RIP Visceral Games. - by DarkForge
Thirith on 18/10/2017 at 08:31
I just read Blood, Sweat and Pixels over the weekend, which has a final chapter describing the death of the Star Wars 1313 project. They mentioned this project as something of a new hope (see what I did there?), so this does come as a blow. I'm not going to go all "Raarrgh, EA!" and shake my fist, because others will already do that; I could imagine that EA's decision makes some sort of business sense and perhaps the project wasn't doing well, but just in terms of someone who likes a good linear, story-driven single-player game, I would've definitely liked to see an actual, well-produced Star Wars game that caters to my interests, and I'm sad it's not happening. Not as said as I'd be if they had announced a modernised X-Wing/TIE Fighter and then cancelled it, but yeah, this does suck.
scumble on 18/10/2017 at 09:11
When I've had thoughts about whether I'd want to work in games, things like this remind me how precarious things can be for game studios and developers. I guess it's just accepted as they way things are for industry veterans.
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icemann on 18/10/2017 at 10:19
Dead Space 3 was kinda meh though.
Malleus on 18/10/2017 at 12:43
Quote Posted by Thirith
EA's decision makes some sort of business sense
Of course it does. There's not much room in a story-driven single player game for microtransactions and lootboxes. It's pretty clear from the annoucement:
"we have been [...] closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design".
EDIT: Also, Dead Space 3 is my favorite. :p
Trance on 18/10/2017 at 13:04
EA either doesn't know or doesn't care about the poisonous effect it has on the games it publishes whenever it decides to exert direct control over the development process, either when forcing studios to make or release games before they're ready, or when forcing them to inject obnoxious microtransaction mechanics into a game for the sake of pure greed.
Unfortunately I just don't see the mid-2000s EA crisis happening again. Every other major console-game publisher is perpetrating similar forms of greedy bullshit nowadays, so EA doesn't look as bad as it should. People who depend on consoles for their videogame entertainment just don't have any obvious better choices of publishers to give their money to. Nor, I'm sure, would a majority of those people care enough to make a change if they could.
I can only control my own spending habits, and after Mass Effect 3 I resolved never again to give EA one red cent of my money. Fortunately for me at least, they've made that resolution easy to stick to.
demagogue on 18/10/2017 at 14:11
So the field for story-driven single player action games goes to the indie studios and people like Arkane & Eidos.
All of this was foretold.
henke on 18/10/2017 at 18:12
Well, it's a bummer. I woulda liked to see what Amy Hennig was cooking up.
Volitions Advocate on 20/10/2017 at 13:32
Quote Posted by demagogue
So the field for story-driven single player action games goes to the indie studios and people like Arkane & Eidos.
All of this was foretold.
Right... except as discussed elsewhere on TTLG:
(
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-30-dont-expect-another-deus-ex-game-anytime-soon)
Eidos is as much of a doucebag in this department as EA. "micro-transactions are the future yo!" "Sales sucked... I guess people don't care about that IP anymore...."
When I was at BioWare over a year ago I was prying about Dead Space 4 and nobody would answer (obviously) but the reactions I got when I asked the question was a resounding "don't ask" moer than simply not wanting to talk about company business. I'm sure they knew a lot about what was going on across the EA network because those guys had to coordinate together to make frostbite actually work for them, since EA said they had to use it for Andromeda. We know how that turned out.
scumble on 30/10/2017 at 18:05
Jim Sterling put up a video on Dead Space, EA etc.
[video=youtube_share;GtldHv-D-Rk]https://youtu.be/GtldHv-D-Rk[/video]
