Stop Reflexively Bashing EA
July 19th, 2008EA takes a lot of flak from gamers and the gaming press, and some of it is undeserved. For example, the idea that EA publishes nothing but me-too sequels: see Penny Arcade’s amazement that the company is publishing Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, two of the more anticipated games coming out of E3 this year.
But EA is also the company publishing Spore. And Rock Band. And Crysis, and the Sims, and a ton of other intriguing games that are or were - if not fully ahead of their time - at least doing their part to move the industry forward a little bit at a time. Sure, they put out a ton of crap as well, and they, like any other large company, milk franchises long after they stop becoming interesting. But the firm’s doing a decent job attempting to decentralize its management of the group’s developers, and it seems like it’s starting to pay off.
There’s a tendency for gamers to put on blinders once they’ve categorized a company, and EA is no exception. Viewing them as the Evil Empire is far too simplistic for what’s really going on there. And it’s silly to be so shocked by outcomes like Dead Space, because anyone paying tatention to the industry can see that complexity.
Posted in Business, Geoff, Industry |
July 19th, 2008 at 3:47 am
EA employees reported some pretty exploitative working conditions a few years back. I think most of it stems from that.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:52 am
I think a lot of the new stuff coming out also, to some extent, does reflect a new strategy. If I recall correctly, they have a new CEO who is actually interested in creating new (and good) franchises. Sometimes it may work (Dead Space, Crysis, Spore, Boom Blox, etc), and sometimes it may not (Army of Two).
But you’re right… EA is responsible for plenty of games that I’ve enjoyed over the years (SSX, NBA Street, Medal of Honor to name a few). The exploitive working conditions were obviously no good, although this has supposedly been mostly corrected (and to be honest, basically seems to be industry norm anyway… not that that’s a good thing, but working for a game developer can be grueling work).
July 19th, 2008 at 7:18 am
IT as an industry is often pretty terrible. I don’t mind objecting to the poor conditions, but there are a lot of options (quitting, unionization, etc.) that are probably more appropriate in a situation where the industry as a whole is collectively guilty.
July 19th, 2008 at 7:27 am
I agree with Geoff completely. EA gets a bad rap. Sure they have their problems and are often guilty as charged, but IMO they do a lot of good things.
As far as exploitative work practices, I believe any worker, in any field, should quit a job if they can get a better deal elsewhere. If you work in a technical field (i.e. indoors in the AC, sitting most all the day) and can’t get a better deal elsewhere, odds are good you don’t have it so bad afterall.
July 19th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I agree as well. They were pretty bad in the past, and they are ruining command and conquer (but seeing that even blizzard is voluntarily noobing up their own franchises,I suppose it isn’t EA’s fault for not getting someone else’s franchise right.) but all in all they have really started to turn it around.
Activision are much more inline with what EA used to be, given their reliance on shovelware.
Hell, how many Ratchet games has sony put out? How many God of War games?
Plenty of publishers whore franchises…
July 19th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
The gaming community has recognized this long ago:
Activision is the New EA [or we should say...the old EA]. Lest we forget the “we must exploit each franchise” remark.
GeofF:
As a political moderate, I recognize the merits and flaws of unionization. I’m not sure whether the games industry merits one, and in what format, but the typical libertarian “It’s up to you to quit if you don’t like it” is suspect as well, and may ignore industry-wide problems.
That said, I haven’t heard as much complaints since the EA spouse thing. We’ll see….
PS: Activision sux boooooo
July 19th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
““It’s up to you to quit if you don’t like it””
I know you weren’t referring to my comment above seeing as I said nothing of the sort. But yeah, in a rare turn, I agree with laspy. Activision is making some blunders much like EA did in the past.
Also, in this day and age, in the US, unions (at least in their current form) are nearly always a bad idea and usually lead to lots of lay offs and a few super rich union leaders. (SEE: GM)
July 20th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I think this guy posed off your article. But yeah, he makes some salient points too.
http://www.endsights.com/?p=62