EA denies existence of a free-thought crushing tank division
By Tim Colwill on September 11, 2012 at 12:30 pm
We’ve long speculated that Electronic Arts maintains a tank division to crush freedom of thought, and now their President of Labels, Frank Gibeau, has confirmed it — by denying it outright.
Speaking to Kotaku about the conspiracy theory that EA were somehow responsible for what fans disliked about Dragon Age II and the ending of Mass Effect 3, Frank Gibeau flatly denied the existence of any dissident-crushing armoured force at EA.
“The truth is BioWare has developed as BioWare and that creative culture is owned by them,” shouted Gibeau over the roar of a tank as he rolled by the microphone on the way up to Canada for an “unscheduled studio visit”.
“There’s nobody in the central planning committee at Electronic Arts that rolls in the tank divisions [into our studios] when they get too independent or too risky or too thoughtful,” Gibeau confirmed as his own personal, customised tank moved into the compound, flattening a car. “Did EA intervene and say, ‘Hey Casey (Hudson, executive director on ME3), you’ve got a really interesting ending here, you’re probably going to cause some fans to get upset?” Gibeau asked rhetorically.
“No, we didn’t do that. Casey is an artist. He made a choice about the story that he [and the team] wanted to tell as related to Mass Effect 3. And we didn’t intervene.”
Gibeau could not be reached for further comment due to what EA’s spokespeople are calling “an explosive studio realignment process”.
Source: Kotaku
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I find it depressing that people must honestly think that any company would deliberately try and annoy customers, to the extent where they have to state that they specifically don’t.
I find it depressing that you forgot to mention what an INCREDIBLE STORY this is!
Translation: Nope not our fault. It’s all Bioware’s fault. Yep, we’re good guys, ioware made us do it.
makena,
They earned the reputation fair and square IMO. I’m looking at all those development teams that were bought so their respective IPs could have the guts flogged out of them and the team disassembled when they were no longer of use. Origin, Bullfrog and Westwood Studios instantly spring to mind…
I’m sorry :(
Wonder if those image tags work >.>
Aww image tags don’t work,
http://www.stealingchairs.net/misc/ponies/AJ_Dash_hug.jpg for Jess!
vcatkiller,
Westwood helped kill themselves, large games that were not successful, multiple large title in development at the same time after unsuccessful games, EA can’t be held entirely to blame for what happened there.
Is it nice and easy to pin everything on EA? Sure, but I also think it’s unfair and isn’t accurate.
Heck just did some more reading, Bullfrog were closed in 2004, the last game they released before that was in 2001, it’s really not convincing me EA is to blame in that one. What made Bullfrog great was probably Molyneux, and he left the company in 1997.
So you don’t find it convenient that it just so happened it wasn’t just Westwood who had issues putting out decent titles but a whole bunch of companies that just so happened to be purchased by EA? Look at Origin’s last offerings for example: if you follow the story behind Ultima 9 it was mostly EA’s meddling that turned that game into a giant stinking turd, thanks to them trying to push Ultima Online instead.
No I don’t buy it. If it was completely Westwood’s fault, why did they go from putting out a good mixture of adventure games, RPGs and some C&C clones when they were under the Virgin label to completely focusing on C&C clones under EA’s publishing label?
Ok, you’re arguing against points I didn’t make.
I didn’t say it was completely Westwood’s fault (I specifically said they helped kill themselves, not that they did it without help from anywhere), just as I’m not saying it’s completely EA’s fault.
Are C&C games C&C clones? They also released Emperor: Battle for Dune under EA.
Obviously if EA destroys all studios they’re involved with, Bioware, Dice, Criterion, Maxis, Blackbox, and so on, will all die sooner rather than later.
But like I said, I don’t think you can pin it all on EA when an EA Studio dies, I think it’s much more complex than that.
Hahah – brilliant article :P And let’s face it, activision are far worse and far less innovative than EA.
Amusing article. I definitely believe this tank division exists.
Yeah I called them all C&C Clones specifically because of Emperor: Battle for Dune/Dune 200/a few other RTS’s they produced. Possibly I should’ve just said RTS’s instead, that make you happy? <_<
At any rate I'm just saying EA has to take at least part of the blame. Otherwise they wouldn't have to come forward with comments like this.
vcatkiller,
I honestly wasn’t being pedantic, I was just getting clarification on your clone point, but after being bought by EA they released Nox, (Action RPG), Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat (Action Adventure) and Earth & Beyond (MMO), so it doesn’t stand up that they were forced to just milk C&C.
I’m not disagreeing at all that EA takes part of the blame, but my initial point stands, I don’t think EA is setting out to destroy studios and piss off customers.
This read like an Onion article. I smiled, but at the same time wasn’t sure how serious Tim was being..
Agreed. And that’s NOT a bad thing. :)
““There’s nobody in the central planning committee at Electronic Arts that rolls in the tank divisions [into our studios] when they get too independent or too risky or too thoughtful,” Gibeau confirmed as his own personal, customised tank moved into the compound, flattening a car. “Did EA intervene and say, ‘Hey Casey (Hudson, executive director on ME3), you’ve got a really interesting ending here, you’re probably going to cause some fans to get upset?” Gibeau asked rhetorically.”
We did, however mandate that they place multiplayer modes into the clearly singleplayer aligned game. But we fail to see how placing a large and unexpected burden on the studio could possibly have any influence over the final quality of their games!
But they do. Look at battlefield, its slowly going down the gurgler to join the other turds.
It certainly seems like EA do this to customers especially PC customers.
shlaimon,
Going down the gurgler? Which battlefield are you talking about?
Why is it EA’s fault that all these developers wanted to be bought/bailed out?
Don’t forget Single Player into purely Multiplayer experiences. ;)
My opinion, of course EA been the publishers/Distro and all great money holder as a business make decisions that effectively make a game more acceptable to the general public therefor becoming a bigger selling title, therefor making them more money, therefor investing into more games to repeat and rinse cycle. Though the important word here is business.. the primary concern for all businesses is make money and they wouldn’t be much of a business without said strategy.
Capitalism my friends.. and we all keep buying it.
makena,
Awwwwww yeeaah boi! I gots brony hugs!