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Why doesn't EA do remasters?

Grimløck;141265261 said:
they remaster madden every year.

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I'm not making a statement that "remaster slows down a studio's rate of output in a significant way". I'm saying that it is a popular treatment for the year. New titles are sparse from my perspective, and people seem very interested in buying the games they had before, again, and in my opinion most of these have relatively minor additions not worthy of another purchase - but hey I'm one person who is predominantly a PC player, so I guess maybe that why I see it that way. That is my perspective and my opinion on what I see from this forum. Your mileage may vary

You said that we're getting remasters instead of new content.

The possible scenarios are:

1. Remasters are using up resources and therefore new content cannot be made.
2. There were not a lot of new games ready for release this year, so remasters were put out to fill the gap.

2 is a harmless situation. I don't see a lot of proof for 1.
 
Uh no. Porting is not an 8 week thing as a project. Getting 3 big games running? Fine, if you think so. Getting them marketed, rated, released, licensed, and set for retailer and digital distribution? Months.

The original Tomb Raider dev said they collaborated on the remaster with the porting studio since just after the original release. The Last of Us supposedly took nearly the whole year as well and was actually confirmed nearly four months ahead of release. And those were single games with much less DLC.

Just because they get announced on shorter notice due to less need for their marketing cycle, doesn't mean they are a snap to throw into sale.

Several things. Porting PC assets over to PS4/X1 is not a huge undertaking. 8 weeks is possible and doable. The key words are PC assets, which the unreal games can draw from.

The Last of Us is a totally different case. Totally different. It was a game that took advantage of every single nook and cranny of the PS3 which uses a radically different architecture than the PS4 and therefore porting was a much bigger undertaking. Much bigger.

In regards to marketing, a trilogy re-release is not going to get heavy marketing since it's not going to be a massive seller unless it's a big ticket item to a recent hit like The Last of US and/or GTA. Those games are barely a year old and still fresh on people's minds. A Mass Effect re-release does not fall into that category and would not need near the months of prep to release. The last Mass Effect game came out in 2012, almost 3 years ago.

Tomb Raider, GTA:V and The Last of Us all had additional work done outside of porting, which changed things, but one thing they did have in common is that the release date was actually announced for these things within two months of the actual release. Tomb Raiders existence was not even acknowledged until about two months before.

Here is what I would wager to bet is going on. 100% speculation on my part.
Here goes:
Bioware has already been greenlit to re-release the ME trilogy and work is going on and/or currently been done. I would imagine the green light was given before Aaryn responded to shinobi's tweet several months ago. I suspect that Aaryn showing up in the ME thread was more of a formality to announce it without actually announcing it.

I wouldn't be surprised if work on it is close to completion and they announce a release date for it within two months of it actually getting released. I also would not be surprised if it was released a few months before ME4 to easily co-market the two. "ME4 coming this holiday. Re-live the classic trilogy in the mean time."

But whatever. Shinobi is totally free to tell me I am full of it.
 
This is kind of in the realm of what I am thinking about. If a remaster is just a constitution of "upping the graphics a notch or two", it seems banal to me and certainly not worth my time or money IF I already own the game. So far these games simply seem to mostly be moving the game across to a new platform with the most minimal of "remastering" to be worth while. There is a lot more that could be done or explored here. That is why right now, I am far more interested in new content. GTA V is an example that contradicts this but such games are few and far between.

Yeah, I kind of see it as the other direction - a slow easing of people who DIDN'T own the previous gen version (especially thinking PS3 exclusives here) into the idea that it's still an option, even with minimal to zero changes. Zero changes is unfortunately kind of a far cry for now given how technically overambitious last gen was, to the point where keeping the historical curio often makes it a worse game, but it's a step on the path to an industry where devs are rewarded for making a great game with its own internal appeal rather than issuing a new stack of content to checklist through every year--coincidentally, what EA does.
 
I'm not making a statement that "remaster slows down a studio's rate of output in a significant way". I'm saying that it is a popular treatment for the year. New titles are sparse from my perspective, and people seem very interested in buying the games they had before, again, and in my opinion most of these have relatively minor additions not worthy of another purchase - but hey I'm one person who is predominantly a PC player, so I guess maybe that why I see it that way. That is my perspective and my opinion on what I see from this forum. Your mileage may vary

New titles are sparse from your perspective? This is one of the most ridiculous comments I have seen in a while.

Destiny
Shadows of Mordor
Alien Isolation
Evil Within
Sunset Overdrive
Assassins Creed Unity
Farcry 4
Dragon Age Inquisition
Call of Duty Advanced Warfare
LittleBigPlanet 3

All of those are NEW games. 10 new games. This is why I can't take anyone who whines about remasters seriously. During that time frame you had Halo MCC and GTAV get re-released, which means you have a 5:1 ratio of new to old in the past several months.

So please enlighten me how this "new titles are sparse" argument holds up. If not one single one of those titles holds your interest then I'm very curious to hear what your interests would be.
 
You said that we're getting remasters instead of new content.

I'd argue that my comment:

"Kind of sad that remasters are the flavour of the year rather than new meaningful content"

does not mean what you are saying, and that isn't the spirit in which it is meant. It is simply an observation that many people I know and on this forum are looking for this kind of content - and as I have said in my previous posts, I do not see this as meaningful new content

That doesn't mean I am against more substantial remastering such as GTA V has seen.

The possible scenarios are:
1. Remasters are using up resources and therefore new content cannot be made.
2. There were not a lot of new games ready for release this year, so remasters were put out to fill the gap.

2 is a harmless situation. I don't see a lot of proof for 1.

I don't think any of those are the only possible scenario's. My guess would be that I don't think companies are as interested in releasing their games that have seen massive investments, at a time when the population of new generation console owners is only set to increase significantly and provide a more meaningful return on their investments.

Remasters as they are at the moment, are timid and I imagine significantly cheaper to produce, and there is a very clear audience that will purchase that level of "remaster"

I am not one of those people because I don't think the majority of these remasters are meaningful new content in the context of owning the prior version - this forum among others shows that I am in the minority - that is my point and my opinion. You have your own view, fine, I respect that.
 
Hell yeah !

A Strike Series Remaster Collection .. 1080p/60.
Just fucking include emulated Sega roms and HD-ified Soviet and Nuclear strike !

I would instantly throw money at a Strike Series Remaster. But, that was an era when EA was actually good. You'll never see EA reference those days again.
 
Several things. Porting PC assets over to PS4/X1 is not a huge undertaking. 8 weeks is possible and doable. The key words are PC assets, which the unreal games can draw from.

The Last of Us is a totally different case. Totally different. It was a game that took advantage of every single nook and cranny of the PS3 which uses a radically different architecture than the PS4 and therefore porting was a much bigger undertaking. Much bigger.

In regards to marketing, a trilogy re-release is not going to get heavy marketing since it's not going to be a massive seller unless it's a big ticket item to a recent hit like The Last of US and/or GTA. Those games are barely a year old and still fresh on people's minds. A Mass Effect re-release does not fall into that category and would not need near the months of prep to release. The last Mass Effect game came out in 2012, almost 3 years ago.

Tomb Raider, GTA:V and The Last of Us all had additional work done outside of porting, which changed things, but one thing they did have in common is that the release date was actually announced for these things within two months of the actual release. Tomb Raiders existence was not even acknowledged until about two months before.

Here is what I would wager to bet is going on. 100% speculation on my part.
Here goes:
Bioware has already been greenlit to re-release the ME trilogy and work is going on and/or currently been done. I would imagine the green light was given before Aaryn responded to shinobi's tweet several months ago. I suspect that Aaryn showing up in the ME thread was more of a formality to announce it without actually announcing it.

I wouldn't be surprised if work on it is close to completion and they announce a release date for it within two months of it actually getting released. I also would not be surprised if it was released a few months before ME4 to easily co-market the two. "ME4 coming this holiday. Re-live the classic trilogy in the mean time."

But whatever. Shinobi is totally free to tell me I am full of it.

You are contradicting yourself. Is it a quick project close to completion, was it greenlit 9 months ago back from the first vague tweet, or is it going to come near ME4 which is likely a Q1/2 2016 release which means the remaster is far from done?

And you have no clue how much they will do to the hypothetical remasters. It may very well include some similar work to other remasters, which is usually at the very least is going to include improving character assets.

You are kidding yourself if you think any of the remasters get done in 8 weeks after being greenlit, let alone 3 huge games and DLC that need testing on more than one system. Distribution and marketing do indeed still need to happen, regardless of the game's age. Doesn't matter how old they are. They are not going to get a Beyoncé stealth release with no attempt to tell its audience that it has been developed.

I don't know where you are getting this 8 weeks figure besides yourself. And it is irrelevant to keep stating when remasters get announced. That has no bearing on how long they were planned and prepared. So far, the indication is that they are in development and then pre-release for many months, contrary to your expectations.
 
You are kidding yourself if you think any of the remasters get done in 8 weeks after being greenlit, let alone 3 huge games and DLC that need testing on more than one system. Distribution and marketing do indeed still need to happen, regardless of the game's age. Doesn't matter how old they are. They are not going to get a Beyoncé stealth release with no attempt to tell its audience that it has been developed.

I don't know where you are getting this 8 weeks figure besides yourself. And it is irrelevant to keep stating when remasters get announced. That has no bearing on how long they were planned and prepared. So far, the indication is that they are in development and then pre-release for many months, contrary to your expectations.

8 weeks is the time they could do the port using PC assets. I am not saying 8 weeks is the time needed from greenlight to distribution. I am saying that if porting work was started today it could be done in 8 weeks. The time from being greenlit to porting would obviously vary from studio to studio and/or availability of studio that specializes in porting.

Then there would be distribution/marketting etc.

So yes, they are planned for many months, but the actual time spent on the project is short. My info came from someone who has experience doing ports.

If someone who has actual experience and can refute my claim I will happily own up to it. Nevertheless, I maintain that a game that has PC assets can be ported to an X1/PS4 in about 8 weeks. If it only has PS3/360/Wii assets it will take longer.
 
New titles are sparse from your perspective? This is one of the most ridiculous comments I have seen in a while.

Destiny
Shadows of Mordor
Alien Isolation
Evil Within
Sunset Overdrive
Assassins Creed Unity
Farcry 4
Dragon Age Inquisition
Call of Duty Advanced Warfare
LittleBigPlanet 3

All of those are NEW games. 10 new games. This is why I can't take anyone who whines about remasters seriously. During that time frame you had Halo MCC and GTAV get re-released, which means you have a 5:1 ratio of new to old in the past several months.

So please enlighten me how this "new titles are sparse" argument holds up. If not one single one of those titles holds your interest then I'm very curious to hear what your interests would be.

I haven't explained this very well. I mean new titles like some you have listed - such as Shadows of Mordor, Alien Isolation, Evil Within and Sunset Overdrive; Rather than Assassin's Creed X or Call of Duty X. And yes, I see that as pretty sparse. Sorry. I get that it is "the new gen" and that is to be expected and is probably plentiful choice for some, but I also see a lot of interest in getting remasters of older titles above something new and different.

To clarify, I am not saying everyone should feel as I do. This is just my opinion

8 weeks is the time they could do the port using PC assets. I am not saying 8 weeks is the time needed from greenlight to distribution. I am saying that if porting work was started today it could be done in 8 weeks. Porting done in 8 weeks.

Then there would be distribution/marketting etc.

So yes, they are planned for many months, but the actual time spent on the project is short. My info came from someone who has experience doing ports.

If someone who has actual experience and can refute my claim I will happily own up to it. Nevertheless, I maintain that a game that has PC assets can be ported to an X1/PS4 in about 8 weeks. If it only has PS3/360/Wii assets it will take longer.

Is there much data for this though, like from actual porting devs etc? Also it could be entirely dependant on the size of the teams involved. I know that on the PC side at least, these teams can often be rather small. This may also tie into an already decided release schedule/plan
 
I haven't explained this very well. I mean new titles like some you have listed - such as Shadows of Mordor, Alien Isolation, Evil Within and Sunset Overdrive; Rather than Assassin's Creed X or Call of Duty X. And yes, I see that as pretty sparse. Sorry. I get that it is "the new gen" and that is to be expected and is probably plentiful choice for some, but I also see a lot of interest in getting remasters of older titles above something new and different.

Yet, those still outnumber the number of remasters....
 
Yet, those still outnumber the number of remasters....

That's not my point. I feel like there should be a lot more new titles over what we already see and not as much of a focus on chasing after remasters as we already see and have seen released. Which you obviously don't agree with. A shame you can't tolerate that opinion

Cos it defeats the purpose of annualised franchises.

It could renew interest in a long running franchise though. Which may be beneficial for the longer running series that may feel inaccessible for some
 
8 weeks is the time they could do the port using PC assets. I am not saying 8 weeks is the time needed from greenlight to distribution. I am saying that if porting work was started today it could be done in 8 weeks. The time from being greenlit to porting would obviously vary from studio to studio and/or availability of studio that specializes in porting.

Then there would be distribution/marketting etc.

So yes, they are planned for many months, but the actual time spent on the project is short. My info came from someone who has experience doing ports.

If someone who has actual experience and can refute my claim I will happily own up to it. Nevertheless, I maintain that a game that has PC assets can be ported to an X1/PS4 in about 8 weeks. If it only has PS3/360/Wii assets it will take longer.

8 weeks for what though? You are not even naming a project example. 8 weeks for a porting project this size? Like a team of 15 people? Or 50? 3 different versions of unreal engine? There's just a wild ton of factors so you can't just throw out 8 weeks.
 
I'm dying to replay Mass Effect, but the remaster needs to come to pc -- I just don't have the patience for another round of clumsy xpadder control and hacks for FOV etc.
 
8 weeks for what though? You are not even naming a project example. 8 weeks for a porting project this size? Like a team of 15 people? Or 50? 3 different versions of unreal engine? There's just a wild ton of factors so you can't just throw out 8 weeks.

I honestly don't know how many people it would require. That info hasn't been given to me.
But we will agree that people size does play a role.

Anyway, we will end this there.
 
I'm dying to replay Mass Effect, but the remaster needs to come to pc -- I just don't have the patience for another round of clumsy xpadder control and hacks for FOV etc.

Wouldn't you be happy if they just patched in controller support. That was something I explicitly suggested to Aaryn Flynn when he posted in that thread and he said he would look into it.
 
I would love a Dragon Age 1 + 2 + Inquisition trilogy. It would be nice if 1 + 2 remasters could be attached to the Dragon Age Keep for a continuous play through on one next gen console.
 
Wouldn't you be happy if they just patched in controller support. That was something I explicitly suggested to Aaryn Flynn when he posted in that thread and he said he would look into it.

That's probably all it would take to get me to replay. But I'd prefer to have the whole thing cleaned up some, with more pc options, higher res textures like the ones fans have made, and all three games and the dlc seamlessly integrated.

I think something like that would be very helpful to JumpStart the series this gen and get people hyped for the new games.
 
If they would do a remaster of SSX or SSX Tricky or any PS2 Burnout game then people would notice what kind of garbage EA releases nowadays.

Grimløck;141265261 said:
they remaster madden every year.

Good one.
 
EA doesn't strike me as a company with long tenured staff who cherish their successful creations, and treasure their IP as works of effort and art. They're just a mill, or factory, churning out or buying up product and moving on. They're no Blizzard, Naughty Dog, etc.
 
They do, I have played medal of honor on the PS3 but it was crap really.

Aside from that, they only do crappy reboots #SSX

Where is my SSX Tricky HD, EA?
 
While the other major studios have large libraries of ports and remasters, EA's is almost non-existent. This leaves little hope for a Mass Effect Trilogy on current gen.

Why isn't EA doing remasters when everyone else is?

They remaster Madden, NHL and FIFA every year.
 
I find it hard to think of EA games that are worth remastering and it probably upsets the yearly factory process. Allied Assault is probably the only one I have fond memories of.

A remastet for the sake of making it a little smoother or a collection or game that isn't particularly referred seems pointless. The PC takes some of that slack anyway.
 
I came to see people wanting mass effect and see nothing but responces to first post, it is good yeah but bollox to that...


I WAT MASS EFFECT REMASTER!

Do you not want money EA! Same goes for dinosaurs in bf4 they know everyone wants it and everyone will throw there money at it so why not do it?
 
1) They make less money. People that play games once (quite a large amount of people) and already played it will not buy it again.

2) They have annual franchises. You cannot sell remakes of games where each annual or bi-annual successor, is deemed as worse than an earlier iteration. It's the same reason you won't see a Black Ops 2 or COD4 remakes, because to do so implies they maintain value for the player, and an annual franchise model exists and functions on the basis that each new game is superior to the last, otherwise people stop buying them.

3) Bad press. Remastering old games is not good publicity. It shows a sparsity of new products, a gap in products, or a lack of original ideas. Keeping in mind that companies make remasters to make money, not because we all really liked that particular game.
 
1) They make less money. People that play games once (quite a large amount of people) and already played it will not buy it again.

2) They have annual franchises. You cannot sell remakes of games where each annual or bi-annual successor, is deemed as worse than an earlier iteration. It's the same reason you won't see a Black Ops 2 or COD4 remakes, because to do so implies they maintain value for the player, and an annual franchise model exists and functions on the basis that each new game is superior to the last, otherwise people stop buying them.

3) Bad press. Remastering old games is not good publicity. It shows a sparsity of new products, a gap in products, or a lack of original ideas. Keeping in mind that companies make remasters to make money, not because we all really liked that particular game.
There is so much wrong with this post.
jags.gif


1. False. People will rebuy games and many will buy them since they missed them the first time around. It's not going to be a ton of new sales, but more then enough to justify the cheap cost.

2. EA only has Battlefield as it's annual franchise and thats really not annual.

3. Bad press? This has got to be one of the worst arguments I have read on GAF. It's not bad press to re-release a game that people are obviously asking for. Otherwise they wouldn't be re-releasing them. Your argument might have merit if they were releasing even half as many remasters as new games, but they aren't. "Keeping in mind that companies make remasters to make money, not because we all really liked that particular game." Last time I checked I buy a game because I like it.

I can't believe I actually wasted time responding to this post since it's probably sarcasm.
 
Grimløck;141265261 said:
they remaster madden every year.

You make joke but NCAA 14 was the first game to mind for me. With no college football game in the foreseeable future, if ever, I'd kill for a next-gen remaster of that game.
 
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