Comments on: I Didn't Make Any Of This Up

By: Eric Kearns

Eric Kearns — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:04:48 +0000

As a former Westwood employee I can tell you EA doesnt always mess with the game development initially… they just bring in “certain” people to fill roles at the newly aquired studio. They plant the right people in the right rolls and bam~! Culture trashed. That’s my opinion of course but I saw some new people come in and make things very different. In the end game development suffered and ultimately that was the final blow. Westwood was a super cool place to work for the years I was there before EA. Very cool culture and a ton of fun.

By: Vaxhacker

Vaxhacker — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:31:16 +0000

Jeff : Maybe I am being naive, but it would seem to be foolish for EA to mess with their Bioware studio. Everything Bioware has touched has become gold. Why fix what isn’t broken?

You cannot be serious. Remember Bullfrog? Westwood? Maxis? Origin? More recently, DICE and Mythic? The list goes on and on of successful game developers that EA purchased and ran into the ground. The end of Bioware's run as a creator of great games is just a matter of time.

By: Boanerges

Boanerges — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:26:35 +0000

Please : You must not be familiar with the current $700+ billion dollar government bail-out program, in the United States, for private enterprises.

Quite the contrary. I wish I didn't know half what I know about the bailouts (note the plural, there's more than one $700B bailout now with a third proposed yesterday). The government is spending money like there is no tomorrow. They'd better hope there isn't because they are going to have to print money AND raise taxes. @EpicSquirt No, he has it right. In that fragment, "for" is used to mean "in reference to". "Three rules against recession" makes no sense. So, put differently, it could have been written "Three rules to use when you find yourself in a recession". He may have been contradictory and elitist, but you can't criticize his grammar, sadly.

By: Jeremy Preacher

Jeremy Preacher — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 16:10:31 +0000

Re: Mass Effect: EA was the producer for the PC port, hence the branding.

By: EpicSquirt

EpicSquirt — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:34:33 +0000

Good, please keep going EA. I foresee a bright future for games with unique ideas, created micro-economically from independent studios, while EA is releasing junk after junk.

I like the picture with the “three rules for recession”. Shouldn’t it be “against recession”? (Am not a native English speaker, so bare with me please.)

What kind of rules are those though? The guy who wrote them, trying to come across smart, should be fired. It’s like writing “1 + 1 = 2″ while trying to impress someone with a degree in Mathematics.

Obviously, if you decide for something, you abdicate something else. Decision-making and abandonment go together. Deciding for something but not investing into it or promoting something else is just not logical, so points 2 and 3 are completely obsolete.

So we’re down to:

Decide what is important.

Wow, thank you EA. It’s like listening to Buddha.

By: Iconic

Iconic — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:15:47 +0000

It’s hard to compete with junk?

Does he mean it’s hard to compete when you’re producing junk, or it’s hard to compete against it?

Neither one really makes sense.

By: Please

Please — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:36:54 +0000

@Boanerges
To quote you, “…there’s a key difference between government and private enterprise: private enterprise involves risking your own neck. You sink or swim under your own power. You can’t print money, you can’t raise taxes…”

You must not be familiar with the current $700+ billion dollar government bail-out program, in the United States, for private enterprises.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:16:09 +0000

@robinhood

Weird. I could SWEAR Mass Effect has an EA splash during the loading sequence. I bought the PC version, if that makes a difference.

Maybe I am being naive, but it would seem to be foolish for EA to mess with their Bioware studio. Everything Bioware has touched has become gold. Why fix what isn’t broken?

By: Brian J.

Brian J. — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:21:02 +0000

There was a joke weapon in the old game “Car Wars” that fired ‘Existential Blue’ crayons. IT made the armor so depressed, that it fell off on it’s own.

I suppose we could prototype an FPS where different color crayons do different things…

By: Mist

Mist — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 04:40:00 +0000

EA hasn’t been doing so good in the making money department.