EA revealed something which those of us who follow the industry have known for sometime; they are not in the business of selling games, instead they offer 'games as a service'. What that translates into is a business model that has no interest in selling a game that they cannot continue to milk income from for a long time after its release. This specifically impacts single player games, as one cannot attempt to turn them into the next big eSports title and not many people are willing to shell out extra cash for horse armour. That attitude created an incredibly unfriendly work environment and lead to issues with employee retention as well as resources for the development of the game. EA responded to Kotaku, who researched the fall of Ragtag and Visceral with a statement containing absolutely nothing, which you can read here.
This is an example of the changing attitude of several large game development companies, who are not satisfied with the income from a games release nor additional income from DLC and who instead want every game they release to be a permanent source of income. How exactly one is supposed to have the time to play one game for as long envision so and to keep purchasing new releases which are also intended to be continually played is unclear.
Thankfully there are holdouts such as Paradox and Creative Assembly who find ways to extend the life of older games and make money at it; without the expectation that you buy a new game, along with DLC and add-ons every single year as well as continue to play last years model.
"The demos weren’t enough. Former Visceral employees don’t know when EA made the decision to shut down their studio, but on October 17, 2017, it became official. Visceral, which employed around 80 people, was no more."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Steam introduces digital gift cards and a lot of hassle @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Halloween sale ends soon! Now with 300+ deals up to -90% • Get a FREE game when you spend 15 USD @ GOG
- Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Super Mario Odyssey review: Mario’s densest, deepest adventure yet @ Ars Technica
- I love Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s skill trees @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Humble Jumbo Bundle
- Spelunky 2 is happening @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds ‘on track’ for v1.0 release in Dec @ HEXUS
- A Look At GPU Performance In Destiny 2: 1080p, 1440p, Ultrawide & 4K @ Techgage
- Wot I Think: Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
Plenty of game
Plenty of game devs/publishers don’t do this crap. It’s just the ones which spend 60mil on ads that do. They have to make up their ad budget somehow.
correction, plenty of game
correction, plenty of game devs/publishers HAVEN’T done these shitty things YET because they are waiting for someone else to do it first and see how it goes before dropping it in their games.
It’s a shame that their game
It’s a shame that their game couldn’t be made. I keep hoping for a good Star Wars game to come out, but all I keep hearing of is the good sounding ones getting canned in favor of more Battlefront(not that Battlefront is all that bad). The Star Wars game I’d love to see is something like The Witcher 3, but in the Star Wars universe with lightsabers and blasters. Maybe even set back in The Old Republic era so it doesn’t interfere with the current stories.
What they are doing is caving
What they are doing is caving to pressure to be the #1 game in town. What they are going to learn is that it’s hard to be the #1 game in town because you have to always be the next big thing. Milking doesn’t work long term, you have to innovate. Battlefront will not sell as well as Pubg. Their best bet is to let Dice copy Pubg using the BF engine. Instead they wasted their time hoping Battlefront/Star Wars license would be guarantee money maker. They are going to learn fast that everyone is tired of that COD respawn play style.
I think Battlefield 64 hardcore is legit. 32 people a side, its pretty incredible. The issue is that you have rando’s dictating who wins or the number of quality squads that are grouped together. You never truly have a 32 vs 32 cooperative match in public games as it’s not possible. So they built a game that isn’t really possible to be anything other than a spawn kill spawn kill game which is basically the same as Q1 and every other game.
I used to play a lot of hardcore gunmaster because at least it was different and fair and balanced if you didn’t have any hackers in game.
whatever… EA will be fine just pumping out those updates to those sports games every year. Just update roster and hit compile and slap a $60 price for d1 and then drop the price to $30 after 4 weeks of the sports season.
can’t wait for a levolution PUGB clone. LOL
and if you get a good group
and if you get a good group that does let you get good 32v32 going, it makes them mad
EA(Egregious A$$E$)! Games As
EA(Egregious A$$E$)! Games As A Servce business model, among the many other things that have so endeared EA’s reputation among gamers.
dont forget wolfenstein II
dont forget wolfenstein II