9 years ago
4
How EA lost its soul
In 1982, Trip Hawkins founded Electronic Arts on the principle that the makers of video games ought to be treated like creative superstars. Within a few years, that changed. What happened? By Colin Campbell.
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http://www.polygon.com
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The website seems to be having some SSL errors, but the article itself is really interesting once you get past the cruft. Thanks for sharing. Quite a shame EA turned out how it did.
Very interesting story. It's funny that ultimately game developers have become artists, that video games definitely make people cry (and feel a whole range of emotions). But that this happened despite EA not because of it, a company that made it's name in turning out soulless sports games year after year.
Truthfully, it's not even just the sport games. If EA had released those year after year while still releasing their old quality of games at the same time, there would have been no issue. But sadly, that's not the case. The Electronic Arts logo went from being the stamp of a great game (I literally bought titles purely because of it during that time) to a stamp of mediocrity, unoriginality, and screwed over developers.
I'd like to think the fact I actively chose not to buy EA games makes a difference, but... the two classic rules of modern business apply: There's always more consumers tomorrow than there are today and once you hit that size, it's almost impossible to fall.
IMHO The writing was on the wall when EA published a non-union janitor cleaning up broken backboards during Larry Bird vs Doctor J by Eric Hammond.