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The Company We Love to Hate and Hate to Love
13 years ago
Something recently occurred to me. Despite financing some of the best and most popular games ever made, EA is almost universally loathed by the gaming community.
I admit, I'm not all that fond of it either.
For the uninitiated, EA is the gaming giant behind developers like Maxis, Bioware, Dice, and Crytek. It is famous for franchises like The Sims, Mass Effect, Battlefield, Command and Conquer, FIFA, and Crysis. It is also infamous for taking beloved franchises and ruining them with shoddy sequels, bait and switch schemes, and a notorious Digital Rights Management (DRM) system.
EA makes an easy target. It's one of the biggest forces in the gaming industry, it's greedy, and it's done a lot of damage to a number of beloved titles and creative properties. Even so, it's easy to forget in all of this that EA has made and continues to make good games... if you can ignore the litany of overhyped sequels that are hyped up beyond all reason and invariably fall short of expectations.
For instance, let's take a look at the company that was once Maxis. People who once loved Sim City and The Sims point to the fact that Will Wright, the key creative driving force behind both franchises, is not associated with them anymore and the "Maxis" brand no longer exists. What's easily forgotten in the mass-marketing of Will Wright's genius is that Maxis was in financial ruin before EA entered the picture. EA picked up Maxis and immediately set about the creation of Sim City 3000, an improvement over Sim City 2000 and the key source of financing for what was arguably the biggest phenomenon in gaming history: The Sims. You can justifiably seethe over the endless, addictive stream of 'content packs' thereafter or the slaughter of the Sim City name with "Sim City Societies", but you can't do it without recognizing that Maxis' other great titles wouldn't have been possible without EA.
Now let's take a look at Bioware. Bioware came onto the scene alongside TSR in 1998 with the smash hit, Baldur's Gate, which began a long history of quality RPGs for that company. Despite making a relatively unbroken string of popular and successful games, however, Bioware faced financial trouble with its associate companies, most notably in the case of Interplay and the loss of the Dungeons & Dragons license. When EA became Bioware's holding company, it gave Bioware the financial leverage necessary to push forward two titles: Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. While the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins was a critical disappointment, the (first) sequel to Mass Effect is something of a legend and a truly beloved game. The games are certainly the work of Bioware, but you can't ignore the fact that EA money was behind them.
The story repeats itself, with EA rescuing developers, coming out with some great games, and then shamelessly milking the creative properties until they dry up. It's certainly sad that EA has made the deaths of the games we love an art form, but it's also easy to forget that these games may not have seen the light of day were it not for the 800-lb gorilla. I still don't like EA, but after considering these things, I do at least give them some respect.
I admit, I'm not all that fond of it either.
For the uninitiated, EA is the gaming giant behind developers like Maxis, Bioware, Dice, and Crytek. It is famous for franchises like The Sims, Mass Effect, Battlefield, Command and Conquer, FIFA, and Crysis. It is also infamous for taking beloved franchises and ruining them with shoddy sequels, bait and switch schemes, and a notorious Digital Rights Management (DRM) system.
EA makes an easy target. It's one of the biggest forces in the gaming industry, it's greedy, and it's done a lot of damage to a number of beloved titles and creative properties. Even so, it's easy to forget in all of this that EA has made and continues to make good games... if you can ignore the litany of overhyped sequels that are hyped up beyond all reason and invariably fall short of expectations.
For instance, let's take a look at the company that was once Maxis. People who once loved Sim City and The Sims point to the fact that Will Wright, the key creative driving force behind both franchises, is not associated with them anymore and the "Maxis" brand no longer exists. What's easily forgotten in the mass-marketing of Will Wright's genius is that Maxis was in financial ruin before EA entered the picture. EA picked up Maxis and immediately set about the creation of Sim City 3000, an improvement over Sim City 2000 and the key source of financing for what was arguably the biggest phenomenon in gaming history: The Sims. You can justifiably seethe over the endless, addictive stream of 'content packs' thereafter or the slaughter of the Sim City name with "Sim City Societies", but you can't do it without recognizing that Maxis' other great titles wouldn't have been possible without EA.
Now let's take a look at Bioware. Bioware came onto the scene alongside TSR in 1998 with the smash hit, Baldur's Gate, which began a long history of quality RPGs for that company. Despite making a relatively unbroken string of popular and successful games, however, Bioware faced financial trouble with its associate companies, most notably in the case of Interplay and the loss of the Dungeons & Dragons license. When EA became Bioware's holding company, it gave Bioware the financial leverage necessary to push forward two titles: Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. While the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins was a critical disappointment, the (first) sequel to Mass Effect is something of a legend and a truly beloved game. The games are certainly the work of Bioware, but you can't ignore the fact that EA money was behind them.
The story repeats itself, with EA rescuing developers, coming out with some great games, and then shamelessly milking the creative properties until they dry up. It's certainly sad that EA has made the deaths of the games we love an art form, but it's also easy to forget that these games may not have seen the light of day were it not for the 800-lb gorilla. I still don't like EA, but after considering these things, I do at least give them some respect.
And while they've killed some franchises, one could argue that said franchises would've died anyhow, with or without EA's involvement.
So tl;dr i like ea's past more than there present
What can I say? People react to organizations and corporations in really strange ways. I'm not immune, either.
Final note, Orgin is still shit. Just wanted to make it clear that there is at least some true points behind the EA bash. ;)
... instead of quantity.