EA: "We've asked for too much time, too much skill, too much money"

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

damn right, look at bioshock. they took system shock 2 and turned it into a dumbed down console game

Mr Freeze

Potatoeman wrote: »

I dont think this is only EA that do this. Dumbing down games for mass market appeal seems to be rampant.

Well the recent 3 examples I can think of are all EA.

Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Dead Space, Mass Effect 3 being the worst example of all, so dumbed down compared to where it started.

nesf

gizmo wrote: »

As a matter of interest, if one was to leave SimCity out of the equation on the basis that it's fundamentally ****ed design-wise for a different reason and take The Sims as an example of a game whose (even higher level) mod tools were removed so as to allow them to sell additional content, what other EA published games do you think should feature mod support but don't?

Well, Sim City 4 was ****ed design wise too but the community patched it into a really good game (and the patches weren't just people messing around with XML files). One can argue that one reason for doing it in the Sims was that people were recreating branded products in it in the original Sims and EA got some flak for this (as well as the nade Sims mod :P).

Off hand:

Mass Effect 3 modding is very limited compared to what you could do in Dragon Age: Origins never mind the free for all that is Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind. With RPG games in general, opening up the game and the engine to modders can provide some amazing potential for the community. Strategy games are similar, though EA has stopped making those.

Dead Space 3 being opened up to modders could be quite interesting (think complete remakes using the engine and character models). Arma II sold a little better than Arma I due to how open it was to modders.

I'll grant you most of what EA sells has limited modding potential (e.g. there's not a whole lot you could do with FIFA other than tweak things to perhaps make it more realistic/improve AI slightly etc).

Shiminay

The Frostbite engine that they're using for everything now has no modding tools and never will have (according to a senior DICE producer I spoke to a couple of years ago) as they took the approach to program each map rather than just build it and drop entities and actors into the world like most other games would do.

So if we're to see some sort of change in this, then some people in DICE are going to be very busy.

gizmo

nesf wrote: »

Well, Sim City 4 was ****ed design wise too but the community patched it into a really good game (and the patches weren't just people messing around with XML files). One can argue that one reason for doing it in the Sims was that people were recreating branded products in it in the original Sims and EA got some flak for this (as well as the nade Sims mod :P).

With SimCity I meant the online-centric design of the game. Apart from all of the other problems it introduced, it also meant that there was always going to be limited deep modding potential. One of the many sad things about the game compared to its predecessors.

I'm unfamiliar with the later entries in The Sims but I assume the branded items thing only became an issue because you can trade these items to other games online?

nesf wrote: »

Mass Effect 3 modding is very limited compared to what you could do in Dragon Age: Origins never mind the free for all that is Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind. With RPG games in general, opening up the game and the engine to modders can provide some amazing potential for the community. Strategy games are similar, though EA has stopped making those.

Funnily enough this was the first one that came to mind too, especially since DA has its own Toolset. The reasoning is perhaps a little clearer when you realise that DA:O is based on Biowares own tech (an evolution of the tech used in NVN) rather than the Mass Effect games which are built via Unreal Engine and would have their own proprietary toolchain.

What will be interesting to see is if Inquisition, which is now based on Frostbite3, ships with something approaching a DA equivalent toolset.

nesf wrote: »

Dead Space 3 being opened up to modders could be quite interesting (think complete remakes using the engine and character models). Arma II sold a little better than Arma I due to how open it was to modders.

Dead Space falls into the category of "it'd be nice to have mod tools" though, as opposed to "they didn't ship them so they could hawk DLC at us". Mirrors Edge would also fall into this category for instance. Which brings us to...

nesf wrote: »

I'll grant you most of what EA sells has limited modding potential (e.g. there's not a whole lot you could do with FIFA other than tweak things to perhaps make it more realistic/improve AI slightly etc).

And this is kind of what I was getting at. You wouldn't really expect most of their games to actually ship with mod tools, yet they've acquired this reputation, even before the latest SimCity, as a company who purposefully withhold them so as to "force" DLC on gamers. It's because of this that I'd greet a move towards titles with more focus on user-generated content with optimism at least, they simply haven't done it much before and I'm interested to see what they can do. Dangerously optimistic? Probably.

Shiminay wrote: »

The Frostbite engine that they're using for everything now has no modding tools and never will have (according to a senior DICE producer I spoke to a couple of years ago) as they took the approach to program each map rather than just build it and drop entities and actors into the world like most other games would do.

So if we're to see some sort of change in this, then some people in DICE are going to be very busy.

That's not really true, they've shown off FrostEd in some behind the scenes footage previously. It certainly exists but judging by some of the comments from their senior tech guys, the pipeline itself is immensely complicated.

nesf

gizmo wrote: »

And this is kind of what I was getting at. You wouldn't really expect most of their games to actually ship with mod tools, yet they've acquired this reputation, even before the latest SimCity, as a company who purposefully withhold them so as to "force" DLC on gamers. It's because of this that I'd greet a move towards titles with more focus on user-generated content with optimism at least, they simply haven't done it much before and I'm interested to see what they can do. Dangerously optimistic? Probably.

I don't think this works to be honest because while sure mods for BF4 wouldn't be too interesting, some of the omissions in recent years are glaring. No mod tools in RPGs and games like Sim City and Sims are going pretty heavily against the grain. I agree most of EA's output isn't affected by this but I'm not sure that's a plus to be honest!!

Captain Chaos

abbir wrote: »

We're in Gen 4 so? Gaming started with Playstation......I know they've said it before but everytime I read it from EA I just shake my head. Surely we're in Gen3, it all started with Xbox.

We're in Gen 8 with the PS4 and X1. Gaming started well before the PS1.

Reekwind

Nody wrote: »

90 min makes sense if you limit yourself to recent EA games (i.e. Dead Space 3, Fifa, BF etc.) and not the full PC market...

It makes sense when you consider it as an average. I've put almost 800 hrs into some games (hello Football Manager 2012) but only glanced as some Steam sale purchases

nesf

Reekwind wrote: »

It makes sense when you consider it as an average. I've put almost 800 hrs into some games (hello Football Manager 2012) but only glanced as some Steam sale purchases

It's gaming time though surely? I imagine the number is pulled down by a large number of Steam accounts basically just to run indie games on low end machines and don't see too heavy use. Or Sims installs.

Grumpypants

nesf wrote: »

It's gaming time though surely? I imagine the number is pulled down by a large number of Steam accounts basically just to run indie games on low end machines and don't see too heavy use. Or Sims installs.

No the article is about the lenght of time pc gamers on average stay engaged. The vast majority of online games have short run times. Bf4 would be pretty long yet an average big match is still only 30-40 mins.

Lol averages 20-30 mins and a ridiculous amount if games of lol are played daily.

Genghiz Cohen

Grumpypants wrote: »

No the article is about the lenght of time pc gamers on average stay engaged. The vast majority of online games have short run times. Bf4 would be pretty long yet an average big match is still only 30-40 mins.

Lol averages 20-30 mins and a ridiculous amount if games of lol are played daily.

Heh, 1 engagement in DayZ or ArmA can easily last that long.

Only 5 objectives to go after that!

Potatoeman

Im not a fan of dlc. It usually is expensive for what you get unless you get it with the game on sale. Im even struggling to think of any decent ones. I guess old world blues for fallout and blooddragon for Far Cry 3 but that was a standalone.
The Skyrim user content was far better than the dlc too.

abbir

Captain Chaos wrote: »

abbir wrote: »

We're in Gen 4 so? Gaming started with Playstation......I know they've said it before but everytime I read it from EA I just shake my head. Surely we're in Gen3, it all started with Xbox.

We're in Gen 8 with the PS4 and X1. Gaming started well before the PS1.

I was making a joke at EA's use of Gen 4 in their statements Considering I had a Spectrum, I'm well aware it started before the PS1.

Call Me Jimmy

On the comment I think, as a businessman he is obviously correct. The last 5 years has changed the demographics in the industry as a whole like no other time. Developers have to react to this. There is too much money to be made not to re-assess the model!