The Horrible Things That Could Happen To EA 58
A recent Gamasutra story noted something interesting in Electronic Arts' financials filing. The company is extremely reliant on brick and mortar retailers like Wal-mart (which made up 12% of its net revenue) and Gamestop (about 15%). Simon Carless, writing at the GameSetWatch blog, takes that analysis one step further and postulates some of the horrible things that could happen to the software giant if the conditions were right. It's all meant tongue-in-cheek, of course, but it's an interesting discussion of how even large companies can be vulnerable to simple issues: "5. Wrong System, Wrong Time! 'Our business is highly dependent on the success and availability of video game hardware systems manufactured by third parties, as well as our ability to develop commercially successful products for these systems.' More specifically, as EA explains, this is the Wii/DS effect in action: 'A platform for which we are developing products may not succeed or may have a shorter life cycle than anticipated.'"
Hardly a problem limited to EA (Score:5, Insightful)
That's true of all 3rd party software developers on all games consoles. And all operating systems in fact. And all products in fact, it's not limited to IT. A company that makes after-market parts for a Ford is relying on Ford not releasing a model that's a dismal failure.
Too many people think there's some mysterious difference between computers and everything else. There isn't.
horrible things happening to EA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lately, however, I have been trying out online play. Bugs everywhere. If an opponent lags out, you can kick them, but then the whole game is frozen without resuming. It's so bad that while you can chat with other players still, you can't move units, and even the quit buttons etc cease to function (CTRL+ALT+DEL is needed). Numerous other netplay bugs have abounded, and overall the experience is tainted by nasty lag and general flakiness. Many people on there are extremely ticked with EA, and have stated that unless fixes are found soon they're not going to be buying any future products.
Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly the Wii/DS effect refers to the last part that was left out of the summary. If they were talking about products that may not succeed, that would be the Dreamcast effect.
Re:They Could. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't newsworthy (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem EA needs to deal with is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
How long can they sell the same sports titles before people get bored with them? There WILL come a point when those tired games will run out of steam.
The Sims and The Sims 2 have been doing very well because they do NOT focus on the 13-23 year old male obsession with violence in games. EA does not learn why things work and do not work, so we see less innovation as they lean more and more on sequels that are "more of the same".
EA just bought Bioware, probably in the hopes that Bioware will be able to break them free of the looming stagnation, but their bad habit of buying a company because "it is different" and then screwing it up and turning the newly purchased company into an extension of what is wrong with EA may kill the value.
The game industry needs to learn from the movie industry, where art and special effects need to be combined to produce a real hit. Games that are only about violence, or sex, or horror by themselves may cater to a niche market, but true blockbusters come from a combination of different elements. The industry in general does NOT use a combination of these elements, so does not cater to a broader audience.
There is also a basic concept that seems to have escaped most game developers, and that is the majority of game players are over the age of 18, yet most games target teenagers. This means that most games do not appeal to the older players, and over time sales will decline.
Re:Brick & Mortar in control? (Score:1, Insightful)
At one time I did prefer brick and mortar myself for games. Now though, if I can get it online almost immediately with just a download or delivery in a reasonable amount of time I often will do that instead.
Of course if I want it immediately then running out to the store to get it is almost always the best way.
I had to do that a couple days ago after futzing with the developer's online store for half an hour. Their server wouldn't complete the CC transaction for some reason or other so I just zipped up to the store and 15 minutes later I was home with the game code I needed (and the physical media and manual as a bonus.)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)