With a number of major game launches proving hugely disappointing of late, disgruntled gamer and business consultant Dave McConkey draws on his own industry expertise to explain why Triple A firms are badly screwing-up their current output.
Today Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson provided a look into his ideas for the use of generative AI in the company's development processes.
EA is still a shady shitty company even with or without the help of Skynet. All they will use AI for is new ways to milk loot boxes and come up with the same sports title with a different year on the label. They are one company I truly do hate with a passion. They single handedly ruined some great franchise with their death touch. ME, Dead Space, Alice Returns, Dante's Inferno.
EA layoffs followed by 'Generative AI to Drive Monetization'
I knew it. Wonder what AI salary looks like? Nothing.
And take away creativity, and people's jobs as we've been seeing. Got it.
No thanks. I want my games created by people, not AI.
EA doesn't want to lose their title of worst gaming company ever, always trying their best to remain the champs!
What's sad is that they have so much potential to be a decent publisher.
SSX Tricky / SSX 3
Def Jam Vendetta / Fight for New York
NBA Street
NFL Steet
Mirror's Edge
Bad Company
Burnout 3 / 4 / 5
Remember when EA used to be awesome? It's all over with now. Unpolished, if not out-right broken games these days. Endless monetization and gambling in their sports games, and let's not forget wasting hours of your life trying to unlock characters or equipment using "surprise boxes!"
Gareth, Justin, and JoeyZ look at Layoff news for EA and Sony and reasons behind the downturn in the industry and more.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson writes: "In this time of change, we expect these decisions to impact approximately 5 percent of our workforce. I understand this will create uncertainty and be challenging for many who have worked with such dedication and passion and have made important contributions to our company. While not every team will be impacted, this is the hardest part of these changes, and we have deeply considered every option to try and limit impacts to our teams. Our primary goal is to provide team members with opportunities to find new roles and paths to transition onto other projects. Where that’s not possible, we will support and work with each colleague with the utmost attention, care, and respect. Communicating these impacts has already begun and will be largely completed by early next quarter."
All the big ones doing the same stuff. Terrible. I just hope that all these people are able to get a new job as soon as possible, God know that it is horrible to be left jobless when you have your kids or your parents depending on your financial help
The point I feel is problematic about all of this is that focusing on Owned Ip means more sequels, remasters and more of what was selling last year.
The main problem is that gaming has become to big,to mainstream.
“This is all in an effort to create a product. Not a game – a product"
Its quite simple really....the people making the big decisions have never been into gaming, and don't understand what gamers want, or what kind of product is attractive to gamers.
People like John Riccitiello, formerly the EA CEO, seems to think that the best way to make money is to take a tripple A title like Battlefield, strip the game's initial offerings down, and then nickel and dime gamers for things like opening up game modes on maps that are already on the disc, or by releasing DLC that will allow you to leap-frog the process of unlocking and earning weapons. They release triple A games with only 8 - 10 maps, so gamers get bored of the game quickly, so that a company like EA can release a map pack, which should have been included in the game to begin with to offer gamers real value.
Some companies "get it" however, or at least the did up until a few years ago. Call of Duty used to release with around 12 - 14 maps and with around 12 - 14 game modes. Ubisoft used to do the same thing with Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. I haven't bought the last couple of Call of Duty games, but I believe I've heard that Activision is releasing the game with fewer maps these days. Killzone 3 was another game that didn't release with that much content (8 - 10 maps and 3 or 4 game modes).
I think there is a huge opportunity for developers to get back to basics by releasing full featured games that come packed with content right out of the box. At E3, developers should be talking about how much more value gamers will get out of their game as opposed to what other developers are offering right out of the box.
I think if the DLC trend doesn't end, people are going to buy fewer games, because they will be so invested in games like Call of Duty or Battlefield, that they won't have the money for other games that come out throughout the year, and that will be bad for the industry as a whole.
Another bit of bad business is the fact that we will be seeing more annual releases of certain IPs like Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Tiger Woods and Madden. Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Rock Band and Guitar Hero are good examples of why annual releases don't work, players end up getting burnt out on the series. Unfortunately though, I think developers and publishers are going to learn the hard way before anything changes. At least Rockstar and Kojima Productions have got it right with the way they treat the GTA series and the Metal Gear Series.
The last bit of bad business is developers who try to copy Call of Duty. Zipper Interactive ruined the Socom series by trying to turn it into a 3rd person Call of Duty game. The good news is that Zipper paid the ultimate price by being shut down shortly after the game's release from really poor ratings, and deservedly so I say. I haven't played ghost Recon future Soldier, but I hear that Ubisoft added a few sprinkles of Call of duty into the recipe, and if that is the case, then its understandable why the game failed to sell very well. Medal of Honor is another legendary series that has been thrown under the bus due to EA's pursuit of trying to capture the Call of Duty crowd. Whats astonishing is that the people running these studios are clueless of whether they have a good game or not before release.
Cod is pretty much to blame with a new title every year + DLC, the kids go crazy for cod and forget about all the other games that are out there!!