd like to see Peter Moore take over. I won't pretend he isn't just as much as of a business goon as anyone else, but he is a chill guy with a lot of good experience.

We can only hope that this titan collapses, and all the companies manage to begin again under a better, though probably humbler, regime. Also, one "bad" game? I dunno, does DA2 count as bad or just sub-par?

[QUOTE=Meatpuppet;36838785]are you fucking kidding me[/QUOTE] If anything, that'll only deter people from shelling out for the games. Only diehard fans and oblivious people who feel a need to have the [i]~newest thing~[/i] who also have enough cash to spare will shell out 70 bucks for a single game.

[QUOTE=ironman17;36838909]We can only hope that this titan collapses, and all the companies manage to begin again under a better, though probably humbler, regime. Also, one "bad" game? I dunno, does DA2 count as bad or just sub-par?[/QUOTE] It sold enough.

€70 for a game? God damn that's 13% of the minimal wage in Spain, just to put that into perspective.

[QUOTE=ironman17;36838909]We can only hope that this titan collapses, and all the companies manage to begin again under a better, though probably humbler, regime. Also, one "bad" game? I dunno, does DA2 count as bad or just sub-par?[/QUOTE] From a business standpoint DA2 did well, the game was shit.

[QUOTE=Orkel;36838871]They'd probably get more income by lowering the price so a lot more can buy it, instead of raising it.[/QUOTE] They won't do that because it'll "cheapen their intellectual property" :rolleye:

[QUOTE=Orkel;36838871]They'd probably get more income by lowering the price so a lot more can buy it, instead of raising it.[/QUOTE] If it would be like 30 Euros I might consider it when it's on sale ( aka around 15 Euros ) but now when it's on sale it goes from 60 to... 50 Euros... great!

[QUOTE=Meatpuppet;36838785]are you fucking kidding me[/QUOTE] I'm starting to think Riccitello just wants to be hated and get fired. He's doing literally everything for that to happen. And I have no idea why they think making things even more expensive is gonna do them any good.

[quote]Dead Space 3 is changing from it's predecessors in order to "access a broader market," needing to sell 5 million copies for the franchise to survive.[/quote] This struck me as odd, did the last game not sell as well or something, or is EA just having really high expectations?

[QUOTE=spekter;36838966]It sold enough.[/QUOTE] Oh right, and here I thought we were talking about game quality, not about financial viability. Thing is, even if BioWare does everything right with Dragon Age 3, despite our doubts of it being worse, I don't think they're gonna be able to sell too much unless they can win over the trust of the consumers with less bullshit and more of a chance to test-drive it. A shareware version with a reasonable portion of the early game would give people a good impression of how the game would play and turn out, making them more willing to pay for the rest of the game; hell, even a DEMO, an actual short playable demonstration of the game, that would help us judge for ourselves whether or not to stick around for this installment, and not dive in with blind faith hoping that it's gonna be great, with the promise of pre-order bonuses luring us towards putting money upfront before people can tell others about how it sucks or rocks.

Announcing EA's new CEO: Billy Kotick!

[quote]Dead Space 3 is changingfrom it's predecessors in order to "access a broader market,"[/quote] Call of Space 3: Dead Warfare

[QUOTE=Meatpuppet;36838785]are you fucking kidding me[/QUOTE] Welcome to Australia We are probably getting a price up too but who cares, I think I can survive without adding a few brown boring generic guns ho merica shooters to my library. It makes me happy to see EA hurt.

[QUOTE=Kendra;36838998]€70 for a game? God damn that's 13% of the minimal wage in Spain, just to put that into perspective.[/QUOTE] 25% of Estonias minimum wage. Thats also why Valve is great, they had Europe divided into three, rich ($=€), Medium (Converted properly) and poor (slightly cheaper than med.) which consisted of the Baltic countries. Now the poor is gone and it was combined with the medium group.

[QUOTE=Zingly;36839086]This struck me as odd, did the last game not sell as well or something, or is EA just having really high expectations?[/QUOTE] No, it's just EA exploiting their popular franchises. If a game doesn't sell as well as it's predecessor then the series is dead to them from a business point of view.

Perhaps EA should actually think about investments instead of throwing money at something until it works.

[QUOTE=Orkel;36838871]They'd probably get more income by lowering the price so a lot more can buy it, instead of raising it.[/QUOTE] That would harm the game IP though! Can't have that! Good job EA.

Dead Space 1 and 2 were great, i'm sad EA (possibly) decided to change the direction of part 3 to make more money. Eventually a game or sequel won't live up to EA's expectations and they shut a studio down.

[QUOTE=tratzzz;36839220]25% of Estonias minimum wage. Thats also why Valve is great, they had Europe divided into three, rich ($=€), Medium (Converted properly) and poor (slightly cheaper than med.) which consisted of the Baltic countries. Now the poor is gone and it was combined with the medium group.[/QUOTE]So that's why stuff on Steam costs more in Finland. Goddamn it :/

[quote]expected to cost $10 more in the future[/quote] Another reason to add to the list of why not to buy their shit.

[QUOTE=Meatpuppet;36838785]are you fucking kidding me[/QUOTE] If a publisher wants the same audience as CoD then they've already lost in my eyes. It's one of the reasons why me3 went worse then i expected.

Hahahahah, EA doesn't know what the fuck it's doing. JUST DIE ALREADY, EA

[QUOTE=Orkel;36838871]They'd probably get more income by lowering the price so a lot more can buy it, instead of raising it.[/QUOTE]Valve is living proof that is usually the case. I'm upset that TOR seems to be doing so horribly. Was it really that bad? It looked like fun judging from what I saw. Oh well, if the game DOES go completely F2P I'll pick it up.

[QUOTE=Solo Wing;36839437]Valve is living proof that is usually the case. I'm upset that TOR seems to be doing so horribly. Was it really that bad? It looked like fun judging from what I saw. Oh well, if the game DOES go completely F2P I'll pick it up.[/QUOTE] TOR was literally World of Warcraft but you could have conversations and lightsabers. The raids were fun though, instead of doing it WoW style (Tank, DPS, Healer) The entire group would just bumrush their way through enemy ranks. That was the only plus side.