I sort of get your point here: you work with really cool people, and they're talented artists and managers, and it's an awesome team, that you're projecting our hate onto.
But there's another point here. The tank in question did all the way up through QA, through several rounds of testing, through art-department and, indirectly, through EA lawyer team as well. No one either mentioned or cared to point the resemblance out.
Now, if it was outsourced to that German/Polish/Chinese guy, he was working off a concept that also got approved by someone else before. And that guy is also cheap enough to get feedback and remodel parts of this stuff, at least paint a different texture and slap some nuts and bolts on top, to make it look less traced off.
But no one cared. This thing gets into press, shit hits the fan, and the EA hate machine is back on track.
The best thing they could have done right now is to issue an official apology and recall the asset in question (and maybe tip the original artist a bit), because an incoming lawsuit will generate much more negative publicity for EA again.
Same situation in reverse: if a noname Chinese studio copied models from anything as derivative and bland as Dead Space and pushed them in a commercial product, EA would have already sent their blue-collared law hounds.
Well, if we're actually being fair, the one that needs to apologize is the artist. The artist betrayed EA in effect.
Don't let that stop you from getting worked up about EA being evil though.
Also, I completely believe something like that could go through a hundred people's hands and not have anyone notice that it's from warhammer. It's a warhammer tank for fucks sake. I've never even met someone who played warhammer in my entire life, and I used to play Magic the Gathering!
Everyone wants to hate on EA. Totally ridiculous. One dude in Germany makes a mistake (or even more likely, it was outsourced), therefore the entire company gets blamed?
I wouldn't hate on anyone that works there, but again it's aimed at the corporate company, not people who work there specifically. But again, people have no good memories of EA, they're going to attribute everything to EA.
EA has made it very easy over the last 20 years to hate them, and they're not working actively to win back the love of those who did love them back then and then ended up burnt several times.
Now this certain event I wouldn't relate directly to EA, and I didn't either, I relate it directly to the artist and the company in germany that is behind this and the ultima game.
Again: there really isn't any end in sight for the EA hate, and that's how it's going to be, there's practices that's in place, and EA as a corporation is not interested in changing their ways, which is directly related to handling games purely as a product and going through companies and IP like no other.
All I can hope for now and the future is that you and everyone who works there have a good and rewarding job.
I meant, when people think back at EA there's only memories of companies going down and ip's dying out, they did however publish some really fantastic games, no matter the eventual outcome.
Everyone has some favorite games that are directly related to EA, and chances are they've also seen those favorite games die out.
I hate late Riccitiello era EA, but some of my warmest child/teen memories include playing EA games too. I have good memories of EA, so to say. That's the part I was referring to.
((scraping offtop bits, it's a EA bashing thread after all, no need for pussying over SSX 3))
i find it laughable hating a video game company. totaly pointless. i'm a gamer. but man if i'm going to waste my time hating something. i'd want it something that actualy has an impact
(and i'm speaking as someoen who was sacked without notice from ea in a pretty shady manner")
and untill the details come to light, which they may never.
we dont know key things
1. was the rpipoff aproved byt any management or leads at the branch in question
2. was it just a uncreative modeler given the task of make a couple of tanks on short notice, with no concepts. he google some "inspiration" and figured if he had never seen these tank pics before, no one else had either.
i have no doubt that something like this could make it this far with no one noticing. i would have never noticed, and i've played a few terrible games of 40k in my past. and i spent 5 years working on warhammer online. (oh for the ppl confused about licensing.. no the warhammer license did not give ea free reign with gw property. it was a very controlled license.
again, dont waste your hate on game company, hate something that deserves it. like bats.
i find it laughable hating a video game company. totaly pointless. i'm a gamer. but man if i'm going to waste my time hating something. i'd want it something that actualy has an impact
Do realize that it's that same hateful power that pushes people to go for kickstarter to bring back games that are deemed dead by big publishers like EA.
Do realize that it's that same hateful power that pushes people to go for kickstarter to bring back games that are deemed dead by big publishers like EA.
I'd say that's pretty impactful :P
i back kickstarters cause i like what they are doing, not because i hate what someone else is doing. thats like saying the sole reason you like apples is because you hate oranges so much.
Hate or not. Whether you want to believe this was some rogue artist or the fault of an entire team. Where is EA's statement? How long does it take to come out and issue a quick boiler plate "We're Sorry" and "We're doing XYZ to fix it"...Granted it has only been a day since this was released.
Hate or not. Whether you want to believe this was some rogue artist or the fault of an entire team. Where is EA's statement? How long does it take to come out and issue a quick boiler plate "We're Sorry" and "We're doing XYZ to fix it"...Granted it has only been a day since this was released.
probably less damaging legally to say nothing and not admit to anything.
Maybe its one of those deviantArt model rippers who got a job, who is behind it...who knows...I hope so, I been waiting with a "Told You So!" signs for ages.
Hating on EA, calling them "evil", is just hilarious to me. Of course there have been IP's that have gone down hill or been ruined because of bad decisions. That happens to almost every franchise/ip from every developer and publisher. The only company that has really kept their ip completely "pure" in my opinion is Nintendo, but even that is questionable. It's not like there aren't bad Mario games or products (Super Mario Bros. Super Show is like the worst piece of shit ever made), and they rerelease them for every console, over and over. An ip or franchise being exploited/leveraged happens with a lot of ips, across all media. It's not unique to EA.
To think EA is this evil entity, moving around in the shadows, taking money from customers and ruining your childhood is just incorrect. Have there been mistakes? Hell ya, but not in the capacity most people perceive them. The origin customer support is the one thing I can say I think people are justified in being upset about. That whole operation is sort of a catastrophe, and people have the right to be upset about it.
Basically, I think of this scene every time I read EA hate.
There's no one sitting in a board room plotting against you. There was no one cackling at their desk while they used those warhammer designs. It's just a bunch of people making games, trying to make money. And sometimes people make mistakes.
Why not hate on THQ's reckless gambling with it's money and workforce?
Problem is, every time THQ is put in a corner of "Hey, we told you so!" or "You bloody twats, look what you did!" we get some person popping up from the Press or a closed down studio saying "You know what guys, it's out fault, THQ was really nice to us and all, but we had internal local issues which is why all this happened" forgetting to mention how they're now working for THQ directly, so sweet talking their position vs. what their colleagues suffered publicly.
So yeah, either THQ have some pretty bad-ass human resource peeps who have 10 years of Psychology and a hint of Laweryism in them to make an effective spin with the right moves, or they're extremely lucky.
Hating on EA, calling them "evil", is just hilarious to me. Of course there have been IP's that have gone down hill or been ruined because of bad decisions. That happens to almost every franchise/ip from every developer and publisher. The only company that has really kept their ip completely "pure" in my opinion is Nintendo, but even that is questionable. It's not like there aren't bad Mario games or products (Super Mario Bros. Super Show is like the worst piece of shit ever made), and they rerelease them for every console, over and over. An ip or franchise being exploited/leveraged happens with a lot of ips, across all media. It's not unique to EA.
To think EA is this evil entity, moving around in the shadows, taking money from customers and ruining your childhood is just incorrect. Have there been mistakes? Hell ya, but not in the capacity most people perceive them. The origin customer support is the one thing I can say I think people are justified in being upset about. That whole operation is sort of a catastrophe, and people have the right to be upset about it.
Basically, I think of this scene every time I read EA hate.
There's no one sitting in a board room plotting against you. There was no one cackling at their desk while they used those warhammer designs. It's just a bunch of people making games, trying to make money. And sometimes people make mistakes.
If you don't take games seriously, that's fine, but for some people, games are more important then your next big novel or movie, even painting, so please, don't act surprised.
Lets recap on why EA is usually hated.
-Take Dead Space, and make it more 'actiony' then Horror, because Horror is too hard.
-Limbo Mirror's Edge that's it dead/coming out, etc.
-Take Syndicate and make it another FPS game to ape on Deus Ex's success.
-Take MoH and ape it on CoD's success.
-They don't believe in Single-player games.
-Origin scan-o-matic didn't give you the option to disable it until you did manually, afterwards, and after some nerds found out about it.
-Try and insert a multi-player component in all the games they publish, sometimes, not even putting in effort.
That's only for recent stuff in gaming. Lets look in real-life?
-Their adverts most of the time are either sexist or immature (both in many cases).
-They tried making self-preservation law where they couldn't be sued unless you sent them a snail-mail and took the case to high court.
-They keep on buying small companies at premium prices and killing them off if their 'first' title under EA doesn't do well.
-Their revamp of the way stuff is done behind scene (treatment of employee's) has once again started taking a toll.
-Sometimes the wrong people are put in rank when dictated before hand they don't have the appropriate skill.
I can go on, but please, don't try and say 'EA made mistakes', because someone who makes mistakes learns from them and tries to make it better down the line, not continues on this destructive path of "Que sera, sera".
I don't really hate EA since I say 'Live and let live', and there are plenty of other fish in the sea for me to enjoy, but even I can see they're not OK in the 'head' anymore.
If you don't take games seriously, that's fine, but for some people, games are more important then your next big novel or movie, even painting, so please, don't act surprised.
Video games are my life, and have always been. Regardless, this conversation has nothing to do with video games being taken seriously as a medium.
-Take Dead Space, and make it more 'actiony' then Horror, because Horror is too hard.
First, it's your opinion that the game is more actiony than horror. Second, you are guessing that the change was made because horror was too hard. If you can produce a quote where a designer or producer said this, I would like to see it.
In general, I've genuinely never heard anyone express disappointment with Dead Space 2 in relation to Dead Space 1. Also, Dead Space was a new IP, funded and developed by EA from scratch, so I think that the creation of the Dead Space franchise is actually one of the best things EA has done in recent years.
-Limbo Mirror's Edge that's it dead/coming out, etc.
I've never seen them flip flop on this. Mirror's Edge (another new IP, developed from scratch on EA's coin) did fairly well critically, but sales were never great to my understanding. That combined with DICE being extremely busy with BF3 and other projects, it shouldn't really surprise you that Mirror's Edge 2 wasn't at the top of the que for them.
-Take Syndicate and make it another FPS game to ape on Deus Ex's success.
-Take MoH and ape it on CoD's success.
Was Syndicate inspired by Deus Ex and MoH by CoD? Possibly, probably, idk. Neither of us were in pre-pro, so it's impossible to know what they were really going for. But it would be foolish to ignore the most successful titles on the market and try to work in a vacuum. Many of the most successful games are build using previous games as a framework and then making them better. There was Everquest, and then there was WoW, etc etc.
Massive blanket statement that is incorrect. Many games developed directly and indirectly by EA have a focus on single player. You mentioned a bunch of them above. They have even tried to work more single player elements into their sports titles, Fight Night Champion in particular. That game was essentially all about the story driven single player.
I agree about Origin, as do many people here. But it was a massive undertaking, and trust me, EA is well aware of the problems. It's not like Steam's launch was flawless either.
I would like to go on debating this all day, but unfortunately I can't. All I can say is a lot of your points are just personal opinion and conjecture, which isn't really a good basis to hate something. There are things that EA does that bother me (obviously not at liberty to say), but that's going to be the case everywhere.
I sort of get your point here: you work with really cool people, and they're talented artists and managers, and it's an awesome team, that you're projecting our hate onto.
But there's another point here. The tank in question did all the way up through QA, through several rounds of testing, through art-department and, indirectly, through EA lawyer team as well. No one either mentioned or cared to point the resemblance out.
lol are you serious?? How could a random warhammer design somehow get through EA's well greased "anti-plagiarism" team, consisting of super-human qa guys, photographic memory enhanced artists, and donald trump's lawyer team - familiar with every possible science-fiction design on the planet?? haha
the artist fucked up. this happens in the game industry from time to time, and whoever is responsible usually gets fired. Anybody who needs a personal apology from EA because the quality of their life was downgraded somehow by this catastrophic injustice to gamers, write them a letter... I'm sure they'll have to pay somehow...
Don't want to fire up the heat here, but Ace-Angel pretty much summed up the public opinion voiced on forums. If that's all based on facts is on a different page, but it's what most die-hard fans think. The fact that EA high-ups don't seem to read/reply/act upon these is still really frustrating. Often enough I figure the real problem with publishers/EA in this example is not so much that they make unpopular decisions but the fact that they deny any communication to the community. Imagine Riccotello would make it his job to be the public face of EA and talk openly about an agenda they follow and the issues they have. I guess that's why people trust Valve with their money, even when Steam sometimes had issues or Half-Life 3 still isn't announced.
When I was an EA employee I heard about the Syndicate reboot before Deus EX: HR was announced. I've heard it had a rocky history, I think Deus Ex saved the project from cancellation.
I think there's a lot of people making assumptions about what working for a publisher owned studio is like without actually working for one.
I think there's a lot of people making assumptions about what working for a publisher owned studio is like without actually working for one.
Basically, it works like this: whenever a game is good, it's the developers that did it, whenever a game, or a part of it, is bad, it's the publishers that did it.
SgtNasty: Mate, seriously, stop being naive. I couldn't care less about any of the stuff I stated, both real-life and game wise since I don't buy EA games anymore since I'm a PC user, so I say "Live and let Live", but everything I said so far isn't an opinion, it's fact based upon bad-press PR, leaked documents, let-go contractors spilling the beans and published timing.
Also, if you notice, all SP games are derivative products of autonomous studios, like Bioware, Crytek, etc, hence why we have some kind of SP component. Anything else under full fledged 'creation' with EA only has Multiplayer as their main products, and any SP focus is nothing more then a linear, quicktime, cinematic fest which doesn't even teach you the basics of gameplay to ready you for MP.
I mean the fact alone that there was internal conflict about Syndicate, UNTIL Deus Ex came out before it got a full fledged team assigned to it is enough to make you understand hopefully that EA isn't anymore a company run by people who care about the interactive medium. It's a company reaching out for air and grappling onto anything they see 'fit' to make ends meet, and anything that gets a 'new' cred in the gaming scene gets jumped upon. (Imagine, they made Syndicate into a FPS before Deus came out, and still didn't want to invest money and full publish it until Deus made it big, hypocrite much, when they tell nerds to grow up for not making the 'old' game?)
I don't have anything AGAINST EA, if I want to play a game, no one is forcing me to buy any of their products, I'm sure games like Orcs Must Die 2, Rayman Origins and a few other games by other companies will be enough to keep occupied for a long time, but EA is losing it's grip and understanding of what makes a game.
It sad honestly, EA used to be cool, and for a while there, they picked up their stumble and made it worth something more, but almost 2-3 years passed and they are back to stumbling, and very soon, going the way of THQ.
I don't want to live in a world with one less studio, with hundreds of peeps losing their jobs, but frankly, I can't sympathize with a company that has no respect for...anything.
SgtNasty: Mate, seriously, stop being naive. I couldn't care less about any of the stuff I stated, both real-life and game wise since I don't buy EA games anymore since I'm a PC user, so I say "Live and let Live", but everything I said so far isn't an opinion, it's fact based upon bad-press PR, leaked documents, let-go contractors spilling the beans and published timing.
Also, if you notice, all SP games are derivative products of autonomous studios, like Bioware, Crytek, etc, hence why we have some kind of SP component. Anything else under full fledged 'creation' with EA only has Multiplayer as their main products, and any SP focus is nothing more then a linear, quicktime, cinematic fest which doesn't even teach you the basics of gameplay to ready you for MP.
I mean the fact alone that there was internal conflict about Syndicate, UNTIL Deus Ex came out before it got a full fledged team assigned to it is enough to make you understand hopefully that EA isn't anymore a company run by people who care about the interactive medium. It's a company reaching out for air and grappling onto anything they see 'fit' to make ends meet, and anything that gets a 'new' cred in the gaming scene gets jumped upon. (Imagine, they made Syndicate into a FPS before Deus came out, and still didn't want to invest money and full publish it until Deus made it big, hypocrite much, when they tell nerds to grow up for not making the 'old' game?)
I don't have anything AGAINST EA, if I want to play a game, no one is forcing me to buy any of their products, I'm sure games like Orcs Must Die 2, Rayman Origins and a few other games by other companies will be enough to keep occupied for a long time, but EA is losing it's grip and understanding of what makes a game.
It sad honestly, EA used to be cool, and for a while there, they picked up their stumble and made it worth something more, but almost 2-3 years passed and they are back to stumbling, and very soon, going the way of THQ.
I don't want to live in a world with one less studio, with hundreds of peeps losing their jobs, but frankly, I can't sympathize with a company that has no respect for...anything.
lol.. most of their games get awesome reviews... most of their games have singleplayer.. my favourite games of the past 2 years have all been ea.. Dead Space 1 and 2, Mass Effect 1 2 3, Hot Pursuit, The old Republic, Battlefield 3, Bad Company 2, SSX, or most of their sports games - all fucking awesome games with awesome single player modes..
I'd say EA is making some of the best top tier games out there. My opinion though. If you wanna rip on them thinking they're this evil corporation out to creep out of your closet at night and ass fuck you, go ahead..
Mass Effect 1-3 and ToR were developed by Bioware, and their quality and reputation has dropped considerably in the last few years since they were bought by EA, I wonder why.
hahahaha. the quality of mass effect 2 and 3 was soooo much worse than the 1st one? their reputation has dropped? thats why mass 2 outsold the 1st and mass 3 is outselling the 2nd......I am pretty sure its sales numbers that matter to a business.
this thread is pretty hilarious. a lot of opinions from people who have never worked either in the game industry at all, or for a major publisher. The funny thing is when you go around talking shit about one of the biggest collections of studios it is only going to hurt you if people read it when you are looking for a job. I am guessing at least half the people here ripping them would readily do anything to land their 1st studio gig at any one of EA's studios.
shit like this happens all the time at studios big and small, its just something that happens in the industry, its regrettable but really not the end of the world. at the end of the day I haven't lost any sleep, my apartment hasn't spontaneously burst into flame and the world is still turning.
what is this? The Gamefaqs Message Boards? Remember, we got fellow devs here who work at some of these studios. And to defend EA, they have published a bunch of a new IPs in the past two or three years.
This thread has seriously made me laugh at how it spiraled out of control to EA hate.
I play BF3 on pc. I don't give a shit about Origin scanning my system. They aren't taking my photos and uploading them to the nets, they aren't doing anything that "really" worries me, but hate away and put on your tinfoil hats.
BF3 is a great game and I've had an insane amount of fun with it along with a lot of other EA titles.
Really? You don't think BF3 was forced to sway towards MW3's gameplay style in order to try and steal COD's customers rather than keeping it its own style of gameplay like BF2 or BC2? You don't think EA saw financial opportunity in this and told DICE to focus more on CQB rather than an all out war?
EA also ruined Ultima online. They buy into games and destroy them trying to make them better and appeal to a wider audience. The EA games that are good are usually not recognized by EA when they come out. (BC1 wasnt popular, so BC2 was mostly controlled by DICE, but bc2 was popular, so bf3 was influenced by EA and I could tell easily by the trailer and beta) once EA has a prime title theyll tear it apart trying to lean into new demographics and ruin the games original foundation that made it popular (BF3, Crysis 2 are prime examples). Its the evolution of all games but Activision and EA are catalysts.
And don't even reply with "theyre a business and businesses need to make money" I don't see Glade or Fabreeze buying Axe body spray and trying to smash them both in the same bottle. I dont see the publishers of twilight or harry potter telling them what to write to make more people buy the books. Truth is, publishers lose sight of the modern games and they really don't know whats popular and what isnt. Adding a new sword or gun has every effect they think it wont. EA should have been happy they had a company making them money that knew what they were doing before they stepped in. Halo became so big so fast and every game was a complete improvement mostly because Microsoft has other stuff to worry about than telling them what to do.
I agree with both PixelMasher and Jesse Moody alot of people and by people i mean nerds on the internet that just find the smallest thing to rip apart so there lives don't feel so dull and sad have made a huge thing out of nothing.
EA is a huge corporation with alot of talented studios under its banner and those studios make amazing games and sometimes those studios make mistake and sometimes they change the way we play games.
the whole ea warhammer rip was and is being blown out of proportion for the same reason the Origin scanning your computer was its just nerds being nerds.
EA cannot be put to fault for what one of there studios artists did why blame a whole organization for one persons fuck up?
anyways im gonna go play some NHL 12 and hopefully be able to get the canucks to the finals myself!
The whole Victory Games = BioWare Victory thing still confuses the feck out of me. Are they trying to cash in on Bioware's succes by labelling another studio with the same name? I mean, that's quite a dubious thing to do, and it's a really, really good way of destroying a brand (although EA have been pretty good at destroying brands in the past - and no, that's also not exclusively an EA problem either).
The real thing to also understand though, is that EA is losing money - it's losing a lot of money and it doesn't take someone with inside knowledge to work it out. In 2009 their share price dropped to 1/3rd it's value and since then they've only made marginal profits sufficient enough to appease their shareholders; those marginal profits just also happen to coincide with mass layoffs to Western non-development staff, and the rise of offices in South Asia.
It's also interesting to see that EA's spending in research and development has plummeted to 85% of it's former spending (the impact on development there is huge), but they've increased their spend on marketing to 110% of what it used to be. If this trend continues they'll be spending more on marketing their products than actually developing them. That's sad.
The important part of the big picture is that EA's revenue in sales is down to 70% of it's 2009 sales - and in 2009 is when they posted their massive end-of-year slump. Given a 1/3rd reduction in sales since then, we can only assume the picture is getting bleaker for the company.
I can't wait to work on that 30 million dollar game that's unique and new, and corporate makes all the right decisions and gives us all the staff we need!
they've increased their spend on marketing to 110% of what it used to be. If this trend continues they'll be spending more on marketing their products than actually developing them. That's sad.
as a money standpoint its better to have a mediocre game that millions of people know about than the most awesome game in the world that no one knows about.
and to others
and mass effect 2 and 3 are a million times better than 1.
again if anyone should be hating on the ea train, it should be me, i was at a company, bought by ea and then discarded. but its all money.
you guys who think these games are something to put on a pedestal and be worshiped are wrong. they are products. boo fuckin hoo you dont like the way they changed something.
I dunno about all this EA hate. I've been pretty satisfied with the product they've put out over the years. I think they cater to the widest of their fan-base and yeah the ME3 ending wasn't amazing but hey that's cool cause I still enjoyed the ride that was the rest of the campaign.
Dunno why everyone keeps mentioning Bioware games, afaik Bioware still has creative control over their titles. Supposedly they run mostly autonomously.
The whole Victory Games = BioWare Victory thing still confuses the feck out of me. Are they trying to cash in on Bioware's succes by labelling another studio with the same name?
Well apparently when they merged mythic into Bioware Mythic, they got put under Bioware's control. Maybe the same case with Victory? Who knows. It really only destroys the brand if the games suck.
I have my origin account full of games, and i love them although i don't have enough time to play them lol. I feel all the critics about EA quite STUPID, unfounded, sorry.
And about the plagiarism... this really sucks. They should do something about it and kick some asses, i would lay off/don't pay the people behind this outrageous job. Design is a hard job, so contract true professionals and not "copy and paste monkeys"! damn.
as a money standpoint its better to have a mediocre game that millions of people know about than the most awesome game in the world that no one knows about.
To a degree, yes - but you're only as good as your last game. When a game that is heavily marketed doesn't deliver, it has a direct impact on any successor. This is one of the ways that otherwise successful franchises and studios have managed to rapidly trail off. This isn't a uniquely EA problem either.
Honestly, I don't even understand this whole thing. Modeling and texturing the tanks must have taken some time, it's not like he or she stole the complete mesh from some other game. Why would you even copy that design so faithfully? Lack of concept art and, well, imagination?
I have my origin account full of games, and i love them although i don't have enough time to play them lol. I feel all the critics about EA quite STUPID, unfounded, sorry.
We're talking about the publisher that has taken the two game series that revolutionized the genres they were in every way and turned them both into run of the mill pay to win web games.
Well, I doubt it came from concept art, since it's too faithful a reproduction. It's going to be an outsourcing issue (possibly someone who happens to have these models on their desk).
Well, I doubt it came from concept art, since it's too faithful a reproduction. It's going to be an outsourcing issue (possibly someone who happens to have these models on their desk).
sounds unlikely too. EA accepting an asset without being shown the original concepts? EA ordering an asset without providing a brief or an outline? Doesn't sound like the EA I know. The guys I met were all pros.
Or it could've been an in-sourcer. Big studio conglomerates like EA or Ubi have quite a few in-sourcers which they employ in a similar fashion as one would use outsourcers.
In-sourcers are quite dangerous because the inhouse clients often lower their guards when it comes to QA because after all, "They're one of us!". In a similar fashion mixing assets isn't taken that serious, at least on the in-sourcers side, because "hey, it's all under one roof, right?"."WE made it, so WE can use it for something else" is a quite common attitude - you're probably familiar with this if your studio works on a couple of projects. And as long as your studio owns the IP this is usually okay too.
A good outsourcer would usually take more care with IP protection because if they mess up, then it's their last job with that client - and you don't want to lose EA and all its subsidiary studios as clients. An in-sourcer does not have this danger quite as much as they'd still get jobs because they cannot sit idle and firing everyone isn't a solution either. In-sourcers sit in a quite safe spot here, and there's a couple of them here in Asia but also in eastern Europe.
About concept outsourcing - this actually doesn't happen a lot - at least not to 3rd parties, because the concept often defines the core of an IP. This is where it's easiest to mold the look of a game - early on in the pipeline and early in development. You want absolute control here as art director / game director, and you want absolute secrecy / security. This is rarely given away right now.
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Well, if we're actually being fair, the one that needs to apologize is the artist. The artist betrayed EA in effect.
Don't let that stop you from getting worked up about EA being evil though.
Also, I completely believe something like that could go through a hundred people's hands and not have anyone notice that it's from warhammer. It's a warhammer tank for fucks sake. I've never even met someone who played warhammer in my entire life, and I used to play Magic the Gathering!
I wouldn't hate on anyone that works there, but again it's aimed at the corporate company, not people who work there specifically. But again, people have no good memories of EA, they're going to attribute everything to EA.
EA has made it very easy over the last 20 years to hate them, and they're not working actively to win back the love of those who did love them back then and then ended up burnt several times.
Now this certain event I wouldn't relate directly to EA, and I didn't either, I relate it directly to the artist and the company in germany that is behind this and the ultima game.
Again: there really isn't any end in sight for the EA hate, and that's how it's going to be, there's practices that's in place, and EA as a corporation is not interested in changing their ways, which is directly related to handling games purely as a product and going through companies and IP like no other.
All I can hope for now and the future is that you and everyone who works there have a good and rewarding job.
ur lieing
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cfYTeIem5k"]Road Rash - YouTube[/ame]
NERDS THESE DAYS <<<<
I still can't agree on "artist teh traitor" thing, but I don't really care what was going behind. It's the result that matters.
I meant, when people think back at EA there's only memories of companies going down and ip's dying out, they did however publish some really fantastic games, no matter the eventual outcome.
Everyone has some favorite games that are directly related to EA, and chances are they've also seen those favorite games die out.
((scraping offtop bits, it's a EA bashing thread after all, no need for pussying over SSX 3))
(and i'm speaking as someoen who was sacked without notice from ea in a pretty shady manner")
and untill the details come to light, which they may never.
we dont know key things
1. was the rpipoff aproved byt any management or leads at the branch in question
2. was it just a uncreative modeler given the task of make a couple of tanks on short notice, with no concepts. he google some "inspiration" and figured if he had never seen these tank pics before, no one else had either.
i have no doubt that something like this could make it this far with no one noticing. i would have never noticed, and i've played a few terrible games of 40k in my past. and i spent 5 years working on warhammer online. (oh for the ppl confused about licensing.. no the warhammer license did not give ea free reign with gw property. it was a very controlled license.
again, dont waste your hate on game company, hate something that deserves it. like bats.
Do realize that it's that same hateful power that pushes people to go for kickstarter to bring back games that are deemed dead by big publishers like EA.
I'd say that's pretty impactful :P
i do, because it's affected studios i love, and the games they make.
i back kickstarters cause i like what they are doing, not because i hate what someone else is doing. thats like saying the sole reason you like apples is because you hate oranges so much.
probably less damaging legally to say nothing and not admit to anything.
To think EA is this evil entity, moving around in the shadows, taking money from customers and ruining your childhood is just incorrect. Have there been mistakes? Hell ya, but not in the capacity most people perceive them. The origin customer support is the one thing I can say I think people are justified in being upset about. That whole operation is sort of a catastrophe, and people have the right to be upset about it.
Basically, I think of this scene every time I read EA hate.
http://youtu.be/hQM8UKgt3Qs
There's no one sitting in a board room plotting against you. There was no one cackling at their desk while they used those warhammer designs. It's just a bunch of people making games, trying to make money. And sometimes people make mistakes.
Problem is, every time THQ is put in a corner of "Hey, we told you so!" or "You bloody twats, look what you did!" we get some person popping up from the Press or a closed down studio saying "You know what guys, it's out fault, THQ was really nice to us and all, but we had internal local issues which is why all this happened" forgetting to mention how they're now working for THQ directly, so sweet talking their position vs. what their colleagues suffered publicly.
So yeah, either THQ have some pretty bad-ass human resource peeps who have 10 years of Psychology and a hint of Laweryism in them to make an effective spin with the right moves, or they're extremely lucky.
If you don't take games seriously, that's fine, but for some people, games are more important then your next big novel or movie, even painting, so please, don't act surprised.
Lets recap on why EA is usually hated.
-Take Dead Space, and make it more 'actiony' then Horror, because Horror is too hard.
-Limbo Mirror's Edge that's it dead/coming out, etc.
-Take Syndicate and make it another FPS game to ape on Deus Ex's success.
-Take MoH and ape it on CoD's success.
-They don't believe in Single-player games.
-Origin scan-o-matic didn't give you the option to disable it until you did manually, afterwards, and after some nerds found out about it.
-Try and insert a multi-player component in all the games they publish, sometimes, not even putting in effort.
That's only for recent stuff in gaming. Lets look in real-life?
-Their adverts most of the time are either sexist or immature (both in many cases).
-They tried making self-preservation law where they couldn't be sued unless you sent them a snail-mail and took the case to high court.
-They keep on buying small companies at premium prices and killing them off if their 'first' title under EA doesn't do well.
-Their revamp of the way stuff is done behind scene (treatment of employee's) has once again started taking a toll.
-Sometimes the wrong people are put in rank when dictated before hand they don't have the appropriate skill.
I can go on, but please, don't try and say 'EA made mistakes', because someone who makes mistakes learns from them and tries to make it better down the line, not continues on this destructive path of "Que sera, sera".
I don't really hate EA since I say 'Live and let live', and there are plenty of other fish in the sea for me to enjoy, but even I can see they're not OK in the 'head' anymore.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/ea-explains-command-and-conquers-warhammer-40k-tanks-6371694
Video games are my life, and have always been. Regardless, this conversation has nothing to do with video games being taken seriously as a medium.
First, it's your opinion that the game is more actiony than horror. Second, you are guessing that the change was made because horror was too hard. If you can produce a quote where a designer or producer said this, I would like to see it.
In general, I've genuinely never heard anyone express disappointment with Dead Space 2 in relation to Dead Space 1. Also, Dead Space was a new IP, funded and developed by EA from scratch, so I think that the creation of the Dead Space franchise is actually one of the best things EA has done in recent years.
I've never seen them flip flop on this. Mirror's Edge (another new IP, developed from scratch on EA's coin) did fairly well critically, but sales were never great to my understanding. That combined with DICE being extremely busy with BF3 and other projects, it shouldn't really surprise you that Mirror's Edge 2 wasn't at the top of the que for them.
Was Syndicate inspired by Deus Ex and MoH by CoD? Possibly, probably, idk. Neither of us were in pre-pro, so it's impossible to know what they were really going for. But it would be foolish to ignore the most successful titles on the market and try to work in a vacuum. Many of the most successful games are build using previous games as a framework and then making them better. There was Everquest, and then there was WoW, etc etc.
Massive blanket statement that is incorrect. Many games developed directly and indirectly by EA have a focus on single player. You mentioned a bunch of them above. They have even tried to work more single player elements into their sports titles, Fight Night Champion in particular. That game was essentially all about the story driven single player.
I agree about Origin, as do many people here. But it was a massive undertaking, and trust me, EA is well aware of the problems. It's not like Steam's launch was flawless either.
I would like to go on debating this all day, but unfortunately I can't. All I can say is a lot of your points are just personal opinion and conjecture, which isn't really a good basis to hate something. There are things that EA does that bother me (obviously not at liberty to say), but that's going to be the case everywhere.
lol are you serious?? How could a random warhammer design somehow get through EA's well greased "anti-plagiarism" team, consisting of super-human qa guys, photographic memory enhanced artists, and donald trump's lawyer team - familiar with every possible science-fiction design on the planet?? haha
the artist fucked up. this happens in the game industry from time to time, and whoever is responsible usually gets fired. Anybody who needs a personal apology from EA because the quality of their life was downgraded somehow by this catastrophic injustice to gamers, write them a letter... I'm sure they'll have to pay somehow...
I think there's a lot of people making assumptions about what working for a publisher owned studio is like without actually working for one.
Sounds like the diplomatic, vague way of saying "we messed up, but it's all solved now".
Also, if you notice, all SP games are derivative products of autonomous studios, like Bioware, Crytek, etc, hence why we have some kind of SP component. Anything else under full fledged 'creation' with EA only has Multiplayer as their main products, and any SP focus is nothing more then a linear, quicktime, cinematic fest which doesn't even teach you the basics of gameplay to ready you for MP.
I mean the fact alone that there was internal conflict about Syndicate, UNTIL Deus Ex came out before it got a full fledged team assigned to it is enough to make you understand hopefully that EA isn't anymore a company run by people who care about the interactive medium. It's a company reaching out for air and grappling onto anything they see 'fit' to make ends meet, and anything that gets a 'new' cred in the gaming scene gets jumped upon. (Imagine, they made Syndicate into a FPS before Deus came out, and still didn't want to invest money and full publish it until Deus made it big, hypocrite much, when they tell nerds to grow up for not making the 'old' game?)
I don't have anything AGAINST EA, if I want to play a game, no one is forcing me to buy any of their products, I'm sure games like Orcs Must Die 2, Rayman Origins and a few other games by other companies will be enough to keep occupied for a long time, but EA is losing it's grip and understanding of what makes a game.
It sad honestly, EA used to be cool, and for a while there, they picked up their stumble and made it worth something more, but almost 2-3 years passed and they are back to stumbling, and very soon, going the way of THQ.
I don't want to live in a world with one less studio, with hundreds of peeps losing their jobs, but frankly, I can't sympathize with a company that has no respect for...anything.
lol.. most of their games get awesome reviews... most of their games have singleplayer.. my favourite games of the past 2 years have all been ea.. Dead Space 1 and 2, Mass Effect 1 2 3, Hot Pursuit, The old Republic, Battlefield 3, Bad Company 2, SSX, or most of their sports games - all fucking awesome games with awesome single player modes..
I'd say EA is making some of the best top tier games out there. My opinion though. If you wanna rip on them thinking they're this evil corporation out to creep out of your closet at night and ass fuck you, go ahead..
this thread is pretty hilarious. a lot of opinions from people who have never worked either in the game industry at all, or for a major publisher. The funny thing is when you go around talking shit about one of the biggest collections of studios it is only going to hurt you if people read it when you are looking for a job. I am guessing at least half the people here ripping them would readily do anything to land their 1st studio gig at any one of EA's studios.
shit like this happens all the time at studios big and small, its just something that happens in the industry, its regrettable but really not the end of the world. at the end of the day I haven't lost any sleep, my apartment hasn't spontaneously burst into flame and the world is still turning.
Just read comments on any game related blog, it's the same kind of stuff. Get's boring very quickly though.
I play BF3 on pc. I don't give a shit about Origin scanning my system. They aren't taking my photos and uploading them to the nets, they aren't doing anything that "really" worries me, but hate away and put on your tinfoil hats.
BF3 is a great game and I've had an insane amount of fun with it along with a lot of other EA titles.
EA also ruined Ultima online. They buy into games and destroy them trying to make them better and appeal to a wider audience. The EA games that are good are usually not recognized by EA when they come out. (BC1 wasnt popular, so BC2 was mostly controlled by DICE, but bc2 was popular, so bf3 was influenced by EA and I could tell easily by the trailer and beta) once EA has a prime title theyll tear it apart trying to lean into new demographics and ruin the games original foundation that made it popular (BF3, Crysis 2 are prime examples). Its the evolution of all games but Activision and EA are catalysts.
And don't even reply with "theyre a business and businesses need to make money" I don't see Glade or Fabreeze buying Axe body spray and trying to smash them both in the same bottle. I dont see the publishers of twilight or harry potter telling them what to write to make more people buy the books. Truth is, publishers lose sight of the modern games and they really don't know whats popular and what isnt. Adding a new sword or gun has every effect they think it wont. EA should have been happy they had a company making them money that knew what they were doing before they stepped in. Halo became so big so fast and every game was a complete improvement mostly because Microsoft has other stuff to worry about than telling them what to do.
EA is a huge corporation with alot of talented studios under its banner and those studios make amazing games and sometimes those studios make mistake and sometimes they change the way we play games.
the whole ea warhammer rip was and is being blown out of proportion for the same reason the Origin scanning your computer was its just nerds being nerds.
EA cannot be put to fault for what one of there studios artists did why blame a whole organization for one persons fuck up?
anyways im gonna go play some NHL 12 and hopefully be able to get the canucks to the finals myself!
cheers,
Arman
I thought EA owned VG, and was BW's publisher, but now VG is under BW's banner?
The real thing to also understand though, is that EA is losing money - it's losing a lot of money and it doesn't take someone with inside knowledge to work it out. In 2009 their share price dropped to 1/3rd it's value and since then they've only made marginal profits sufficient enough to appease their shareholders; those marginal profits just also happen to coincide with mass layoffs to Western non-development staff, and the rise of offices in South Asia.
It's also interesting to see that EA's spending in research and development has plummeted to 85% of it's former spending (the impact on development there is huge), but they've increased their spend on marketing to 110% of what it used to be. If this trend continues they'll be spending more on marketing their products than actually developing them. That's sad.
The important part of the big picture is that EA's revenue in sales is down to 70% of it's 2009 sales - and in 2009 is when they posted their massive end-of-year slump. Given a 1/3rd reduction in sales since then, we can only assume the picture is getting bleaker for the company.
as a money standpoint its better to have a mediocre game that millions of people know about than the most awesome game in the world that no one knows about.
and to others
and mass effect 2 and 3 are a million times better than 1.
again if anyone should be hating on the ea train, it should be me, i was at a company, bought by ea and then discarded. but its all money.
you guys who think these games are something to put on a pedestal and be worshiped are wrong. they are products. boo fuckin hoo you dont like the way they changed something.
Well apparently when they merged mythic into Bioware Mythic, they got put under Bioware's control. Maybe the same case with Victory? Who knows. It really only destroys the brand if the games suck.
I have my origin account full of games, and i love them although i don't have enough time to play them lol. I feel all the critics about EA quite STUPID, unfounded, sorry.
And about the plagiarism... this really sucks. They should do something about it and kick some asses, i would lay off/don't pay the people behind this outrageous job. Design is a hard job, so contract true professionals and not "copy and paste monkeys"! damn.
To a degree, yes - but you're only as good as your last game. When a game that is heavily marketed doesn't deliver, it has a direct impact on any successor. This is one of the ways that otherwise successful franchises and studios have managed to rapidly trail off. This isn't a uniquely EA problem either.
We're talking about the publisher that has taken the two game series that revolutionized the genres they were in every way and turned them both into run of the mill pay to win web games.
Do you even remember origin?
sounds unlikely too. EA accepting an asset without being shown the original concepts? EA ordering an asset without providing a brief or an outline? Doesn't sound like the EA I know. The guys I met were all pros.
Or it could've been an in-sourcer. Big studio conglomerates like EA or Ubi have quite a few in-sourcers which they employ in a similar fashion as one would use outsourcers.
In-sourcers are quite dangerous because the inhouse clients often lower their guards when it comes to QA because after all, "They're one of us!". In a similar fashion mixing assets isn't taken that serious, at least on the in-sourcers side, because "hey, it's all under one roof, right?"."WE made it, so WE can use it for something else" is a quite common attitude - you're probably familiar with this if your studio works on a couple of projects. And as long as your studio owns the IP this is usually okay too.
A good outsourcer would usually take more care with IP protection because if they mess up, then it's their last job with that client - and you don't want to lose EA and all its subsidiary studios as clients. An in-sourcer does not have this danger quite as much as they'd still get jobs because they cannot sit idle and firing everyone isn't a solution either. In-sourcers sit in a quite safe spot here, and there's a couple of them here in Asia but also in eastern Europe.
About concept outsourcing - this actually doesn't happen a lot - at least not to 3rd parties, because the concept often defines the core of an IP. This is where it's easiest to mold the look of a game - early on in the pipeline and early in development. You want absolute control here as art director / game director, and you want absolute secrecy / security. This is rarely given away right now.