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The implications of EA buying Criterion
Taken from the: GamesIndustry.biz Weekly Update – 05/08/2004“Electronic Arts isn’t the biggest independent game publisher without
good reason. While critical reaction to many of the company’s headline
titles can sometimes be a little underwhelmed, the bulk of their
output is very high quality, their marketing machine is unrivalled,
their development studios attract some very talented people… And
their ability at the negotiating table must truly be uncanny.We don’t have any proof for the latter assumption, admittedly, but we
can’t think of any other way to explain the fact that EA paid only $48
million for its acquisition of Criterion Software from former parent
company Canon Europe. It’s a bargain basement price for an
exceptionally valuable asset that has many in the industry rubbing
their eyes in disbelief at the moment.In one swoop, the giant company picked up an exceptionally talented
development studio, two potentially massive game franchises (Burnout
and Black), and what is arguably a turn-key solution that will not
only let EA bypass the blood, sweat, tears and investment required to
build next-generation console technology, but will let them charge
other companies for the privilege of using it as well. For the
benefits this could convey to EA’s bottom line over the coming years,
$48 million is a drop in the ocean.Indeed, much of the industry is still struggling to come to terms with
the magnitude of the EA – Criterion deal; and there are suggestions
that many people within EA itself aren’t quite sure what to make of it
either. Commentators immediately highlighted EA’s newfound capacity to
severely cripple many of its rivals by pulling the RenderWare platform
from under their feet – but EA was quick to assure everyone that they
have no plans to do anything of the sort.That, we can only assume, is because EA has seen the far bigger
opportunity which exists here – a chance for the industry’s biggest
publisher to extend its sphere of influence so that it becomes much,
much more than just a publisher, but without having to go through the
hugely expensive and risky process of actually becoming a platform
holder.RenderWare is currently used by one in four game titles; it could be
described as the operating system which is vital to run those titles,
regardless of what platform they’re on. When you play Grand Theft Auto
3, no matter whether the console you run it on was made by Microsoft
or Sony, or even if it’s a Windows PC, one element remains the same –
the RenderWare system which sits between the game and the hardware and
made porting it between systems possible. In other words, it’s like
the difference between a PC purchased from Dell, Compaq or Packard
Bell – regardless of the PC, the operating system it runs is Windows,
so Microsoft holds that virtual platform.As next-generation consoles arrive, and the difficulty of developing
game titles skyrockets, RenderWare is ideally positioned to become
even more impossible. Even discounting the huge number of internal EA
titles, it’s easy to see a situation where a significant majority of
all game titles are developed using some version of the RenderWare
technology platform.In this environment, EA now has the ability to accomplish what would
have been impossible before – effectively becoming a virtual platform
holder, whose software enables development for Xbox Next, PlayStation
3, Nintendo Revolution and everything else besides. The company could
reap the benefits of being a platform holder, without actually having
to design or manufacture any hardware. It would become the Microsoft
of the games world, owning the profitable software platform and
letting the hardware companies struggle with the difficult parts of
the market.Is that EA’s long term plan? It’s hard to say, and even EA itself may
not know for sure. Certainly, if it is, it’s not going to make many
people at Sony or Microsoft happy – particularly at Microsoft, since
J Allard has long trumpeted the merits of a unified software platform
like this. XNA is seen as a stepping stone towards that; Microsoft
won’t be happy to see EA leapfrogging them on this path. After all,
Microsoft would rather like to be the Microsoft of the games industry.One thing is certain, however; EA has changed the landscape of the
games industry with its Criterion deal. The ball is now in its court,
and many will be anxiously awaiting its next move. For now, we can
only marvel over the fact that the revolution has been so inexpensive.”GamesIndustry.biz Weekly Update – 05/08/2004
This bulletin and all of its content is (c) Eurogamer Network Ltd
2002-2004. All rights reserved, including translation into other
languagesWOW!
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A very interesting read. This is a world where many developers and publishers are forced to leap off their sinking ships onto any form of a platform to survive from drowning, in many cases either going bust or becoming a shell of their former selves… Then we also have EA, a company who goes from strength to strength and expertly manipulates the industry and through clever marketing skills continue to further entrench their place as the infallable giants that could potentially control the industry all together, in a sense, not too long in the future.
Quite frankly I’m excited and worried to think what will happen with the industry when there is such a super-power like EA. They have to be admired for their extremely brilliant business but will their force stagnate the industry and eventually lead to another industry crash? Or will it mean financial security for developers who were once too afraid to try another new from fear of going out of business? Sure EA always go for quanity over quanity but they have been known for several innovative titles, perhaps with such a strong foothold in the industry they can afford to let their development studios become a little creative.
That’s just a few thoughts from the top of my head, I’ve just woken up and it’s so warm in France my brain is boiling. Look forward to monitering the next several years in the industry with great interest.
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EA had the money to create innovative titles risk free 6 years ago and yet they still churn out crap to this day. This deal won’t change that. All this deal does is allow their investors eyes to turn an even brighter shade of green as they count their dollars in EA’s secret money counting basement of doom…..(you know they have one!)
;)
The only time EA ever publish innovative titles is when they buy out a talented company which is in the middle of developing that title, and then, when the title is released, the most talented people in that company leave……I’m trying not to get into another “Why I hate EA rant”, but they piss me off so much with their “good business”. Sure its good business, good for their business, but not for the gaming business as a whole.
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EA had the money to create innovative titles risk free 6 years ago [/quote:7452217b49] “risk free”?? how do you work that one out?
The only time EA ever publish innovative titles is when they buy out a talented company which is in the middle of developing that title, and then, when the title is released, the most talented people in that company leave……[/quote:7452217b49] unlikely, I’d say – as the most talented people in an acquisition are always tied in contractually for a number of years (usually two, but can be as long as five)
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risk free”?? how do you work that one out?[/quote:ccdaca0d22]
Quite simply actually. They had a huge revenue even back then, especially with their sports titles. They could easily have developed an innovative title(s) and even if it bombed they would not be at risk of going bust. But they didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, EA have published good games like, for example, Battlefield 1942 and the Lord of the Rings games….but where is the innovation?? BF1942 is basically a toned down, arcadey, Operation Flashpoint, and the Lord of the Rings games are simple hack n slash.
unlikely, I’d say – as the most talented people in an acquisition are always tied in contractually for a number of years (usually two, but can be as long as five)[/quote:ccdaca0d22]
By most talented people I am referring to are the “lowly” designers, programmers and artists, not the higher ups. They can only contract the “higher ups”, ie: the people who will make a mint out of the aquisition, they can’t contract normal employees to stay for two years because they are making no money out of the buyout. And the most talented people are usually “normal employees”. Sure, sometimes the higher ups/owners are also designers, but most of the time they are at a stage where they are doing more to run the business then actually involved with designing games.
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Don’t get me wrong, EA have published good games like, for example, Battlefield 1942 and the Lord of the Rings games….. [/quote:3184840a8b]
Exactly…published, not developed, EA is the Video Game Industries Leech, as you said Nooptical it acquires companies only to suck them dry and spew out ‘crap’. Come on guys the only thing anyway near crediable towards EA is the fact that they have brought gaming to a more mainstream audience. The LotR licence was put to good use, which I presume was a surprise to many, and now they have acquired the Burnout license i can almost be certain that we will be seeing annual updates along with Fifa, Madden, NBA, and James Bond(note how EA are currently feeding off of Rares success in the late 90’s, their marketing boy’s are clearly trying to site this as a sequel…..get real, it will suck balls and everyone knows!)
But back to the article, the fact that EA now have ownership of the Renderware platform is ‘bad news’, especailly if the report is correct. I imagine the next year will be a make or break for some companies, with alligiences being forged and so forth, before we know it we’ll have another ‘Microsoft’ on our hands and the games industry will turn into a monotonous money generator for EA and Microsoft with even the biggest of Japanese companies falling, a bit like the Sith versus the Republic really.
*sigh*
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Exactly, EA just churn out sequels every year. Maybe they should try and develop titles for *shock horror* more than a year, and see what they can do.
I almost wretched when I saw what they are calling the next Bond game. What a cheap bloody marketing move that is.
I can just imagine the meeting that came up with that:EA Robot #1: Hey guys, our Bond games are always being compared to Goldeneye, and they all pretty much suck compared to it. What are we going to do about it?
EA Robot #2: Why not try put a lot of effort and time into developing a worthy contender to Goldeneye and win over its legions of fans?
*tumbleweed blows across floor*
EA Robot #1: Your fired. Now, anyone else have any thoughts?
EA Robot #3: Lets just call our game “Goldeneye something” and then all those gamers will think its a proper sequel to the original game and that it will be just as good in terms of quality and gameplay, because we all know how dumb those gamers are!
EA Robots (All together): Huzzah!
They then proceed to their local bank to open new accounts.
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EA Robot #1: Hey guys, our Bond games are always being compared to Goldeneye, and they all pretty much suck compared to it. What are we going to do about it?
Satan appears and reminds the Robots who own’s their souls.
Satan: ” Hear ye Hear ye, no originality will be tolerated in my dominion, all who oppose me shall condemed to an eternity of java scripting”EA Robot #2: Why not try put a lot of effort and time into developing a worthy contender to Goldeneye and win over its legions of fans?
Satan: ” what did I just say minion!, you shall join that tosser Miyamoto”….*poof, a flash of light and minion no 2 is gone*
*tumbleweed blows across floor*
EA Robot #1: Your fired. Now, anyone else have any thoughts?
Satan: ” thats my boy, here have a medal…..
EA Robot #3: Lets just call our game “Goldeneye something” and then all those gamers will think its a proper sequel to the original game and that it will be just as good in terms of quality and gameplay, because we all know how dumb those gamers are!
Satan: ” ah yes, but you have to use cunning remember, call the boy’s at Edge and have them put in a good word for you, that’ll get all those Gamers who think they ‘know’ stuff into our ploy”
EA Robots (All together): Huzzah!
Satan: ” whata diabolical scheme….. I can’t believe no one has done this before…..receptionist:” Satan, Bill gates is on line 2, something about EA stealing the Renderware license from under them”….Satan: ” really, tell him i’ll be right there”.
A cynical luagh echoes throughout the land, and morbid Chaos decends upon the land.
They then proceed to their local bank to open new accounts. [/quote:74cc34dc12]
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LOL :)
You’ve got to commend them for their marketing though, cos you know its going to succeed.
Its probably gotten a case of the big-wigs at EA don’t overly care about “the game” anymore, due to the fact with such a huge company, they probably only see it once or twice during it full life-cycle.
As a result, they are superb marketeers.
For those at ground level caring about the game, we just have to live with it. Moaning isn’t going to get anything done. -
LOL :)
Moaning isn’t going to get anything done. [/quote:912a4a033b]It makes me feel better, and if their such “big wigs” why don’t they feck off and poisin some other industry…..like the Music scene, oh wait thats already in shit….hmmm the film industry so, ahhh thats fecked aswell……Just go away EA and take your marketeers with you, god dammit!
If I wasn’t such a nice guy I would intentional try and get a job in EA only to sabotage their master plan and blow up their EA Canada house……Ya you heard me EA.
‘have it’
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Actually the movie industry isn’t in too bad a state in my opinion and the games industry would do well to model itself on it.
If you look at it, the people with real power in the movie industry are the directors and producers. Then you have the actors. And finally you have the studios(publishers).Its the complete opposite in the games industry, which makes no sense seeing as the publishers aren’t the most important factor in the creative process.
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Actually the movie industry isn’t in too bad a state in my opinion and the games industry would do well to model itself on it.
If you look at it, the people with real power in the movie industry are the directors and producers. Then you have the actors. And finally you have the studios(publishers).
[/quote:12607e525f]Regardless, I think the current ‘the publishers have all the power’ system is rubbish and it’s crippling new companies starting out as well as old veterans who have worked hard for many years. A simple yes or no from the likes of EA could be the crowning glory of one company(LionHead anyone) and the demise of another.
It’s ludicrious when you think of it, an external force having an influence on a companies ability to be creative, I mean say for instance you start up your new company that you have worked very hard for and your new project is under way, EA comes along and say’s they’ll sign you up, but only if you cut the project in half lose al the originality and polish their shoes at lunch time…..eh! eh!
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my point about ‘risk free’ is that there’s no such thing… or no such game development project, anyway. regardless of how much money EA has/had, development of any game is always ridden with huge amounts of risk – and while I don’t condone EA’s approach (or the product for the most part) I don’t condemn them for not risking their dosh either
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my point about ‘risk free’ is that there’s no such thing… or no such game development project,[/quote:c5ea2068b4]
So your saying a game called Fifa with the EA logo on it is at risk of not selling?!, sorry Idora but I disagree, there is such thing as risk free games, Sqaure with FF, EA with it’s Fifa franchise, ECT.
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there are many more risks that simply bad sales –
– risk of being critically panned & damaging the brand
– numerous development risks (technical, artistic & production)
– risk of losing the license
– risk of competitor features or production values outpacing yours…and many more.
I do take your point, Omega’s Dust – but the risks are still there regardless of whether you are EA or not. They have investors to answer to like the rest of us.
I hate being the one defending EA so vigorously, but while I condemn them for their lack of risk-taking I envy their share of their market… They have inhabited a niche and exploited it to the full – it just so happens that their ‘niche’ is mainstream… ho hum
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If I wasn’t such a nice guy I would intentional try and get a job in EA only to sabotage their master plan and blow up their EA Canada house……Ya you heard me EA. [/quote:e746eb5720]
When we won Dare last year, ourselves and the other winning team got invited down to present our games at EA. It was really an excuse to get 10 people into their offices to interview, but hey.
The team lead from the other team, Steve, was the most anti-EA person I’ve met, saying many times on the trip down ( that EA paid for ) how he hated even the idea of visiting them.
We got there and did our presentations. Steve did his in style, declaring “our game had selling points including playability and innovation, things that won’t interest you guys”.
Steve didn’t do an interview that day. He was just given a figure that was his salary.
As for their office…its amazing, cafe, bar, popcorn machine, games room, video game library, sound suite,
EA aren’t all bad…they do recognise talent and they do splash out on it. They’re not all bad…I moan about them just as much as the rest of you, but hey…. -
EA Robot #1: Here is your salary. Now, if you could proceed immediately to augmentation lab A-25 to receive your cybernetic implants. Don’t worry human, these enhancements will allow you to work carefree without having to worry about idiotic human gaming desires such as gameplay and innovation. By the way, your new designation is EA Robot #1034, should you ever forget this, don’t worry, you can simply use your soon to be attached barcode reader to scan the soon to be tattooed barcode on your forehead.
ahem….anyway. Idora, EA have the power and the money to create innovative titles. They don’t. Who does? The small, struggling developers.
Some say they EA don’t have to produce innovative titles, they are doing well enough as it is. But Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t have to create the Mona Lisa, or The Last Supper…..he could have done quite well for himself by simply being an interior decorator in Milan. ;)
EA will never be remembered for being innovative, creative developers. Thats fine, if they want that. But what I don’t agree with is them trying to push this idea on everyone by buying out talented developers and chewing them up into their corporate machine. -
But Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t have to create the Mona Lisa, or The Last Supper…..he could have done quite well for himself by simply being an interior decorator in Milan. ;)
EA will never be remembered for being innovative, creative developers. Thats fine, if they want that. But what I don’t agree with is them trying to push this idea on everyone by buying out talented developers and chewing them up into their corporate machine. [/quote:7289b47b60]Very well said, and thats that, the nail on the head!
EA want to make money and dictate the market,
while the rest of us strive for the next perfect game….. -
Tadhg Kelly works for Lionhead Studios, he’s Irish, writes extremely well and up until recently had a particularly interesting blog site called “particleblog”. (Skyclad may possibly know of him from CCG-type circles). Unfortunately what follows is the last ever post from Tadhg on the day “Particleblog” disappeared into the ether.
It definitely captures beautifully what several of you have valiantly been trying to describe in this thread, whether you agree with his hypothesis or not ;)
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The Gamer’s Dream
“We are all wired into a survival trip now… no solace for refugees, no point in looking back. The question, as always, is now …?”(Hunter S Thompson, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”.
Many years ago in what seems like a supercharged hallucination of creative outpouring and social gathering, I discovered roleplaying games in Ireland. Soonafter, I discovered the circles of gaming friends that we all have, and in some way I encountered my own creativity. A mysterious conjunction or planetary alignment brought me to Trinity College, then to the Irish Games Association, Vampire Larps and suddenly I was at the pinnacle of game design in Ireland. Sort of.
I created the first proper Larp in my country. I helped many others do likewise, and there was a culture of creativity, creating and running whole new forms of games that we had never heard of before. It was an impoverished, but exciting time. In a word, youth.
Somewhere in the middle of that period, I and several of my friends encountered the Gamer’s Dream. I call it that now, but at the time there wasn’t really any name for it beyond a striving to make games better. In 1993, I was content writing 35 character convention Larps. By 2000, I was trying to write multi-episodic affairs with cardgame, boardgame and theatrical convention elements set against huge backgrounds that no-one really understood (including me at times). I crashed out eventually in disgust.
Then I moved into the videogames industry. I had worked in Game and such for years before that, but I mean properly moved. I was a designer again, this time in a small company trying to make licensed platformers, and the Gamer’s Dream arose again. It comes and goes in pulses, wave after wave, sometimes overriding everything that I want to do, sometimes fading into the world of practicality.
What is it?
In essence, perfection.
A late vogue in 1980’s and early 90’s roleplaying that illustrates the Gamer’s Dream well. It was White Wolf and Vampire, the “storytelling” end of gaming’s genesis. It was the idea that games could be more than “mere games”. It was the idea that through a combination of larping, or roleplaying, that the game and the gamer could somehow transcend the table and the rules, and achieve a sort of ecstatic experience where it all became theatre. That was the promise of roleplaying, in its way.
It was the highest of highs and it found commercial expression. The people bought into those products for a time. But of course it all went sour. While a few of the gamers bought into it, and a few of them ran games that soared above the common much of dice and paper, the majority did not. Magic and D+D asserted their place on the food chain most successfully, and the majority bought into those instead. They had moved on.
Then further, into computer gaming, I encountered the Dream again. The designer who wants to create a completely perfect world in which players will spend their entire lives, the designer who wants to make something so vast and impossible that it will create a mythology all of its own. The Gamer’s Dream.
The Gamer’s Dream resonates through many of the blogs that I have read over the last few months. It resonates in much of the ‘game design’ writings that I’ve encountered, such as the idea of creating the ultimate AI game-thespian, or the MMORPG that will completely encompass life. It is the function of reaching for the impossible, not because of the technical hurdles, but because it is fundamentally beyond what gamers and games are all about.
It’s a function of the idealist times of games, which were many years ago. Games, like Romantic poetry and the 60s acid culture, have long passed their fearless period of genesis, and moved into their “accepted influences” phase. The people that searched for consciousness expansion and experimented with drugs are not the people that now listen to and enjoy Dylan. Those people have a category in their minds to which that music belongs.
And if the sixties were all about enlightenment, then the eighties gamers were all about Peter Pan, questing for a sort of eternal youth that can never come, frothing at the mouth of recreation, hoping once again to see a light in the end of a tunnel that will snake on forever. They wanted the newfound wondrousness of Star Wars and Elite forever.
The Gamer’s Dream is really a dream of the idyllic, a fairy tale existence in which everything retains its perfection. It is to want to live in an imagination. Not entirely unlike the acid culture. We gamer-dreamers of the 80s and early 90s come from a time when gaming was the new art. We hate the gaming of today, in its computer form, or its analog form, because we know that it never made it out of the gate. Computer games never penetrated to the population, roleplaying games never achieved anything artistic. Acid culture died.
The problem with the Gamer’s Dream, like with any over-arching idealism, is that it consumes you. Most of the people that I knew from that time carry a certain depression over them, and you feel that they will for all of their lives. The feeling that those larps and those things that they did back then were the apex of their existence. Several of us left the country. One got into politics, and another stayed behind and convinced himself that he was content to keep doing the same thing.
We tell ourselves that the problem was the gamers, how they never ‘got’ it. Or maybe it was the politics of the company, the situation, the people, the technology, the systems, the retail, people, our own lack of effort. We tell ourselves that the problem is the up-and-coming generation and their failure to appreciate enough to take over the reins. But we all know that it’s over.
Now in videogaming, it is the same. There is a slowly dawning realisation that the dream of the academia will never happen, that the ideas that underpin this revolution are ultimately unattainable, and in some way this is always going to be the way. Gaming hit an upper limit, now that the idealistic times have passed, and it moved on. Watch a coder from way back when go nuts over the poor standards of gameplay in modern games, or a Nintendophile secretly pine for the days of the SNES.
The Gamer’s Dream is the dream of the Lost.
You deal with it one way or another, move on, move out, convince yourself that it wasn’t what you thought it was, that it wasn’t the purpose of your existence that you thought it was. But secretly you can’t help but think that maybe that your place in that time and that setting with those people was in fact the greatest that you will ever be. That from here on out you will no longer know the feeling of true innocent joy. You tell yourself that you will find it again, or find something else.
Yet you know that what you really want is your time again. You want to seize the day once more, but this time do it right. You’re dreaming again. No solace for refugees, no point in looking back. The question, as always, is now?.
Thanks Hunter!
(And with that, particleblog ended)
Posted by Tadhg : 4:17 PM, Saturday, July 10, 2004
All material copyright 2004, Tadhg Kelly
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For example, if you were an Eidos employee and you had the choice would you prefer your new bosses to be EA or Ubisoft?[/quote:fd9c7efd3d]
Oh….pick me….I know this one!
(by the way, when official word comes out whats happening with that, I’ll let ye know )I totally agree with you, except for one point. I think that EA’s strategy will preveila for them becase they have the dosh to market their games as the best out their where better games can’t.
Tadhg’s Dream seems to be about a perfect game world that you never want to leave though. I don’t really think thats possible with computer games. With the likes of D&D you could make a new game simply out of your imagination. This may work to a degree with MMORGs but the increased performance with graphics is never going to keep the audience.
Instead, the only alternative is keeping the dream world alive with continuing iterations, Metroid, Zelda, GTA, Final Fantasy….these are the franchises that work. ( Hopefully Beyond Good and Evil too if they get to make their trilogy )
Maybe Lionhead can change things with the likes of Fable….who knows, we can but hope….but I do think Lionhead are probably to most like to pull something like that off. -
Just like Microsoft, EA are top of their game in an expanding market (i.e. as games continue to go mainstream). As long as the market keeps expanding, EA’s market share will continue to grow and they will continue their policies that have served them well in the past. (Although a recent decision to develop and distribute some mature titles, bodes well…). Put quite simply, they don’t need to change a winning formula. Unless something comes out of leftfield, it won’t be until they start to see market share stagnate/decline that they’ll change their ways…
The really interesting question for me (and anyone else working fopr a small developer or publisher) is what underlying factors need to change to force this outcome?[/quote:9800f2eae5]
I might need a little time on that one… ;)
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