EA tries to buy Valve, Gabe laughs

[EDUSAN]

this has nothing to do with financial expertise.

We all know they are making money, every game they release sell a lot, but the games do not get good player critics, and its starting to get common.
There is this feeling of discontent about it growing.

BF and Dead Space are probably the only exceptions. Those games turned out being good games.

But, people that used to play C&C hated the last one, people that used to play KOTOR and MMORPGs hated SWTOR, people that used to play DAO hated DA2, People (like me) that used to play ME1, didnt like how the franchise went from there on, people that used to play MOH hated the last one... and its not like each community cares about what happens with the other one, they are isolated things... so you would think that it has nothing to do with EA until you see the big picture and you realise that EA was involved in every single franchise that went down.

 

[smackababy]

this has nothing to do with financial expertise.

We all know they are making money, every game they release sell a lot, but the games do not get good player critics, and its starting to get common.
There is this feeling of discontent about it growing.

BF and Dead Space are probably the only exceptions. Those games turned out being good games.

But, people that used to play C&C hated the last one, people that used to play KOTOR and MMORPGs hated SWTOR, people that used to play DAO hated DA2, People (like me) that used to play ME1, didnt like how the franchise went from there on, people that used to play MOH hated the last one... and its not like each community cares about what happens with the other one, they are isolated things... so you would think that it has nothing to do with EA until you see the big picture and you realise that EA was involved in every single franchise that went down.

Except there are other franchises that go down without EA. Developers are trying to please increasingly bitchy. The BIG picture is without EA, most of these companies could have easily run themselves into the ground. The developers of said games are more to blame than EA. They are given money to make a game they, most likely, wouldn't have gotten / had and are putting out crap that fails.

 

[Molondo]

Neither of the said happened, way out of context.

 

[surfsatwerk]

I honestly don't get all the hate for EA these days. They have some of the best franchises in the business at the moment. MoH, BF, Crysis, and mass effect are all great.

I honestly can't think of anything good that Activision has currently. The blizzard stuff is decent, but not my cup of tea. EA's developers are doing more innovation than any of the other dev's out there, but that's just my opinion.

Valve is obviously the best, but they don't release games that frequently.

I don't like you or your ideas.

 

[rivan]

Except there are other franchises that go down without EA. Developers are trying to please increasingly bitchy. The BIG picture is without EA, most of these companies could have easily run themselves into the ground. The developers of said games are more to blame than EA. They are given money to make a game they, most likely, wouldn't have gotten / had and are putting out crap that fails.

Correct, but very few companies (and the rest have been mentioned in this thread already) put revenue above all else in quite the same way as EA. It's typical of large corporations in how it operates; the people in charge don't give a shit what's going out the door except in how it affects the stock price over the next two months. That's a terribly shortsighted model, even if it is highly profitable. It leads to game studios with a track record for producing fan-loved games being shuttered if they go X months without producing a multi-million seller. Certainly some of those studios need to go down the way they do, or would have anyway, but when EA gets involved, that future gets a lot harder to avoid.

The net effect, I believe, is the overall degredation of gaming, PC gaming specifically. I'm not laying all of the blame for it at EA's feet, but they're certainly a major player in the mess that is PC gaming today.

 

[Gibsons]

I think you are giving him too much altruistic credit.

If his company was valued at 3B, and EA offers 1 Billion, he is encouraged to say what he did. Why agree to sell your company for less than what the market thinks it is worth?

If EA offered more than 3B, I promise he would be thinking differently, unless he felt strongly that in the near term he could increase of the value considerably, or 3B was just the tip of the iceberg.

On the other hand if he's worth 1.5B, he has little motivation to cash out.

 

[PowerYoga]

On the other hand if he's worth 1.5B, he has little motivation to cash out.

When you have that much money, it's not about "cashing out" anymore. It's about doing what you love every day and money has very little to do with anything.

 

[surfsatwerk]

When you have that much money, it's not about "cashing out" anymore. It's about doing what you love every day and money has very little to do with anything.

Expect for the whole having sex on great big piles of it.

 

[Phokus]

I think even if Gabe died he'd turn control of the company over to another programmer. He's following in the footsteps of technocrats like Steve Jobs who know how to use technology for more than just leveraging the most immediate profit. I only wish some of them could taking over the banking industry.

Except Steve was a shithead and Gabe isn't. Bad comparison.

 

[smackababy]

Correct, but very few companies (and the rest have been mentioned in this thread already) put revenue above all else in quite the same way as EA. It's typical of large corporations in how it operates; the people in charge don't give a shit what's going out the door except in how it affects the stock price over the next two months. That's a terribly shortsighted model, even if it is highly profitable. It leads to game studios with a track record for producing fan-loved games being shuttered if they go X months without producing a multi-million seller. Certainly some of those studios need to go down the way they do, or would have anyway, but when EA gets involved, that future gets a lot harder to avoid.

The net effect, I believe, is the overall degredation of gaming, PC gaming specifically. I'm not laying all of the blame for it at EA's feet, but they're certainly a major player in the mess that is PC gaming today.

Most of these beloved gaming companies everyone talks about were upstarts made by a group of friends. Some innovated and changed gaming forever (id Software comes to mind). The model they were running on didn't work. If it did, they wouldn't have needed to be purchased by a huge companies like EA. I wouldn't blame EA for anything other than enforcing a model that works. Companies like 3D Realms have proven you need someone with business sense to make the final "it is going out or getting canceled" decision. Nobody wants to see their baby go out unfinished or get canned, but sometimes it has to happen. Valve got extremely lucky and predicted digital distribution as being the way of the future. This made them worth billions now that it has come true. They have made a model that sustains their "HL Episode 3 is the new DNF" crap. Not too long ago people were upset L4D 2 came out as soon as it did.

 

[EDUSAN]

Except there are other franchises that go down without EA.

Sure they are.
but imagine 10 franchises go down... 5 are from individual companies (1 each) and 5 are from companies involved with EA.

and BTW... there is hate for other companies too. Look at blizzard, d3 sold millions, but blizzard went from "best company in the world" to "piece of shit company. im not buying another blizzard game anymore"

and other companies too. Valve will probably go down if they release a hl3 that is not up to the expectations.

but as i said... D3 from blizzard, HL3 from valve (maybe), C&C, ME, SWTOR, DA2, MOH from EA

 

[diesbudt]

Sure they are.
but imagine 10 franchises go down... 5 are from individual companies (1 each) and 5 are from companies involved with EA.

and BTW... there is hate for other companies too. Look at blizzard, d3 sold millions, but blizzard went from "best company in the world" to "piece of shit company. im not buying another blizzard game anymore"

and other companies too. Valve will probably go down if they release a hl3 that is not up to the expectations.

but as i said... D3 from blizzard, HL3 from valve (maybe), C&C, ME, SWTOR, DA2, MOH from EA

It is all based on expectations. Sad truth on games. Which is why as of right now Valve has been smart and not tried moving beyond 2 games in each series.

Maybe if hard times hit they maye release a 3 to try and hit higher sales, but I bet if they were to release a 3, it would see a lot of negative reviews as expectations always seem to trump games after #2 in a series. (See - ME3, D3, Halo3 [ODST and Reach were good and had some positive swing, but #3 struggled for a while], KOTOR3 [or I mean SWTOR], etc.)

 

[Red Storm]

Okay, lets try and understand your breakdown. You are saying, the developers of said games that "went downhill" had nothing to do with how they turned out? They didn't want to go in a different direction? And BF3 is a great example. The game was released 6 years after BF2. Ignoring that the FPS landscape has changed drastically, the game sold nearly 4 times as much as the beloved BF2. 2.25 million units vs. 8 million.

Regardless of your opinions on EA, they make games that sell. I am sure all these "great" companies you think EA ruined would have sold so well... please enlighten me on your financial expertise in the gaming industry. The big wigs at EA are smarter than you, otherwise they wouldn't have a billion in cash to offer Steam.

So $ = Quality eh? So do you also think that Twilight and Harry Potter are among the greatest films of all time?

EA knows how to make money in the short term. They are a public company, slaves to their share holders. These kinds of companies never, ever share the same goals as consumers. EA doesn't give one shit about quality gaming, they just want to push out as much product as they can to make as much money as possible. It's not even just wanting to do it, they have to.

 

[JAG87]

Ok, lets try and break this down.

EA buys talent and runs it into the ground 99% of the time. They have ruined many excellent franchises that they have bought. While they are a company and aim to make money, they have become extremely short sighted in about it and doing anything and everything to turn a quick profit now instead of looking more long term.

As for their franchises, lets break it down, starting with the ones you named.

MoH, has been run into the ground and they have tried rebooting it once and failed and are trying again. They want it to be CoD sadly and use BF beta's as incentive to preordering/buying it.

BF, great series, not going to argue, but, BF3 is a step down from its predecessor and now with BF4 announced for next year and they want to do leap frog development with a new MoH one year and a BF the next year, they will quickly wear it out most probable.

Crysis, they don't own it, they are just the publishers or maybe pay for some of the development, but Crytek is not owned by EA.

Mass Effect. Good games that got progressively less RPG and more just action and became a DLC milker with the last holding out an important part of the lore for another $10. Bioware was not bought by EA till ME2 was around half way done.

Need for Speed, seriously, do we even need to get into this? This poor series has become so lost that they actually had you get out of the car and run in the last one. Now because they can figure out how to make a good one again, they are taking the best one they made in some time (Most Wanted) and are already remaking it.

Simcity. Ahh how we all love some city building, now with always on connection to play, you know because you have to have some douchebags city next to yours and you can already tell people will do shit to screw with your city by making their city so bad Detroit looks like paradise. Not to mention it took them over a decade to even touch the franchise again.

Dead Space. Good fun games and a original IP made up all by themselves not long ago.

All their sports games, new roster same price, year after year.

Dragon Age. First one? Amazing. Second one? Horrible. The difference? Bioware was not owned by EA till the first one was 90% done.

Command & Conquer. I'm not even gonna get into this.


On top of just buying talent/IP's and then destroying them for the quick buck with lots of questionable practices. They try to do a bit of everything but in the end, they are just bad to average in it all instead. Look at Origin, it has been out a year and no changes to it despite a lot of stuff on it needing a fix.

There are other bad publishers/devs out there. I agree, Activison is freaking horrid, if it wasn't for a new CoD each year and Blizzard that company would be dead by now. Ubisoft is another, they are about as two faced as it comes. But EA just takes what is bad from other publishers and adds they own crap on top of it to make it all much worst. I guess we did find what EA is good at heh.

Basically it all comes down to this.

EA is not good for gaming.

I'm sorry but this is utter BS.

The gaming industry is how it is because of the consumers, not EA. There is no incentive to create anything new and better because people keep buying rehashed shit. It's your choice and you are the enabler, EA just caters to you because it is profitable to do so.

 

[Rvenger]

it wasn't about money. Valve is privately held and was started by gabe andb partners feom wealth obtained from microsoft. Gabe started it and i don't think he wants it to get eaten up by corporate big wigs. Plus i guess in his mind it would be better to let it disappear than be swallowed and milked until the name no longer means anything.

+10000000000000

 

[Red Storm]

I'm sorry but this is utter BS.

The gaming industry is how it is because of the consumers, not EA. There is no incentive to create anything new and better because people keep buying rehashed shit. It's your choice and you are the enabler, EA just caters to you because it is profitable to do so.

If you really don't think EA has had a hand in how things have turned out, then give me what you're smoking.

 

[smackababy]

So $ = Quality eh? So do you also think that Twilight and Harry Potter are among the greatest films of all time?

EA knows how to make money in the short term. They are a public company, slaves to their share holders. These kinds of companies never, ever share the same goals as consumers. EA doesn't give one shit about quality gaming, they just want to push out as much product as they can to make as much money as possible. It's not even just wanting to do it, they have to.

No, Gone with the Wind is the greatest film of all time. Adjusted for inflation, it has grossed the most money, followed by Empire Strikes Back I believe.

EA has been around for how long? 1982. Making this short term money a lot of you throw around seems irrelevant because they've been making money for quite a while. They survived the collapse of the industry. Share holders run every public company. And if EA is so off base with what the consumer wants, why do they continue to sell MILLIONS of games?

 

[surfsatwerk]

I'm sorry but this is utter BS.

The gaming industry is how it is because of the consumers, not EA. There is no incentive to create anything new and better because people keep buying rehashed shit. It's your choice and you are the enabler, EA just caters to you because it is profitable to do so.

I am a consumer. I never asked EA to destroy Command and Conquer, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc...

 

[Red Storm]

No, Gone with the Wind is the greatest film of all time. Adjusted for inflation, it has grossed the most money, followed by Empire Strikes Back I believe.

EA has been around for how long? 1982. Making this short term money a lot of you throw around seems irrelevant because they've been making money for quite a while. They survived the collapse of the industry. Share holders run every public company. And if EA is so off base with what the consumer wants, why do they continue to sell MILLIONS of games?

I said among, not the greatest. But are you saying you agree with this logic?

They sell millions because there are BILLIONS of people in the world. They survived by buying out and then milking dry all those dev teams. They are standing high on a pile of "bodies" that have accumulated over the years. All they care about is profits because that's their duty as a public company.

 

[smackababy]

I said among, not the greatest. But are you saying you agree with this logic?

They sell millions because there are BILLIONS of people in the world. They survived by buying out and then milking dry all those dev teams. They are standing high on a pile of "bodies" that have accumulated over the years. All they care about is profits because that's their duty as a public company.

How else would you quantify how good something is? Everything except for sales numbers are subjective. I dislike the Twilight and the Harry Potter series, however, I can't say they don't cater to a huge majority of the market. They must be the greatest. James Cameron is clearly a genius.

And that is funny. Every company that doesn't care about profits, releases MAYBE one product and then goes under.

 

[Red Storm]

How else would you quantify how good something is? Everything except for sales numbers are subjective. I dislike the Twilight and the Harry Potter series, however, I can't say they don't cater to a huge majority of the market. They must be the greatest. James Cameron is clearly a genius.

And that is funny. Every company that doesn't care about profits, releases MAYBE one product and then goes under.

Catering to the market != good.

Valve? If they cared about profits as much as EA does they would stop spending money on crazy office setups and instead stuff everyone into affordable cubicles. They'd stop letting people go do what they want and instead set strict deadlines that had to be met.

The difference between a greedy company (out of necessity) like EA and a private one like Valve (greed is there, but it's not a necessity) is that EA will cut every corner they can to make that extra bit of money. Go read the stories about how life is working as a dev for EA and then compare that to Valve.

 

[Hardin4188]

When we are talking about the disaster that is EA and how they destroy ideas, all you need to say is Origin, Westwood, and Bullfrog. That's the end of the discussion right there.

Bioware has declined, but they aren't dead yet. Dragon Age 2 was bad, but I liked ME 2 and 3.

 

[smackababy]

Catering to the market != good.

Valve? If they cared about profits as much as EA does they would stop spending money on crazy office setups and instead stuff everyone into affordable cubicles. They'd stop letting people go do what they want and instead set strict deadlines that had to be met.

The difference between a greedy company (out of necessity) like EA and a private one like Valve (greed is there, but it's not a necessity) is that EA will cut every corner they can to make that extra bit of money. Go read the stories about how life is working as a dev for EA and then compare that to Valve.

And as I said before, the only reason Valve hasn't turned into 3D Realms is because of Steam. If they had to profit on just their games, HL Episode 3, 4 ,5 and 6 would be out already.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Catering to the market != good.

Valve? If they cared about profits as much as EA does they would stop spending money on crazy office setups and instead stuff everyone into affordable cubicles. They'd stop letting people go do what they want and instead set strict deadlines that had to be met.

The difference between a greedy company (out of necessity) like EA and a private one like Valve (greed is there, but it's not a necessity) is that EA will cut every corner they can to make that extra bit of money. Go read the stories about how life is working as a dev for EA and then compare that to Valve.

excellent point, I read on kotaku? That Valve had highest employee satisfaction rates in the industry and sure enough I think it was glassdoor.com listed them around 99%.

 

[wuliheron]

Catering to the market != good.

Valve? If they cared about profits as much as EA does they would stop spending money on crazy office setups and instead stuff everyone into affordable cubicles. They'd stop letting people go do what they want and instead set strict deadlines that had to be met.

The difference between a greedy company (out of necessity) like EA and a private one like Valve (greed is there, but it's not a necessity) is that EA will cut every corner they can to make that extra bit of money. Go read the stories about how life is working as a dev for EA and then compare that to Valve.

EA isn't greedy out of necessity, they're greedy because they're led by a bunch of bankers and business majors whose entire lives revolve around greed. In the high tech industry especially greed and business know how just are not enough. You need actual talent and knowledgeable people in leadership positions as so many others have shown repeatedly.