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EA shuts down Visceral Games - The EA Dilemma

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EA, as always, continues with its monstrous tradition of condemning excellent developers. This time, they destroy the creators of one of my favorite video games in history, Dead Space.

Visceral_Games.png

 

 

Electronic Arts is shutting down its Visceral Games studio and making major changes to the team’s in-development Star Wars project, EA executive vice president Patrick Söderlund announced today.

 

Visceral has been working on an action-adventure game set in the Star Wars universe in some form since 2013, when EA and Disney announced a multi-year game deal. It’s been described as a “story-based, linear adventure” in the style of Naughty Dog’s Unchartedseries, but based on comments from Söderlund, EA is making a “significant change” to that title.

 

“Throughout the development process, we have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace,” Söderlund said. “It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design. We will maintain the stunning visuals, authenticity in the Star Wars universe, and focus on bringing a Star Wars story to life. Importantly, we are shifting the game to be a broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore.”

 

As part of that “pivot,” EA is delaying the game. It was originally slated to launch late in EA's 2019 fiscal year, which runs from April 2018 through March 2019, but it has been pushed back indefinitely.

 

Source: https://www.polygon.com/2017/10/17/16490960/ea-closing-visceral-games-star-wars-game-delayed

 

And now my opinion on this and the entry of the topic:

 

WHY !? OH GOD WHY !?

 

Excuse me, sorry.

 

It is nothing new the overwhelming and poisonous news of hearing that EA closes video game developer companies, but I think with this they have simply reached the limit. EA is a poisonous company, a cancer for video game fans, started out as giants in this industry and they still are, but they have completely shattered franchises so loved and loved by millions of fans in the world. Command and Conquer, one of the best RTS sagas in history, SimCity (No matter what they say, they killed it and hid it) and now, something that hurts, Dead Space.

I have been a fan, a very good fan of this saga since its release, a game that has fascinated me in every way and one of the few games of which I am able to feel proud to overcome every challenge and obtain each achievement. Dead Space 3 had a great influence from EA, one of the reasons why failure, and yet, I still enjoy it to the maximum, but Dead Space 1 and 2? Oh, they are masterpieces without a doubt. It's a game that attracted me so much to this beautiful world of art that it's just in my 5 games of life.

 

It's just unfair, it's something so cruel, EA we all know, it's not a company interested in its players, it's a cancer. Sincerely Visceral has all my respect, created something incredible that few can do.

 

Command and Conquer and Dead Space, may rest in peace these sublime legends.

 

gxR7ACI.png

 

 

What do you think of this act, and what do you think of EA in general? Was it ever a "good company"?

 

PS: Sorry for bad english.

 

 

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Just now, Piper Maru said:

I was hoping to see Dead Space 4 one day, I guess that's not going to happen anytime soon.

And if it happens, it probably wont even be Isaac story. Such bad news for gaming world.

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58 minutes ago, Piper Maru said:

I was hoping to see Dead Space 4 one day, I guess that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Why would you want DS4 after the shitshow that was DS3?

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8 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Why would you want DS4 after the shitshow that was DS3?

Dead Space 3 was fun, not as  1 or 2, but it was fun, also, the ending! What the hell happen? Thats what I want to know.

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Looking at the list - turned out EA ended more childhood games I cherished than I realised!

 

Have you guys heard of "Extra Credits"?

 

Check out their video based on EA (it's dated) - but watch 5:00 minutes in. EA started as a passionate group.

 

Edited by Chezza

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EA Only seem to get worse and worse, even with the new Battlefront 2 EA, i really can't trust them anymore they are worse than Activision.

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5 minutes ago, Maisth said:

EA Only seem to get worse and worse, even with the new Battlefront 2 EA, i really can't trust them anymore they are worse than Activision.

The problem is that, they dont really care about us, they are all money, money. I mean, would you kill that much of great games? Not if you actually care about games.

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EA does it again, and I'm not the least bit surprised. I suppose the one redeeming thing here is that EA did not drive the game down the shitter in an attempt to squeeze some more money out of the die-hards that were still attached to the franchise.

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I'm one of those minorities that thinks Dead Space (at the least the first one which I've played) is incredibly overrated but I definitely don't think Visceral, let alone any talented game dev should have to fall under the hammer of EA. Another loss for the industry.

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4 minutes ago, cyan0s1s said:

I'm one of those minorities that thinks Dead Space (at the least the first one which I've played) is incredibly overrated but I definitely don't think Visceral, let alone any talented game dev should have to fall under the hammer of EA. Another loss for the industry.

I beg to differ. But I think Dead Space really has the deserved fame, the game itself is almost never mentioned in the current news, however it had its moments of glory, the first 2 games meet their goal, they were incredibly fun and something new. Of course, it is not fair to label it as '' The Best '', such a thing simply can not exist, since there are dozens of video games that also deserve a crown, so I simply conclude that the game, for me, is astonishing.

 

Of course not everyone will like the game, but neither do I think the game is '' Overrated '', It did had its moments of glory deserved, and sadly, its end has come. RIP.

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4 hours ago, Piper Maru said:

I was hoping to see Dead Space 4 one day, I guess that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Or a Dante's Inferno sequel :(

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I hope Bethesda will buy them. Because they are really good developers, Dead Space has atmosphere, close to Doom 3... and Dante's Inferno was a pretty good game about hell, for sure. I think they still can made something really nice for next Doom game or add-on.

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29 minutes ago, qdash said:

I hope Bethesda will buy them. Because they are really good developers, Dead Space has atmosphere, close to Doom 3... and Dante's Inferno was a pretty good game about hell, for sure. I think they still can made something really nice for next Doom game or add-on.

Although Bethesda seems to be turning to the dark side, still, I find them very good.

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This is not the first studio they shutdown this year as well, if anyone noticed they merged BioWare Montreal which was the one who made Mass Effect: Andromeda with Motive Studios after the total failiure of this last Mass Effect.

 

In the near future the only studio that will remain active is EA Sports, since what matters for them is just the money and well, 3/4 of their entire budget comes from Fifa games.

 

Damn, not even Activision is so evil to their subsidiaries.

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Dead Space bored the absolute fuck out of me. Hated it.

 

However it's always a shame when a dev studio gets fucked over. RIP Visceral Games.

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That sucks, personally I really liked the Dead Space games. Dead Space was great, Dead Space 2 was even better. Dead Space 3 was flawed but got a lot of undue hate.

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I remember the very subtle dig at Electronic Arts in Ultima VII*. The company already had a bad reputation bad then.

 

(* If you don't know what I'm talking about; in U7 the entire world is threatened by the arrival of a powerful extradimensional known simply as "the guardian", who corrupts worlds and drains them of all resources, as well as making everyone in it awful and miserable. In the Ultima setting, the Guardian's influence came through three "blackrock generators" which were shaped as a cube, a sphere, and a pyramid. The EA logo back then was a square, a circle, and a triangle.)

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Activision has been guilty of this same thing several times in the past, most notably the rushed release of Vampire:Bloodlines and subsequent shutdown of Troika Games.

Its always the devs that get the chopping block instead of the publisher despite stupid decisions on the publishers part... its unfair as fuck but thats the videogame industry for you.

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There's been a shift in game development that has been happening the last several years; big AAA publishers aren't the only way to get a big game funded, with that also means the creative freedom remains with the developers, for better or worse (sometimes the most creative need to be reeled in)

 

You have games created by very very small developers, sometimes just one person, becoming mainstream; you have the big Naughty Dog or Rocksteady or Bungie developers still making huge blockbusters; and you have the kinda medium sized but still relatively small teams making games like the recent Shadow Warrior or Gone Home or Battlegrounds, all being successes because they weren't required to sell over 5 million copies just to break even through development costs.

 

I think you are going to see less and less singleplayer AAA games and more loot crate microtransaction style things because those cost near nothing to make but end up selling more than the games themselves. You are going to get those great singleplayer experiences mostly from indie games since they aren't worth it to most publishers.

 

That's why while it sucks the people at Visceral lost their jobs and their Star Wars game seems to be basically canned while it gets reworked into something else, they are now free to (HOPEFULLY) form an indie studio and make a new great singleplayer game.

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"We checked in and discovered that Visceral were making an actual game rather than an elaborate slot machine we could milk the whales dry with, and since DS3 and Hardline didn't meet the projections we pulled the plug. Don't worry, we've taken the assets and are busy reworking them into another one of those roulette wheel MP grindfests we know you all love so dearly. So get ready to cough up, fantards."

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3 hours ago, scalliano said:

"We checked in and discovered that Visceral were making an actual game rather than an elaborate slot machine we could milk the whales dry with, and since DS3 and Hardline didn't meet the projections we pulled the plug. Don't worry, we've taken the assets and are busy reworking them into another one of those roulette wheel MP grindfests we know you all love so dearly. So get ready to cough up, fantards."

Their minds in a nutshell.

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19 hours ago, Gez said:

I remember the very subtle dig at Electronic Arts in Ultima VII*. The company already had a bad reputation bad then.

 

(* If you don't know what I'm talking about; in U7 the entire world is threatened by the arrival of a powerful extradimensional known simply as "the guardian", who corrupts worlds and drains them of all resources, as well as making everyone in it awful and miserable. In the Ultima setting, the Guardian's influence came through three "blackrock generators" which were shaped as a cube, a sphere, and a pyramid. The EA logo back then was a square, a circle, and a triangle.)

Subtle nothing. Dick Garriot's hatred for Trip Hawkins was legendary. That's why Origin Systems' sale to EA was so shocking.

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