Support NeoGAF

[Veon]

This, indie games, and CD Projekt Red are the only reason I'm still playing games these days TBH. If Western AAA games were all we had, I'd have been done a long time ago.

Fortunately gaming is still a lot more robust than just the AAA, GaaS, lootbox-ridden sludge at the bottom of the barrel.

Western AAA games keep the industry currently afloat at the moment, I doubt games from Japan would enough to sustain the gaming community as a whole.

 

[DJIzana]

I'm almost certain EA is trying to get the most bang for it's buck, per se, if they're outsourcing here, to EA Vancouver. If game development industry is anything like the IT industry here (or a lot of other industries), a lot of devs are probably underpaid. It's a joke when you consider cost of living but that's another issue in its own. It's the sacrifices we're starting to see for AAA/AAAA game development. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. I know I will. (I also say this because of that GAF article about Japan's revenue being 85% mobile).

 

[Pepboy]

I agree. In fact, EA had the kahunas to sacrifice one of the biggest IPs of last generation for the sake of getting in on that Destiny action with their flagship Action RPG developer known for their storytelling, world building and characters. These guys are now funneling down the same path as Bungie. Mass Effect was one of the biggest IPs of last generation alongside Uncharted and Assassin's Creed.

That says a lot. Not just about EA's strategy but the gaming industry as a whole. That's like if Sony tasked Naughty Dog to rush and release a broken mess of an Uncharted 4 so they can get started on a GaaS title.

EA are showing that all they care about right about are GaaS, mobile, EA Sports and microtransactions because that's where the money is. They have never been privy of playing the market, as popularly shown during 2013 when they backed Microsoft extremely hard to banning used games, which blew up in their faces.

Best wishes.

EA killed the franchise long before MEA. As soon as they greenlit that "ending".

That we never saw any of this game and they shut down the whole studio makes it seem more like dev hell with poor management. It shouldn't take this long to make a bunch of "press x to climb" corridors.

 

[supersaw]

So if Anthem doesn't sell enough loot boxes I'm guessing Bioware will be done?

 

[Agent_4Seven]

OMG!!! Are these greedy fucking bastards for real!? For fucking what? What for?! Unfuckingbeliavable.

You know what guys, i think it's about goddamn time to start a boycott and so i'm doing just that (all my friends will join me for sure). I'm no longer be buying any EA games, let them fucking rot and die like so many others publishers which no longer with us. They've literally killed one of the best studio in the industry by their own fucking hands! AGAIN!

Uh, fucking die EA, just die already.

 

[TheBlueBomber]

Ugh, fuck EA, seriously

 

[I-hate-u]

I still have this issue of Game Informer magazine from a decade ago:

2008 was soo good for EA. Dead Space and Mirror's Edge in the same year.

 

[Rosstimus]

What are the chances of Ms Hennig returning back to Naughty Dogwishful thinking) just as how Mr Cory Barlog moved back to SSM after spending time away from the studio working with Crystal Dynamics and elsewhere?

Everything I've heard/read about her split from ND makes it sound less-than-amicable. So very unlikely, probably.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Sad news as I'm quite fond of BF Hardline, actually.... it was poorly timed but to this day it's still quite fun to load up, race around in a Cadi or hang out the window fire an AK at other cars and trucks.

That said, as I'm biased to Vancouver, though hopefully all of the team gets offered positions within EA or can quickly land on their feet locally, it would be cool if some of the team moves up to join EA Vancouver and the project (and studio) grows rather than scales down because of it.

Still... I was a huge Mythic and Dark Age of Camelot fan. Westwood fan. Still a Criterion, BioWare, and 'Maxis' fan, in the sense I was a fan but acknowledge the name is still around... EA sure can churn and spit 'em out.

 

[Xater]

Sure, blame the consumer for not buying their offerings instead of EA's lengthy history of meddling with studios that results in a reduction in quality of their products like:
-Maxis
-Origin
-Bullfrog
-Pandemic
-Mythic
-NuFX
-Westwood
-PlayFish
-Black Box
-Danger Close
-Phenomic
-Visceral

It's almost like the problem isn't the studios but rather the publisher's management compromising the quality of their products (see also: Ultima VIII/IX's development) that may drive more savvy consumers to avoid EA's ilk like the plague.

It’s almost always a combination of too high expectations after they came into the EA fold, and meddling with the games as soon as those are not met.

 

[Iced Arcade]

Though hardline was garbage and usually don't fall into the EA hate BUT God damn EA that out is filling up... stop buying studios

 

[GeNoMe]

2008 was soo good for EA. Dead Space and Mirror's Edge in the same year.

And here we are, almost 10 years later. And those ip's are being flushed down the toilet....EA doesn't know a good thing even if it hit them square in the face.

If there were lay-offs? I hope those people get back up on their feet.

 

[MattAces]

Sure, blame the consumer for not buying their offerings instead of EA's lengthy history of meddling with studios that results in a reduction in quality of their products like:
-Maxis
-Origin
-Bullfrog
-Pandemic
-Mythic
-NuFX
-Westwood
-PlayFish
-Black Box
-Danger Close
-Phenomic
-Visceral

It's almost like the problem isn't the studios but rather the publisher's management compromising the quality of their products (see also: Ultima VIII/IX's development) that may drive more savvy consumers to avoid EA's ilk like the plague.

Still pissed off about PlayFish.
I miss Pet Society so much, played the shit out of that in the golden age of Facebook.

 

[Orochinagis]

RIP Dead Space , their latest games were bad anyway

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

What are the chances of Ms Hennig returning back to Naughty Dogwishful thinking) just as how Mr Cory Barlog moved back to SSM after spending time away from the studio working with Crystal Dynamics and elsewhere?

Speaking of Crystal Dynamics, she should go back to it and work on the Avengers game or a new Marvel property. I vote for Punisher or Captain America.

 

[reKon]

Fuck off EA

 

[[NaK]]

Is it really such a big suprise? Hardline and Dead Space 3 were absolutely terrible.

 

[Stranya]

For fuck's sake. I loved Visceral. Why not give them another game? No, just shut them down.

 

[comshoplesce]

EA should burn in hell.

 

[omnislayer]

Is it really such a big suprise? Hardline and Dead Space 3 were absolutely terrible.

They we're exactly what EA wanted them to be, especially DS3. I feel like this shut down was influenced more by poor decisions EA had made than whatever fuckups Visceral may have made.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Sure, blame the consumer for not buying their offerings instead of EA's lengthy history of meddling with studios that results in a reduction in quality of their products like:
-Maxis
-Origin
-Bullfrog
-Pandemic
-Mythic
-NuFX
-Westwood
-PlayFish
-Black Box
-Danger Close
-Phenomic
-Visceral

It's almost like the problem isn't the studios but rather the publisher's management compromising the quality of their products (see also: Ultima VIII/IX's development) that may drive more savvy consumers to avoid EA's ilk like the plague.

RIP

 

[Razzorn34]

This should be a mountain of bodies at this point.

 

[Skux]

Our Visceral studio has been developing an action-adventure title set in the Star Wars universe. In its current form, it was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game. Throughout the development process, we have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design. We will maintain the stunning visuals, authenticity in the Star Wars universe, and focus on bringing a Star Wars story to life. Importantly, we are shifting the game to be a broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore.

Best case scenario is an open world Star Wars game on the lines of Horizon Zero Dawn.

 

[DarkLordMalik]

Western AAA games keep the industry currently afloat at the moment, I doubt games from Japan would enough to sustain the gaming community as a whole.

If the gaming industry has to contract to sustain a reboot, so be it.

 

[Tapejara]

RIP

Don't forget:

 

[N7 MRP Weasel]

This is truly sad..

Was looking forward to 1313 all those years ago, pretty butt hurt about that
Was REALLY looking forward to that New star wars game we got glimpses of lately.

Andromeda strike 1
Anthem if it blows is strike 2

Dragon Age 4 will be a straight up MMO with loot crates and minimal content with season passes

Then by 2020 that Bioware will be taking its place in that EA properties meme

 

[GrimDarkDarrel]

I don't want to derail the thread so I'll say I agree with the last 40 pages of people who think EA sucks for being in the business of destroying game developers.


What I really want to say though, is wtf is this avatar Father_Brain??? omg it's grotesque.

 

[Colossal Moo]

Fuck off EA you absolute shower of gobshites

Why? Would do you think EA should do? Release a bad or mediocre game? Release a game which loses money?

When you see a company shutdown a studio, they are not shutting it down because the studio is producing great games customers want. They are shutting it down because the studio's current project is so bad that they think they will save money by shutting it down. Think about that. That means the following statements are true:

1) EA's senior leadership thinks it's better to close down a studio and transfer the project to another studio. This is a very expensive thing to do and it indicates that Visceral's game wasn't fun and wasn't that good. It also means EA's senior leadership doesn't think Visceral could fix its problems.

2) EA basically canceled the current game and asked another studio to salvage what it could and create a new game. That will cost more money then just finishing the game Visceral was working on. Why would EA want to spend more money? The answer is easy. EA's senior leadership thinks the current game would sell poorly and that they would make more money if they made a better game which had better sales.

3) EA has released a lot of games Neogaf has hated. For example, they released Mass Effect: Andromeda and Neogaf savaged that game. I think a lot of the criticism was unfair but still, a lot of people were very angry at EA for releasing it. If EA was willing to release ME: A, what does it say about the quality of the game they canceled? My guess is Neogaf would have savaged it if it had been released because it would have been a mediocre or bad game.

4) I have worked in failed organizations and on bad teams. There are two sides to this story and my guess is a lot of people at Visceral weren't the best. This includes senior managers, middle management, leads and individual contributors. When you have a failed organization, usually the organization failed because the staff failed. Visceral's employees almost certainly bear a lot of the responsibility for the studio closure and solely blaming EA's senior leadership because the team failed is probably unfair.

I think people get scared when they see mass layoffs, closures and firings. I get that because losing a job is painful (its happened to me). The problem is we cannot have it both ways. If companies don't cancel bad games, they get released and then some of us end up wasting our money on them. If good money is thrown after bad, we end up spending more money on bad games and there is less money available for good games.

A good example of this is Duke Nukem Forever. A friend bought it and it sucked. The game development team had over a decade, plenty of money and the game still stunk. It's was so bad a lot of people are mad at Randy Pitchford for releasing it. It would have been better for everyone if the game had been canceled after it had spent 5 years in development.

 

[potatohead]

Where are we going Papa EA

Lmao brutal

 

[barit]

Urgh that PR speak is so fucking awful.

"fast changing industrie, how we want to play our games, yada yada"

Just tell the damn truth "Shit is going nowhere and costs too much money for us"

Fuck EA

 

[TheKeyPit]

E(A)vilCorp.

Spoiler

EA Access is great.

 

[potatohead]

Hennig damn man.... Damn

 

[clintar]

fuck them

 

[comshoplesce]

 

[jdstorm]

Why? Would do you think EA should do? Release a bad or mediocre game? Release a game which loses money?

When you see a company shutdown a studio, they are not shutting it down because the studio is producing great games customers want. They are shutting it down because the studio's current project is so bad that they think they will save money by shutting it down. Think about that. That means the following statements are true:

1) EA's senior leadership thinks it's better to close down a studio and transfer the project to another studio. This is a very expensive thing to do and it indicates that Visceral's game wasn't fun and wasn't that good. It also means EA's senior leadership doesn't think Visceral could fix its problems.

2) EA basically canceled the current game and asked another studio to salvage what it could and create a new game. That will cost more money then just finishing the game Visceral was working on. Why would EA want to spend more money? The answer is easy. EA's senior leadership thinks the current game would sell poorly and that they would make more money if they made a better game which had better sales.

3) EA has released a lot of games Neogaf has hated. For example, they released Mass Effect: Andromeda and Neogaf savaged that game. I think a lot of the criticism was unfair but still, a lot of people were very angry at EA for releasing it. If EA was willing to release ME: A, what does it say about the quality of the game they canceled? My guess is Neogaf would have savaged it if it had been released because it would have been a mediocre or bad game.

4) I have worked in failed organizations and on bad teams. There are two sides to this story and my guess is a lot of people at Visceral weren't the best. This includes senior managers, middle management, leads and individual contributors. When you have a failed organization, usually the organization failed because the staff failed. Visceral's employees almost certainly bear a lot of the responsibility for the studio closure and solely blaming EA's senior leadership because the team failed is probably unfair.

I think people get scared when they see mass layoffs, closures and firings. I get that because losing a job is painful (its happened to me). The problem is we cannot have it both ways. If companies don't cancel bad games, they get released and then some of us end up wasting our money on them. If good money is thrown after bad, we end up spending more money on bad games and there is less money available for good games.

A good example of this is Duke Nukem Forever. A friend bought it and it sucked. The game development team had over a decade, plenty of money and the game still stunk. It's was so bad a lot of people are mad at Randy Pitchford for releasing it. It would have been better for everyone if the game had been canceled after it had spent 5 years in development.

Games being mediocre or worse has never stopped EA from releasing something before. Need For Speed (2015) says hi, so does Star Wars Battlefront 1 and FIFA Legacy (WiiU) all those games make Mass Effect Andromeda look good in comparison.

Also the idea that the Untitled Star Wars project would lose money is ridiculous. 1 because its a star wars game and 2 because adding it to the origin vault increases the valie proposition of EAs subscription service


The PR on this title never said it was bad. It talked about focus groups rejecting it (the same focus groups that approve of the creatively bankrupt games EA normally releases) and because it wasnt GaaS or online multiplayer.

This is just another case of EA being short for Evil A**holes rather then Electronic Artists

 

[HariKari]

I bet EA and Disney both desperately wanted a Star Wars battle royale game and this was the fastest way to get one.

 

[border]

Games being mediocre or worse has never stopped EA from releasing something before.

Which probably speaks to how poorly the Visceral Star Wars game was going. If EA pulled the plug on it, things had probably gone way way off the rails. They're not going to throw away years of work and millions of dollars unless their hand is forced.

 

[Merchandise]

Somebody with context can answer this

Like, this game had been in development for a very long time, and if they really decided they would rather scrap a chunk of it than shit it out in an under polished state in a year or two, does that mean ANY fault can be placed on the studio? Like, they were just taking too long and probably spending too much money? Or is this just I hate EA they're the only ones to blame here etc

 

[Gradly]

The Amy Henning game, right?
I'm not into Star Wars at all but I was really looking for this one as it sounded more like an uncharted/3rd person adventure game

 

[balohna]

Somebody with context can answer this

Like, this game had been in development for a very long time, and if they really decided they would rather scrap a chunk of it than shit it out in an under polished state in a year or two, does that mean ANY fault can be placed on the studio? Like, they were just taking too long and probably spending too much money? Or is this just I hate EA they're the only ones to blame here etc

Partially taking too long, but EA would have been signing off on progress along the way.

 

[Froxenblade]

I simply don't have the time/energy for every game to become some shared-world loot grind. Sometimes it's nice when a game can just end. Most of the time, if I'm being honest. Everyone chasing the Destiny bandwagon is in for a hard-learned lesson. There simply isn't enough mind share for every game to become a "service" that people play day in, day out. Destiny, PUBG, League of Legends; these are anomalies, not something sustainable for every game. Maybe this Star Wars game comes out and does really well, or maybe this delay pushes it back far enough that the bubble has already burst on these types of games. It's like the knee-jerk reaction to open world games, every publisher scrambled to make every big game open world and people got tired of it.

As for Visceral closing, it is indeed sad news. It's never easy to see people lose their jobs, and Visceral had quite a bit of talent in house. This is concerning for gamers because it seems more publishers are coming to the conclusion that story-driven single player games just aren't worth making in their current, $60 state. To remedy this, loot boxes/aggressive microtransactions get injected into games where they so clearly don't belong, or as is the case here, the game is re-purposed into some grotesque Destiny pseudo-MMO designed to keep players invested for years so the publisher doesn't need to invest in a whole new game/new idea as soon as they previously would have. I can't fault publishers if these single player games truly aren't profitable enough in their current state (they are absolutely profitable) but that is indicative of a problem within the AAA space. It's a problem for the publishers and developers to solve, though. Not consumers. Over the next few years, these shared-world/games as services/whatever you want to call them will be their next major push to make AAA development more profitable. I don't think it's a viable long term, however. And speaking selfishly, I don't want this to be the answer, either. I love playing single player, story-driven games. And I love FINISHING games. Destiny 2 is fine, but I only have room in my life for one Destiny 2 at a time.

 

[EatChildren]

It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design.

lol

 

[chadskin]

Man, EA sucks. I was really looking forward to Amy's new project.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

Somebody with context can answer this

Like, this game had been in development for a very long time, and if they really decided they would rather scrap a chunk of it than shit it out in an under polished state in a year or two, does that mean ANY fault can be placed on the studio? Like, they were just taking too long and probably spending too much money? Or is this just I hate EA they're the only ones to blame here etc

It's was a business decision. The team size + development time (sunk and needed still) for a single player story driven game at high production values just wasn't worth the additional investment. It doesn't just end with making the game. Releasing something like this means tens of millions in marketing as well. As shitty as it sounds, there is just way more profit potential in a GaaS title than whatever it is they were making. Before falling further behind in the market, they thought it better to transition now rather than later

 

[neemmss]

Don't forget:

I loved that game. A current gen expanded version would be so amazing.

 

[eot]

lol

I'm sure they start to believe that PR speak at some point, it rots their brain

 

[daman824]

Which probably speaks to how poorly the Visceral Star Wars game was going. If EA pulled the plug on it, things had probably gone way way off the rails. They're not going to throw away years of work and millions of dollars unless their hand is forced.

It doesn't sound like that at all. The press release spells out pretty clearly why the company was shuttered and game canceled, and it has nothing to do with quality. EA is no longer interested in making single player focused games. So instead of sinking money into something they don't want ( single player, linear, uncharted like game), they are re-tooling it into an online focused, service based game using a lot of assets from the game they just canceled.

 

[border]

It's was a business decision. The team size + development time (sunk and needed still) for a single player story driven game at high production values just wasn't worth the additional investment. It doesn't just end with making the game. Releasing something like this means tens of millions in marketing as well.

Yeah, it's crazy to think that they would give up after spending all the time and money on a game, but it's not that complicated when you think about it. "This project has gone very wrong: will it cost more money to fix/finish the game than it will cost to cancel it now?"

Clearly they didn't think the game could earn back whatever additional funds they might spend on it, which must mean they already spent a ton of cash.

 

[Tetraeon]

What a shitstorm.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

Is it really such a big suprise? Hardline and Dead Space 3 were absolutely terrible.

Stop right here. Even with all it's problems it was a good game and ultimately i enjoyed playing it and i'm sure that i am not alone. And now, thanks to these fucking bastards there won't be another Dead Space game even as a reboot.

Fucking hell, i'm so angry right now. BioWare or DICE is next, i'm sure of it, it's just a matter of time. My only hope is this - after seeing what happened to Visceral, BioWare and DICE will buy up their brands and studios from EA and will continue working on its own as independent studios, cuz this is the one and only way for them to survive and continue making good game without lootboxes, MTs and other shit.