EA's Conquest of Origin 51
amitlu writes "Allen Varney wrote about EA's conquest of Origin in the Escapist this week. He covers much of EA's departure from its original values, and even has some quotes from the Garriotts, including, '[CEO] Larry Probst was often not supportive of the things I was doing, but I respect Larry because he was always clear, rational and consistent in his lack of support'"
Re:wtf ads? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Sleep is for the weak" (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a huge mistake and one that I have learned many times over. A programmer without sleep gradually looses so much productivity and is far more error prone as he goes longer and longer without sleep that it makes sense to make sure your programmers get their 40 winks.
I have spent three or four sleepless days working on a project, only to go home, get rested, come back, throw out everything I had done and go from scratch to finish within a couple of hours.
Lack of sleep can not only make you much less productive, but you can even become a net negative. Get your rest.
Re:Insight on how EA works (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think it would be intuitively obvious that the creation of games requires a 'playful' (for lack of a better word) environment rather than a business one (and vice versa). I guess this kind of explains the stereotype that the 'suits' ruin anything that's enjoyable. ;-)
Re:"Sleep is for the weak" (Score:3, Insightful)
After EA, came two more great Wing Commanders (3 and 4), two lousy Ultimas (8 and 9), UO... and nothing more. No more Origin.
Me, I'd blame EA, although Origin certainly wasn't perfect (they were badly managed, and paid poorly, as the article says).
Re:Interesting tidbits from the article (Score:5, Insightful)
I wrote that Escapist article. The problem with EA's management of Origin wasn't that EA insisted EA adhere to a schedule, but that EA tried to schedule every game as if it were a sports game. My article ran long and so I had to cut quite a bit for space. One point I wanted to make, but had no room for, was that EA routinely rotates its studio managers on a one-year cycle, which accommodates its successful sports game schedule. For the kinds of games Origin made, though -- games that required several years to realize -- this proved disastrous. A new manager (with his own personal agenda) would arrive late in the year, cancel projects and order layoffs, start a new slate of projects, order new hiring, and then a year would go by and bam! the new manager would arrive and start the cycle all over again.
This is not "EA insisting Origin adhere to a schedule." This is a fundamental disjuncture between the corporate HQ's philosophy and the Origin approach.