EA Executive Cites Need For More Innovation 84
The Wall Street Journal has comments from John Riccitiello, EA's new CEO, who has an interesting observation: maybe we should make more original games. "In his first in-depth comments since taking the job in April, John Riccitiello says he worries that the Redwood City, Calif., company and others in the industry make too many games that lack innovation. He says EA and others need both to push more aggressively beyond traditional audiences to court 'casual' consumers and to experiment more with new sales approaches -- outside the norm of selling $50 to $60 discs with 40-hour games that he says few players ever finish. 'We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play,' Mr. Riccitiello said in an interview." Perhaps looking beyond yearly updates to established franchises might be a way to go too. We've seen EA form a casual studio, re-organize the flowchart, adopt the Wii wholeheartedly ... does anyone see EA actually reinventing itself, or is this too little too late?
Here's the problem with new IP.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Their franchise games like Madden, NBA, NHL, etc.. they are the cash cows. They change slightly and the amount of development that goes into the games is slight compared to games like Spore -- games that rethink the way players should be playing.
I have had friends leave EA (one a DBA, another a C# engine developer) because of their work environment. It might be cool to work for a video game company, but if they insist on slavish hours in order to meet product timelines, release dates, etc... they take that out on the employees and value little after the title has shipped.
The point initially made is correct -- we need new types of games, new IP that is innovative and fun. But we won't get it from EA. We need to watch the independent studios get investment dollars from the likes of Microsoft, EA, etc... in order to create and produce those titles. It's why I've always been a fan of id Software, Valve Software, and Bungie Studios. And of course, Blizzard. They invented the motto of the game being "done when it's done". EA should take a line from them and stop promising deadlines and overworking their employees in order to meet a hypothetical goal that some idiot cooked up based on some strange logic. When the game is ready, then it's ready. Not before, not after.
It's why all the new IP that comes out of EA is inherently buggy and requires patch after patch to play. Blizzard games work 100%, right out of the box. Some EA games can't even be finished until they are patched.
Re:Here's the problem with new IP.... (Score:3, Interesting)
But they continue the same work environment and make it horrendous to work on a game that you may take great pride in. And after all is said and done, unlike id Software who rewards their programmers and staffers after a launch, EA just expects the team to get back to work on "part 2" of the game.
It's a shame EA is one of the biggest publishing houses.