EA buys Mythic

Posted on June 20, 2006 by Scott Jennings| 69 Comments

No, really

Still have a bunch of friends up Fairfax way, and I wish them all the best.

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  • Savagex

    Well, maybe tweety will escape with her soul intact. Looks like you picked the exact right time to go to austin.

  • http://www.mmogchart.com SirBruce

    Yeah, this is big news today. I heard the rumors all the way back in March, but there was no official announcement. I guess this means EA isn’t getting out of the MMOG market after all!

    Bruce

  • http://ambernight.org Amber

    Well shit.

  • Mox

    Contrast this with the previous LumUpdate : )

  • http://www.slydesblog.com Slyde

    holy crap! now THIS was news to me, alright!

  • Freakazoid

    This totally blows. But, now that Mythic has access to more development money (I think), then they have a shot at WAR stealing the thunder from WoW.

  • http://ve3d.ign.com/ Apache

    Ultima Online 2 inc :p

  • http://tidehorizon.blogspot.com Tide

    and I thought Speilberg directing the WoW movie (unconfirmed) would be the big news. But this made me spill my coffee.

  • Ibn

    It was getting to the point where I was wondering if the rumors had been false, especially when E3 came and went with no announcement.

    This all makes good business sense for a lot of reasons on both sides, I just hope that in the end EA treats Mythic better than they treated Origin. (and Westwood, and…)

  • Merkwurdigliebe

    So will Warhammer be as complete and entertaining as Ultima IX?

  • http://www.mmogchart.com SirBruce

    Perhaps more like Ultima X: Odyssey! Man I was so hyped about that game…

  • http://www.slydesblog.com Slyde

    “Ultima Online 2 inc :p “

    damn, that was funny…. apache you just made me wet my pants :)

  • Evangolis

    Why? EA has shown zero aptitude for managing MMOs, what is the likelyhood this will change? I suppose that money will be made, but will it really be that much? What is the saying; repeating the same actions and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity?

    I didn’t realize that Mythic had 175 on staff. Is that including support, or have they farmed most of that out?

  • http://www.gamesentry.com Orion

    With UO’s playerbase being ground to dust I guess it’s no surprise that EA is seaking something new.

    What worries me is EA has proven it cannot sustain MMOG’s. And the aquisition of Origin and ultimatly merging it into EA San Fransisco makes me worry for Mythic even more.

    Let’s see EA’s track record with MMOG’s.

    Bought Origin to get UO. UO hit a peak years ago and now is relegated to the back seat.

    Killed UO2 because it was afraid to compete against it’s own game. Ignoring the fact that EQ was competing against their own game rather handily.

    Killed UX:O, a game that looked damn similiar to WoW. Perhaps that’s the reason why, I went to the media blitz for it in San Fransisco and was pretty impressed with it.

    Motor City Online, peaked at 30k subscribers? Beats me, seemed like an ill conceived idea to be sure.

    The Sims Online, catastrophe! It has less than half of it’s peak subscribers.

    Earth and Beyond, faired slightly better than MCO, but only lasted a year.

    The only other company that seems to churn out flops like EA is Turbine, but I don’t think they have nearly the record.

    I hope it works out for Mythic better than the rest of the studios and mmog’s under EA’s umbrella.

  • Githnaur

    EA bought yet another company to screw over.

    Nifty.

    Am looking forward to Camelot Jam ’07

    o_0

  • http://jbooth.blogspot.com Jason Booth

    Ok, a little correction is warrented. EA didn’t buy Origin for UO, EA owned Origin long before UO was in development. In fact, UO probrably kept Origin alive as a seperate entity for several years past the point in which EA wanted to kill the studio. The two entities never seemed to get along, at least from the stories I’ve heard for many years.

    But the buyout makes sense, really. Mythic took a lot of investment recently, and investers want out. In the game industry, that either means finding a bunch of new investors willing to invest more money at a higher price, essentially buying out the first round investors, or selling to another company. The later is usually easier.

    And for EA, it allows them to keep themselves in the waters without necissarily risking too much. I still don’t think they’re totally serious about the space, but EA seems to want to have it’s fingers in every pie, even if it can only dominate a few of them at a time. It will usually choose the largest and own it.

    As for Mythics future games, I wish them luck, but so far, no studio has managed to hit it out of the ballpark more than once.

  • http://www.mmogchart.com SirBruce

    Your EA story is also missing some other interesting tidbits:

    Battletech 3025 – Cancelled.
    Wing Commander Online – Cancelled, team moved to UO2.
    UO2 – Renamed to OWO:O, then cancelled so it wouldn’t compete with UO.
    Harry Potter Online – Cancelled.
    Majestic – Major flop. Cancelled.
    Privateer Online – Cancelled in favor of Earth & Beyond.
    Earth & Beyond – Minor flop. Cancelled.
    MCO – Minor flop. Cancelled.
    TSO – Major flop. Not cancelled yet because it would be too embarassing.
    UXO – Another attempt at a UO sequel. Cancelled again so it wouldn’t compete with UO.
    Unnamed UO 3D Upgrade – Also cancelled.
    Hogwarts Online – Another attempt to do Harry Potter. Cancelled again, despite the fact it’s guaranteed to give everyone money hats.

    The list goes on.

    Bruce

  • Jarnis

    Too bad. Warhammer Online had some promise as a workable PvP-biased WoW-clone. Looked like a good try, but now I consider it to be DOA.

    First, european operations are pushed to GOA (the idiots who kept running euro DAOC to the ground for years), and now EA is on the driver seat. Well, in theory there could be some good – I dunno if EAs server running skillz are worse than GOAs (haven’t subscribed to their games for years), but this deal might mean that GOA is kicked out.

    Anyway, my prediction on the future: First EA will inject a ‘cash boost’ to ‘help the development’, then once they have spent xx million on it, some beancounter looks at the spreadsheet and goes bananas when he notices that the game is not yet out, it has costed megabucks, and it will cost another megabucks to get the server infrastructure, extra support people etc.

    And then it gets canned. (or, alternatively, pushed out to market horribly unfinished, without proper support in place, where it crashes and burns)

    EA has destroyed any shred of karma it had among MMO customers years ago with repeated UO-related cannings, MCO and TSO. Why buy a game that will be shitcanned the moment some beancounter with no brains gets the willies over it?

    Grats to shareholders of Mythic, who probably got nice retirement fund out of the deal.

  • Ironwood

    Nice one, Bruce.

  • Kemor

    Man, that’s the kind of news that is really freaking me out…

    Despite what he’s saying, Mark Jacobs is probably gonna pull out of Mythic soon. I mean, face it…You cannot be CEO of an independant company for 10 years and suddenly surrender to EA (I mean, Mother of GOD: EA!!!) and live with it. He’s just a pawn now, a nobody in his own company. He can’t decide shit, can’t do shit but pretend to be the boss still.

    I can understand the need for money (maybe a noble intention, pay employees, etc) but come on, everybody knows that once EA gets their hands on something, the first to go are the former employees then it’s crunch time non stop…

    Mythic is just nothing now…such a shame…one of “thing out of the loop” just gona..like that…

  • Comstar

    Mabye he did it for the money, so he can leave in 1-2 years time and form a new company from scratch.

    Ok, so EA’s now buying MMOG’s. This is a new stratagy right? As opposed to killing off thier own creations?

    Therefore, whos the next buyout target for EA?

  • D-0ne

    I remember when they bought Kesmai and killed my favorite game. Anyone remember Air Warrior or Legends or Islands? I put a lot of time in to GameStorm and Air Warrior, it just made me sick to see it all die a relatively slow torturous death.

    As an FYI I watched a MMO in 1999 go from about a 1k players at anyone time go to 50 players at any one time over the course of a couple years due to mismanagement. DAoC will die a faster death under EA.

  • http://www.eonbluemusic.com Eon Blue

    If they wouldn’t have spent years screwing up Imperator so badly, I’m sure it would be a completely different story. I imagine with wasting development money on that, and aquiring two big licenses, it was either sell to EA or scrap everything.

  • =j

    I thought 3rd Dawn was the UO 3D expansion. I quit during the beta and did not realize that it never saw the light of day.

    A well executed Battletech MMORPG would be awesome. What did that get cancelled? Oh, yeah. EA. By definition, it would not have been well executed. =/

  • Jaera

    I’m actually surprised it took this long. Mythic is a tiny little company in an industry filled with big companies who have a ton of money to throw around. The fact that Mythic survived on its own for so long is pretty impressive.

    Why’d it have to be EA, though? I’m having UO2 flashbacks. :(

  • http://www.beafraid.com Hellfire

    Because EA is hell-bent on destroying the industry en masse. It’s really not too hard to piece together. Through various shell companies EA is actually owned by Jack Thompson. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!

    I know we haven’t always got along, but I’ve never considered us enemies. The way you treated Theurgists made me want to go redrum all up in your hizzy, but that is the past now. I guess what I’m trying to say, Mythic, is … well … I’ve left the nickel-plated .44 in the nightstand, a round is already chambered.

    You know what to do.

  • Merkwurdigliebe

    How long before EA snaps up NCSoft?

    I remember when Bungie was sucked up by a huge entity. That entity told Bungie “You will now make one game, and one game only, and that game will be for our console, and our console only…initially.”

    Bungie used to be a nice company.

    So, the possibilities are:

    1) EA cancels Warhammer, and puts resources into DAoC. That makes little sense since DAoC is past its prime; the “cash cow” potential is more likely in Warhammer, but I could be wrong.

    2) EA puts DAoC on minimal life support (clustered into three servers: Normal, san-ToA, and PvP… the PvE server players can choose one of those), and all other resources go to Warhammer which EA hopes is the next WoW (Gabe/Tycho endorsement pending).

    3) EA comes to your door and sodomizes you with a copy of NFL Head Coach.

  • Buzzregog

    You know, another spin on this EA track record could be that they have an incredible knack for buying properties with no future. Either way the portents are bad for Warhammer

  • Ajeba

    Ah Shit! Well, I wish all the guys at Mythic good luck!

  • http://www.theworldtakes.com damijin

    I thought I read a few months back that Mark said it wasn’t in the companies best interests to sell to EA… it was on MMORPG.com… ahhh let me go find the article!

  • http://www.eqclerics.org Boanerges

    Unlikely EA can buy NCSoft. Unlike Mythic, which is pretty much a standalone company with no major hits, NCSoft has millions of Korean subscribers. I don’t know if Lineage or Lineage II are the hits they once were but they were serious megagames in their day thanks to the population of SK. I think that the South Koreans would promptly help their northern neighbors build up that giant rocket and aim it at Redwood City should that ever happen.

    I’m truly amazed nobody has bother to quote this. I mean, it just screams irony.

    “The addition of Mythic to the EA family reflects our deep commitment to the online gaming market worldwide. Mythic will bring one of the industry’s most talented MMORPG teams to EA. Together, we will create games that will introduce MMO players to a whole new level of game play and excitement,” said Paul Lee, President, EA Studios.

    You’ll note that he’s excited about having new blood and that this reflects EA’s unspecified “deep commitment” to a “new level of play and excitement”. Looks like EA is about to have some “fun” with Mythic. So this is how the other half lives…

  • http://www.theworldtakes.com damijin

    Here’s the link from early april where Jacobs was quoted as saying that:

    “I will not now, not ever do a deal that puts the people at Mythic who made this company great at risk,” he said, before adding that this concern is not what killed any potential EA deal.”

    http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/72927

  • Xyntar

    I had a lot of hope for Warhammer. Here’s hoping it doesn’t go down in flames.

  • The Angry Hamster

    First of all, what does this have to do with Shadowbane?

    And with a company as large as EA, wouldn’t it be harder for people who write for rant sites to be noticed and hence get a job?

  • Elistor

    Well damn, I’d been looking forward to WAR. Too bad really. I wonder how long before EA tanks it so it won’t compete with DAoC?

  • http://erratic-regard.blogspot.com/ Fred

    Get the couch ready. Looks like you might have a few people needing to stay for interviews in Austin.

  • Noise

    For some reason this makes me think of a snake unhinging it’s jaw, swallowing a cute fuzzy rodent, and then slowly digesting it.

  • Formica

    Sigh.

    Having personally watched the destruction of Maxis by EA (and seeing the souls of dear friends crushed under the brutal management thereof), seeing two of my favorite franchises (Command and Conquer and Ultima) burned to the ground, and watching the Tetsuo-at-the-end-with-the-big-laser-part-in-Akira mass of EA flail around and do nothing but listen to out of touch focus groups that tell them to burn their money hats in outdated, pointless furnaces, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Mythic folk would do well to get the hell out.

  • Xanthippe

    I was so looking forward to Warhammer Online. Now I’m looking forward to…. hmm what am I looking forward to?

  • Obruo

    GAWDAMMMMMIT

    Count me among those really looking forward to War, and now deeply disappointed.

    Worst.move.ever.

    No matter how Jacobs tries to spin this, absolutely 0 good will come of this. None, zip, zilch.

  • Double D

    Lum saw the handwritting on the wall :) How soon will Tweety be interviewing?

    I really hope good things come from this. This doesn’t look like there is much hope. The old saying goes.. Watch what they do, not what they say comes to mind.

    Good luck with the new crunch times and EA culture. My E&B CD is nothing good but a coaster now. Ironic how I do still seem to find the box set in the 5$ bin at EB store.

  • http://www.sunsword.com SunSword

    Pissed I couldn’t get WoW over GOA, but happy for Mythic and EA. It’s a good move for both parties. EA’s been serious about MMORPGs for a long time, but because of history and politics couldn’t successfully pull off a major one since UO. Anyone who has kept an eye on EA over the last 2 years will know how much things have changed.

  • Cillasi

    If anyone is interested in looking at EA’s most recent 10-K (the risk factor section is good – they even admit their only MMO success has been UO), here is the link.

    http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/712515/000095013406011401/f21019e10vk.htm#103

    I think EA’s biggest flop was The Sims Online. It amazes me that the regular Sims games, including The Sims 2 and all the console games, stay as popular as they do, but I admit to playing the offline games at times too.

    I’m currently in hiatus from playing MMOs, and I’m kind of happy I won’t be actively involved in the community when lots of these recent happenings evolve.

  • Lophat

    I respect Mark Jacobs as a guy who has managed to make a living doing something he loves. Maybe he sees a way to keep doing that, even as a minion.

    I hope so. If all we are left with is megastudios, the lowest-common-denominator crowd will stagnate this genre as surely as it did sim-deer-hunting.

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  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com J.

    I wonder most about all the old-school MUDs Mythic still has running in the background. What happens to those?

    But yeah, having deep enough pockets to compete with WoW seems worth worrying about. For all the old praise Jacobs gave Vivendi when they were DAoC’s distributor, one wonders why he didn’t sell to them, unless he thought they’d be even more likely to kill off DAoC.

  • scottj

    > I wonder most about all the old-school MUDs Mythic still has
    > running in the background. What happens to those?

    They were shut down last year.

    http://www.mythic-realms.com/

    Darrin Hyrup, one of Mythic’s founders, took over the oldest, Dragon’s Gate, and is running it personally out of pocket, I believe.

    http://www.dragons-gate.com/

  • http://www.mythicentertainment.com MBJ

    Folks,

    Just wanted to drop by and say a few things:

    1) EA is unbelievably commited to WAR. There is almost 0% chance of it getting cancelled, changed, etc. unless we screw up at Mythic. Frankly, the only reason it is not 0% chance is that I don’t believe in either 0% or 100% chance of just about anything.

    2) I know I’ll be accused of spinning things but if Rob and I didn’t believe that WAR will have a better chance of being a better game than it was with Mythic being independent, we wouldn’t have done the deal. I know that comment will be meant with a ton of skeptical laughter (at the best), outright howls and possibly tons of rotten fruit, all I ask is that you give us a chance to prove it.

    3) The quote from me regarding protecting Mythic and its employees was and remains true. That’s why we did this deal now and never did a deal in the past 12 months with anyone else. We turned down even higher offers for Mythic because of the commitment that EA made to my teams, Warhammer and Rob and myself. As I’ve said elsewhere, we are not contracting Mythic anywhere but rather, expanding it.

    4) In terms of Dgate, I took back DGate a little while back and Darrin and I are running it free of charge to the players.

    5) Again, I know that nothing that I say here (or elsewhere) will be believed by everyone but just give us a chance to show that we knew what we were doing.

    Mark

  • Jarnis

    Sorry. EA has too ‘nifty’ track record on MMOs. Unless someone fell over and died and they put you in charge of EA and told nobody of this move, I do not expect this to change in the future. They have zero clue how to run MMOs.

    Grats for ninjalooting lots of $$$ from EA tho.

  • Elistor

    I wish you the best of luck MBJ but, I refuse to even pay attention to anything EA (or any of it’s stable) has “In Development” anymore. Burn me once shame on you, burn me twice shame on me, burn me thrice… well that’s just stupidity or Kink. And MMO wise as SirBruce pointed out above, EA is well into the Stupidity/Kink realm. I would Like to see WAR come out, I was looking forward to it very much. But between now and the day it actually hits shelves, it no longer exists to me.

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