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EA to acquire PopCap Games

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    #62
    seyeM
    Registered Users Posts: 170 ✭✭seyeM


    Overheal wrote: »
    If they were under EA when they were developing Half Life 2 or Teamfortress 2 for example? Teamfortress 2 would have come and gone a long time ago

    The battlefield series? Well......

    I mean sure I can tell you which raked in more money, but I can also tell you which is the better series.

    That's a matter of opinion. Some might say that every major Battlefield game in your list wipes the floor with the choke point spamfast/hat simulator that is TF2.


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    #63
    Overheal
    Registered Users Posts: 81,677 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Doodee wrote: »
    100 hour work weeks plz.

    Do you have experience working with EA?

    http://www.gamespot.com/news/6112998/employees-readying-class-action-lawsuit-against-ea

    Good to know they had such high respect for the creativity of one of their Maxis developers, and however many more people.


    True, and in contrast how Valve decided to release L4D2 so quickly after the first one, and the backlash that ensued.
    Or hey, lets not forget HL2:Episode 3.
    The former was a case study to behold. The other is an unreleased title. But knowing valve, it will come out when it's ready.
    That's a matter of opinion. Some might say that every major Battlefield game in your list wipes the floor with the choke point spamfast/hat simulator that is TF2.
    yeah and look how original they all are.

    Thats pretty much my point. A big company like EA will stress frequent releases over creative license. As another poster said do you think PvZ would have been allowed a 5 year development cycle? How would Battlefield look today if it wasnt rushed? Would BF2142 have actually taken off? Or worked properly at launch?
    However, consumers of the game (particularly Mac users) were quite disgruntled due to the game's very buggy initial release. Many of these consumer reviews are found on Amazon.com,[21][22] and on the online Apple Store.[23] Months after the buggy initial release, EA released a patch which resolved most of the game's bugs;[24] widescreen support didn't come until the 1.5 patch was released for the PC version of the game on May 30, 2008.[25]
    Same applies to Crysis 2 by the by, which was marketed on its graphics engine, only half of which shipped with the title.


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    #64
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    seyeM wrote: »
    [...]the choke point spamfast simulator that is Nearly every multiplayer FPS?

    Fixed that post for you.


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    #65
    Jim
    Registered Users Posts: 14,181 ✭✭✭✭Jim


    pixelburp wrote: »
    Fixed that post for you.
    ...except Battlefield.


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    #66
    Magill
    Registered Users Posts: 5,732 ✭✭✭Magill


    seyeM wrote: »
    That's a matter of opinion. Some might say that every major Battlefield game in your list wipes the floor with the choke point spamfast/hat simulator that is TF2.

    They'd be wrong.


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    #67
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    Jim wrote: »
    ...except Battlefield.
    Disagree, especially with Bad Company 2. It's as guilty of chokepoints as any other FPS game - in fact imho it's more guilt than most; and in any case, that's the nature of the gamemodes for goodness sake. Capture the Flag? Control Point mode, sure they're made around the notion of choke points. It's like complaining that Free-For-All mode results in everyone shooting each other. ;)


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    #68
    Jim
    Registered Users Posts: 14,181 ✭✭✭✭Jim


    pixelburp wrote: »
    Disagree, especially with Bad Company 2. It's as guilty of chokepoints as any other FPS game - in fact imho it's more guilt than most; and in any case, that's the nature of the gamemodes for goodness sake. Capture the Flag? Control Point mode, sure they're made around the notion of choke points. It's like complaining that Free-For-All mode results in everyone shooting each other. ;)
    Ah, sorry. BF:BC2 isn't really a "proper" Battlefield game, more a spinoff.

    When I say Battlefield I really mean 1942 / Vietnam / 2 in Conquest Mode.


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    #69
    Overheal
    Registered Users Posts: 81,677 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Jim wrote: »
    When I say Battlefield I really mean 1942 / Vietnam / 2 in Conquest Mode.
    which is contrary to what was said:
    That's a matter of opinion. Some might say that every major Battlefield game in your list wipes the floor with the choke point spamfast/hat simulator that is TF2.
    Though I suppose you qualify that with "Major" which conveniently ignores the minor releases and the unsuccessful piles of tripe that netted EA millions in preorders I am sure for weapon skins and the like.

    Back to EA though the only major title I can think of is Spore which had any real sense of originality, though it was overshadowed by SecuROM. What others?


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    #70
    indough
    Registered Users Posts: 2,857 ✭✭✭indough


    who cares if a game is original as long as its good


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    #71
    Overheal
    Registered Users Posts: 81,677 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    indough wrote: »
    who cares if a game is original as long as its good
    Go back and play pong then?


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    #72
    Fnz
    Registered Users Posts: 2,848 ✭✭✭Fnz


    Overheal wrote: »
    Go back and play pong then?

    Well, that was an original game. See your point (we've done that before) but, a(nother) remake of Pong might also be good/better.

    Good game is a good game, original or not. Bad game is a bad game, original or not - and all is subjective (partially based on your own experience).


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    #73
    Doodee
    Registered Users Posts: 6,419 ✭✭✭Doodee


    Overheal wrote: »
    http://www.gamespot.com/news/6112998/employees-readying-class-action-lawsuit-against-ea

    Good to know they had such high respect for the creativity of one of their Maxis developers, and however many more people.

    So that article was written after John Riccitiello had left EA, and what a lot consider to be EA's fall into the realms where Activision now roam.
    Overheal wrote: »
    The former was a case study to behold. The other is an unreleased title. But knowing valve, it will come out when it's ready.

    At what point are you willing to admit that there is a difference between being released when ready and poor project management? You gave a previous example of TF2 having been scrapped and re-worked but it's not beyond the realms of possibility that it was just not working, and that what was released had to be (Similar to Duke Nukem). The original TF community hated the game when it was released, which would put it more in the category of failure in their eyes. A lot of them still do. It found its success with a different generation. Also, if you're going to compare like with like then don't forget that it has had numerous updates and tweaks over the years, often leading to the game balance being totally off.
    And I would call what Valve did more than a case study, they were aiming for profits and it backfired, but such is the business of buying other studios for their IP I guess.
    Overheal wrote: »
    yeah and look how original they all are.

    Thats pretty much my point. A big company like EA will stress frequent releases over creative license. As another poster said do you think PvZ would have been allowed a 5 year development cycle? How would Battlefield look today if it wasnt rushed? Would BF2142 have actually taken off? Or worked properly at launch?

    EA (under Riccitello) have released quite a few original titles in the same time frame as PvZ was in development and subsequently released. I would argue that the BF series is designed for its own audience, who clearly buy the titles or else the studio would be doing something else. That means that the originality lies squarely on the shoulders of DICE and not EA.
    What about Bioware? have they become unoriginal? Playfish? Firemint?

    PvZ's dev cycle includes it prototyping, which was originally intended as a sequel / alternative to Insaniquarium. I would wager that for any of the new IP's that any of EA's subsidiaries work on they would be given similar time lines. However, if it had been 5 years in Beta, then that's a different story. Companies like DICE & Popcap have a number of projects under development at the same time, its only when they come close to being feature complete do they take the center stage in the studio, but with a sugar daddy like EA it means you can use their resources to help with numbers on the development. By that nature you can see titles being produced a little quicker than normal.

    One other thing to remember, EA just committed 1.3Billion to acquire Popcap. That is a huge investment and it is based on Popcaps performance over the past number of years so as any sane business person you would not want to waste that investment by altering a winning formula.


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    #74
    Benzino
    Registered Users Posts: 3,802 ✭✭✭Benzino


    Doodee wrote: »
    One other thing to remember, EA just committed 1.3Billion to acquire Popcap. That is a huge investment and it is based on Popcaps performance over the past number of years so as any sane business person you would not want to waste that investment by altering a winning formula.

    They will want the company to remain profitable first and foremost. PopCap now have somebody to answer to. They can't just spend 5 years on a new game like PvZ without getting permission from EA.

    EA will be no doubt be looking for shorter development cycles, after all 5 years is 5 FIFA's or 5 COD's for Activation. Now of course, I'm not saying all games by PopCap will take 5 years, but the PvZ development timeline is a perfect example of PopCap taking their time to make their games the best they can be (similar to Valve with TF2, and no doubt they have been working on the next HL for some time), so at the very least the quality of their games drop.


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    #75
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    Jim wrote: »
    Ah, sorry. BF:BC2 isn't really a "proper" Battlefield game, more a spinoff.

    When I say Battlefield I really mean 1942 / Vietnam / 2 in Conquest Mode.

    That's convenient. Then fine; 1942 was chokepoint city on many of it's maps; like I said, that's the very nature of the gamemode to begin with. In any case, even on the larger maps like Alamein, battles tended to appear around the CPs => chokepoints.


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    #76
    Jim
    Registered Users Posts: 14,181 ✭✭✭✭Jim


    pixelburp wrote: »
    That's convenient. Then fine; 1942 was chokepoint city on many of it's maps; like I said, that's the very nature of the gamemode to begin with. In any case, even on the larger maps like Alamein, battles tended to appear around the CPs => chokepoints.
    They're not choke points, not at all. Not as I would see them anyway. It's not really "convenient". DICE have always said the Bad Company series was a spinoff.

    Anyway, I don't think this particular discussion is really relevant to the OP anymore.


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