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"Mom" <momspamhjy6678@bjr.com> wrote in message
news:a2WGd.104363$6l.29567@pd7tw2no...
> Please read all this. There is alot. For the good of all gamers and the
> industry EA needs to go down in flames.
> I could not find a good link to the recent Ubisoft hostile takeover bid by
> EA if anyone has one please add.
A few thoughts I have on whats posted on the links below:
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/
The gist of the article: woman's husband has to work long hard hours for EA.
This was pretty thoroughly discussed here about a month or so ago. I think
the big thing here is that in any company the size of EA you are bound to
find one or two people who aren't happy with their lot in life. Since no
specific information or proof is offered and its an anonymous post (by the
EA employees spouse, not the employee himself) its hard to really tell if
what the woman in the article is saying is true or a gross exaggeration or
what.
For all we know, the husband could be working only 6 hours a day for EA and
then spends 5 or 6 hours each night with his mistress or out drinking or
playing games with his buddies and just tells his wife that he was working
late yet again... and then say that EA is just a bunch of cheap bastards
because there is no overtime or extra benefits on his paycheque for those
extra hours he "works" every day. No, thats probably not the case, but the
point is that without any proof or a complaint from the person themself its
really hard to for anybody to say whats true and whats not and for EA to
defend themselves against the accusations (since they don't know who the
"spouse" is they can't even verify if a real employee is involved here and
its not just some flake writing a fake article because they bought a game
and then found it $5 cheaper at Best Buy a week later and couldn't return it
to get the cheaper version)
What this is going to really boil down to is: If you don't like it then why
don't you quit and find something else to do or try another company? If the
article is true then you would think that with his finger in so many pies at
EA and so much responsibility and hard work he must have quite the
impressive resume/portfolio and should be able to go to another company.
But one would have to ask as well: If this is typical then why, with a
company the size of EA, is there only 1 complaint out there?
>
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/041213/135991_1.html
The gist of the article: EA signs exclusive deal with the NFL.
If your favorite NFL game was something not produced by EA then I could see
somebody being upset... but this is the real world here: companies have done
exclusive deals in the past and they will in the future.
Just sticking with the NFL: CBS and FOX have exclusive deals with the NFL
as far as broadcasting the games go... so if ESPN, ABC or NBC are your
favorite stations you are out of luck, you aren't going to see an AFC game
on ABC or NBC showing the NFC
This is just how licensing works... if somebody has the rights to something
its their perogative to sell it to somebody else for as much as they can get
for it... EA is as much "in the wrong" as the NFL is since it takes 2
parties to make a contract, and since the NFL is the one who decides "yes"
or "no" on exclusivity and its their right to, they can't be in the wrong.
That means that EA, who simply had enough money to pay for the rights isn't
wrong.
>
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=1507
The gist of the article: EA CEO is #4 on list of "computer game industry
jerks" list
Citing this article as an example really ruins any credibility the previous
two articles had... the guy that wrote this article comes across as #1 on
the list of "biggest jerks writing articles about the game industry" and
sounds like a real crackpot.
Just looking at who else is on the list:
#1) George Broussard.
Reason on list: because he is taking forever to release "Duke Nukem
Forever".
Like thats *never* happened before in this industry.
#2) Derek Smart
Reason on list: Writer doesn't like his games and when Derek Smart was
posting on various usenet groups and internet message boards defending his
games against detractors he often got caught up in flame wars.
This just shows that anybody involved in a flame war usually ends up looking
bad... its not so bad when you are anonymous (like almost everybody on
usenet is) but when people can actually tie you to something or to a company
it can damage your rep in your field (not just game developers, but
everybody). Personally I never played his games, but I like the idea of a
game developer actually coming around and talking to the people who bought
and played their games and gathering input and opinions instead of a
marketing focus group or company playtesters.
#3) John Romero & Stevie Case
Reason on list: John Romero: Daikatana was a big budget game that flopped...
Romero looks like a game designer and didn't go with the more corporate
"suit" look.
Reason on list: Stevie Case: she is a good looking woman.
What can you say? So the poster has a fear of attractive women and presumes
that they get anywhere through sexual favors... and would have preferred
John Romero stuck to making Doom and Quake. I'm sure if he had done nothing
but Doom and Quake maybe we would be on Doom 6 and Quake 5 by now but he'd
probably still be on the list for something like "not branching out into
other aspects of gaming" or "flogging a dead horse over and over again"
So whats the moral of the story: Its bad to be big.
The goal of all companies is to expand and grow, and to produce profit that
will allow it to expand and grow even further. As people run around and
complain about these things happening they seem to lose sight of alot of
things that make up the big picture...
1) If every game company was just "4 or 5 good buddies who went to school
together" that would not equate to a better product on the market or more
games. Games would probably be fewer and far between and nowhere near as
polished as they are now.... and when it came to support you could forget
about it.
2) If every game company worked on a tight budget and barely realised a
profit then the whole industry would have pretty much collapsed on itself...
because every company would be subject to complete collapse if they put out
a bad game, or even a good game that wasn't a commercial success.
3) If every game company was just 4 or 5 people working away then life for
those designers would be tougher than whats portrayed in the EA Spouse
article - because they would have to work 20+ hours a day to meet any
deadlines. The game industry isn't like it was 20 years ago when 2 or 3
friends could crank out a game for the Commodore 64 or Apple II and make a
few bucks off it... gamers want cutting edge graphics, gameplay, story
lines, etc... something that just 3 or 4 people alone can't do in a
reasonable amount of time.
4) If every game company was just 4 or 5 people and still strived to come
out with games that were as quality as they are today then games would be
few and far between. If a game takes 100,000 "man hours" to design, develop
and test then a big company can assign 100 people "over the projects
lifetime" to work on the project and come out with a finished product in
under a year... if it was just 5 people working away then even putting in 20
hours a day it would take them 4 years to make a game.
5) By being big, companies are able to hire people to fill specific needs:
script writers, storyline developers, graphic designers, voice talent, etc.
This leads to a better and more polished product in the end.... look at
games from the 80s: sure we had fun playing games like Ultima 4/5,
Wasteland, the gold box D&D games... but you look at what they became when
the companies involved grew and got bigger and could afford better
designers, voice talent, script writers and better graphics designers:
Ultima 7/Ultima Online, Fallout 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2
In the end people may not agree with EA's policy of buying an exclusive deal
with the NFL or buying smaller companies to expand its holdings or bring
talented writers and developers into the company fold... but it is the
natural evolution of a game company, or any company for that matter, and
gone are the days when a game company was a bunch of computer geeks whose
"office" was in their parents' basement... big bucks are involved now in
this field, where a smash hit can lead to tens or hundreds of millions of
dollars in revenue and its every business' right to grow and expand.
Atleast thats my 2 cents...
Clint
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