History Electronic Arts – from art to conveyor.
We have pleasant memories of the cult series of games like Need for Speed, Mass Effect and Dead Space are connected with Electronic Arts. Personally, I played with great pleasure in them and there are still some parts on my accounts on Origin. All of them are published by this company. Born and, unfortunately, strangled by her hands. To date, hearing about Electronic Arts, we primarily recall the wild monetization of games, a huge number of additions and shameful releases. For this company, the games have become just a product that can and should be put on the conveyor.
Despite this, I was interested in collecting information how it was before, how it was founded, and tell how the company came to today’s result in this post and in its video on YouTube.
Video version. Can be turned on for listening to the background so as not to read: D
The story of the founder
I am against the fact that the history of the company begins from the moment of its founding or release of the first game. Prior to the start of the business, there is always some early experience of the founder and the idea thanks to which this symphony begins, and from his views-the further “philosophy” of the company is formed. After all, she did not arise as a big explosion from nowhere, but was nurtured for a long time (as an idea) In the head of one person who wanted to engage in entrepreneurship on the basis of his own hobbies, interests and views. This person in our history – Trip Hawkins.
Hawkins begins his first business as a teenager, inspired by a board game “Strat-O-Matic Football“And having interest in American football. He will open a business through the financial support of his father and creates several hundred copies of his board game for five thousand dollars. In fact, his first experience in entrepreneurship was just creating a copy of another game. This fake was called “AccSustat Football“.
The main idea of his venture was to gradually update information about the current teams in the game, which allowed people to have relevant statistics and someone even predicted in this way the approximate results of the upcoming season of American football.
Later, his first business will still close, as he will fail from a commercial point of view, despite advertising in game magazines and good reviews about the game.
The board games had a problem that they were complex. At least William’s peers I didn’t like it bother with cards, rules, tables and mathematical tasks. Based on these remarks, in the future, Hawkins will not abandon the idea, but first of all will be interested in creating a digital version of the football game. But nothing will come of it either and he will postpone this idea for later.
And no matter how strange it sounds to you in today’s realities, but Trip Hawkins in the future He did not drop his studies for the sake of his business, and went in the reverse way. We are used to hearing that one successful entrepreneur left the university for the sake of business, and the other did not start training. But in our case, the future founder of one of the largest publishers of the Games entered Harvard University and with honors ended a specialty aimed at using the strategy and theory of applied games, and then additionally graduates from the Stanford School of Economics at the University, where he receives a degree with an emphasis on business management. He does this with the expectation that he will need knowledge when opening his new business.
Of course, Hawkins does not immediately run and head heads up with a headlong. Since the beginning of the student era, he believes that computers need some time to become the norm for most people. He was sure that a computer from a huge box throughout the wall was obliged to turn into something more compact that could be freely kept at home on a table, shelf or somewhere else. He also consolidates this thought, after getting to know William “Bing»Gordon.
And after TRIP, even with his own efforts contributes to the appearance of personal computers in our homes! Well, and he also needed to earn at least some amount of money, because without initial capital you will not move from the dead.
Apple is its first employer. At that time, there were only fifty employees and the Apple II computer was already released, but it was sold by a circulation of only a thousand copies. William receives a marketer in the company, and eventually becomes the director of strategy and marketing of products. He came to the company primarily in order to help sell personal computers to people, but also found a further mentor inside the company: he watched how Steve Jobs copes with the tasks of the manager and took an example from him. Thanks to Jobs, Hawkins began to see himself as a more creative person and in the future will be borrowed by experience in the foundation of the company.
Working in Apple, William met closer to software developers, starting to see the same creative people in them. The first employees of the future company, of course, will be his colleagues. Also, Hawkins observed the development of the industry and knew very well about the competitors in the face of the opening back in the 79th and 80s “On-line Systems” And “Broderbund“.
Having from the familiar investor inside that there are people who are ready to finance such startups, Trip began to rush from corner to corner and did not quite understand what to do: on the one hand, he was afraid of competition, that the niche would be busy, and on the other – he noticed a slave attitude towards developers and already conceived to flirt from their ego to attract the best specialists. Then the developers were a kind of supplies at the enterprise.
Hawkins had a plan to resign in Apple in early 1982, but was still not sure of his idea. He was afraid to leave the company because of the quickly release of the new computer “Apple Lisa“And I wanted to hear the opinion from the side, so I gave an eye on Don Valentine, Seeing an article about the venture, risky capitalist in the magazine. And earlier, Hawkins knew about Valentine, since one day the capitalist already supported the future employer William.
Then terrible rumors went about Valentine. Many were afraid and told how entrepreneurs fainted after strict criticism. His management style in the article of the magazine “Forbes“They even compare with the behavior of the crocodile: Don is watching, listening to his interlocutor and waiting for the right moment when he can already join the conversation and say everything that he thinks. It was this style that for some reason sympathized with Hokins, which prompted him to call Valentine. Surprisingly, he agreed with full confidence to a personal meeting with Trip Hawkins. Although, on the other hand, the capitalist probably knew about the work of Trip in Apple, what kind of merits were, the first experience in business, and therefore was sure of a little risk of spending his time.
Hawkins, in turn, was then ready that his Valentine would force him to doubt his idea, send his duties in Apple, complete the work. But, by some side, the capitalist turned out to be a reverse opinion about the situation. He listened to Trip, although the business plan of the future company existed only in words. There was only an understanding that the gaming market is desperately required between the developers of the games and the consumer, and there was no question of the paper version of the plan. And Valentine simply immediately advised to immediately leave Apple, offering Hokins for a startup any free room in Sequoia Capital Absolutely free. According to Trip, it was just the support he needed to take the last step. After this meeting, Hawkins left Apple.
Electronic Arts base
Departing from the post of director of marketing and strategy, Hawkins had shares on the amount of 200.000 dollars. For understanding, 200.000 dollars in the 80s is not the amount that can be represented now. Not only the ruble loses its “weight” over time. So these are these two hundred thousand dollars from the sale of shares of Hawkins and invests in the authorized capital of the newly created company, which was called “Amazin’ Software “.
Then this name will be quickly changed to Electronic Arts because many employees did not like it, as well as partially Hokokins themselves. There were even several meetings on this occasion and at first the guys wanted to be called “Softart“, But Dan Briklin I asked not to use this name because of similarity to the name of his company “Software Arts“, Rightly hinting that then this business will do the most humane Court of the United States. Based on this situation, Hawkins again arranged a brain storm to all, insisted on preserving the word “Arts“In the name and finally approved the option”Electronic Arts“. There was also an option with “Artists“, But Hawkins began to defend his option by the fact that the title”Artists»Goned themselves Games developers, And their company is only a publisher.
It is this philosophy that will reign inside the company exactly before Hokins departure. He made a bet on the popularization of developers’ names, made them “Rock stars»In the game industry. Hawkins even flies in Los Angeles to visit one of the big studios of sound recordings and observe the methods of working with real rock stars. In the same place, he will first see the contract that is concluded between the studio and the artists, and he will further imitate them in his industry.
The development strategy of his company was based on direct contact with the developers and a kind of presentation of the product to the consumer. It was a special marketing for that time based on the imitation of other industries and the concepts of “producer” and “director” introduced into the game industry. From Electronic Arts, the first producers in the industry were the former Apple employees: Dave Evans, Pat Marriot and Joe Ibarra.
Hawkins wide advertising company began with packaging. Since the founder imitated the musical industry, the first games from Electronic Arts were released on the discs by five and a quarter of inches in packages similar to vinyl records, only less.
Several covers from the first series of games published by Electronic Arts
Several covers from the first series of games published by Electronic Arts
Several covers from the first series of games published by Electronic Arts
The covers in such packages were made in the style of popular rock bands and attracted a lot of attention, exhibited on windows and shelves in the store. Inside the turn of such a package, there was a professionally framed photograph of developers and, in a sense, a prescription for the game from them. And, to be honest, it is a pity that they refused it.
Electronic Arts did not stop there and tried to publish in many magazines to attract the whole new audience. In one thousand nine hundred and eighty -third year, an advertisement is released, the influence of which some are still trying to establish on the game industry. It was a message in the form of a turn in many non-game magazines with headlines “We see further” And “Can a computer make you cry?”And an inspirational manifesto for five hundred words. Then, video games meant simple entertainment, so the advertising was aimed at attracting an adult audience and showing the world that computer games can be more difficult and can cause an emotional response from the player.
For this advertising, the most famous photographer of his time was hired Norman Siff And it turned out to be the most controversial advertising Electronic Arts. It took five hours to create such a photograph, and they were not in the best conditions. The studio was very hot, why John Fields even fainted during filming. Despite this, Hawkins made everyone dress in Fashionable At that time, black are the same jumper.
This advertisement is ambiguous by the fact that she did not sell the company’s games at all, although she cost a lot of money. For example, once Electronic arts literally Fought with BMW for an advertising place in the magazine “Scientific American»Only because one of the programmers from this photo – David Maynard, – All his life I dreamed of publishing in it. Readers of the magazine did not play games and, in fact, the company simply threw money for the sake of realizing the developer’s dreams.
More less than this approach to advertising https://wildzcasino.uk came only a guy by name Bill Baj. In the photo, he is striking because of a glove, which was not initially in the photoeal. Bill was going to go to the punk rock party in the evening and took the suit with him, which was noticed with the photographer. He insisted for a long time that Badge put on a leather glove without fingers.
Then Billy released a game-designer “Pinball Construction set“, Which has been reprinted from Electronic Arts and in terms of packaging clearly began to look much more pleasant, but the experience with a photo shoot gave the marketing department a vision that Billy Bally should be used as a maximum. Moreover, stories reached such an absurdity that over time, the young developer began to be embarrassed to participate in such events and decided to go into the development of software.
1 photo – the cover of the game before reprinting;2 photos – the cover of the game under the publishing house Electronic Arts;3 photos – Trip Hawkins and Bill Baj in advertising photography of the game
1 photo – the cover of the game before reprinting;2 photos – the cover of the game under the publishing house Electronic Arts;3 photos – Trip Hawkins and Bill Baj in advertising photography of the game
1 photo – the cover of the game before reprinting;2 photos – the cover of the game under the publishing house Electronic Arts;3 photos – Trip Hawkins and Bill Baj in advertising photography of the game
This approach to the advertising company turned out to be very impractical and Hawkins in the future clarifies that Electronic Arts then survived only by a miracle. Yes, she published such games as Mule, Worms, Murder on the Zinderneuf, Axis Assassin, Archon And Hard Hat Mack, But only three games from this list became popular, and one received a reward. All funds left literally At entertainment. But Hawkins knew how to adapt.
Since users did not greatly complain to the developers of the games, they were somehow purple, Hawkins decided to rehabilitate his children’s idea and set to find out the publication of sports games, attracting the sport stars in the form of advertising this time Julius Irving And Larry Burda, But it turned out only a one -time success of the company. A similar experience with the game “TouchDown Football“, On the contrary, doom the game for the expected failure.
TRIP and in this case decided to scratch the turnip, again closing on the topic “But how to promote games then?“. Apparently, Hawkins at that time did not leave the theme of American football and promotes his next idea not in basketball, despite the experience of working with Jordan, Namely in football. Then William had a vision that, probably, something was wrong with the game. The developers were not friends with sports and, no matter how much they tried, they still turned out to be mice. Therefore, initially the developers attended training teams in American football, and after Hawkins decided to attract a famous coach John Madden As a consultant.
At that time, Electronic Arts just got a working prototype of a new game that developers liked, but it was considered necessary to show John first. For several hours, Madden Mal this game and shouted very much at the developers, cursed with them, emotionally reacting to every slightest mistake inside the game.
For the sake of justice, the coach was not on the wall of peas shouted all his discontent and they were really useful when making amendments. Now guess how much there were changes to the stage of the release of the game in the percentage ratio? 30%? Maybe 50%? 95% of developments were subject to changes, in fact, forcing developers to create a new game! By the way, the efforts were not in vain and the game “John Madden Football“Turned out to be a bestseller, returning Electronic Arts Confidence and stable profit.
Console wars
In parallel, the wrong distribution of finance within the company, Electronic Arts had another problem: console wars, during which the publisher was lost on which platform to release games. During this period, the company comes to the company Larry Probst, who heads the sales department and in the future in this story will help the company bypassing distribution tricks and even blackmail Sega.
The main problem in the 80s is a huge number of platforms in the console market and their copies of no better quality. Initially, in general, Electronic Arts, like most developers, with a wary Poking with a stick In the console, they did not believe in their success, making games mainly for personal computers. They even temporarily had an emphasis on creating some software for a computer “Amiga“. But, relying primarily on the client base of platforms in quantitative terms, the company has to bend under the market.
Over time, the US console market begins to capture Japanese quality in the person “Nintendo“. The console was cheap, cool and popular, but for publishers and developers there was pain in the form of a typical tough policy for Japanese business. Japs usually do not stand on ceremony and either send you to three funny letters, or with caution decide on dialogue. In such conditions, Electronic Arts on the Nintendo console will come out Just a couple of games, and those through another Japanese intermediary in the person “Konami“.
Our hero’s video had a slightly different way and, under the guidance of Hawkins, Electronic Arts learns to quickly optimize the published games for other consoles, allowing himself to make a bunch of his own first reprints, just under another platform. This skill will allow the company to stay afloat for some time, but Trip Hawkins perfectly understood that you needed to have a stable platform for the publication of games. Making games for everything and was not so economically profitable.
The console from the new generation was an ideal solution for the company at that moment – “”Sega Genesis“, Known to someone as”Sega Mega Drive“. In these consoles there was the same processor as in personal computers Macintosh, Amiga And Atari ST, Experience with which Electronic Arts already had just a colossal. The company did not have technical difficulties at all with porting its games on a new platform.
Let in the future Hawkins, Probst and other employees say that this was the main reason for choosing SEGA as the main platform, They will lie. How, in general, and always. The reason was not only that games can easily be optimized. At that time, it was decided to create something similar to the filling inside the company Genesis/Mega Drive and develop software that allows Electronic Arts games to work bypassing SEGA licenses.
Realizing that such actions can lead to a protracted trial and have expensive consequences, the company still decides to use its knowledge as a literal method extortion SEGA has special conditions and concessions when publishing games. SEGA then, of course, was shocked by such a trick from the major American publisher, but still agreed Give them a license.
Such a decision, even if it was risky, but still in the future it will allow the SEGA console to a competitive level with Nintendo. Having a SEGA license, Electronic Arts will receive the title of the largest publisher of the beginning of the nineties, as he can afford to fall into the market three games a month at once during the whole year for the console Genesis/Mega Drive, Just reprinting your hits like “John Madden Football“.
Already in 1991, Hawkins will pay attention to the development of the console market and decide to occupy a niche of three-dimensional games, creating its console. In addition, there was also an understanding that in the future he would no longer allow him to use the same fraud that he was able to crank upSega“. That is why this will not be able to repeat this in the future, and that is why William had to go to another sphere of activity. He tried parallel to this to convince his investors to finance his new venture, but many doubted and refused to take risks. In the fall of the same year, Hawkins leaves the post of General Executive Director of Electronic Arts, founding a new company and after releasing the console on the market “3Do Interactive Multiplayer“.
By the way, Hawkins will show this console in a not quite successful time. It was not only more expensive than competitors, but also inferior to technically slightly later new consoles like “Sega Saturn“. By 1996, the console will be stopped in general, as the market will capture another Japanese giant.
Larry Probst
After Hawkins departure from his post, the obligation of the General Executive Director takes upon himself the previously mentioned head of the sales department Larry Probst. From now on, the company begins Review their attitude to the developers and the market in principle, and after that will be called this period “transition to a new phase“. Larry himself is now called a person who is called a person who saved Electronic Arts and made it the best. Players will be reverse and from the beginning of the two thousandth will be called the company “Evil Corporation“.
The whole ambiguity of the situation is that, from a commercial point of view, yes, the company will succeed and will actually come out Great games under the publishing house Electronic Arts, but the company’s behavior will begin to raise questions and hatred among players. The ideology of the company will change radically, like the General Director, since he had a completely different view of games. If Hawkins was still somehow interested in sports games and even though he tried to beat in his interests, then Larry had Cool attitude To the games. He denied them as a type of entertainment, art, and saw in them a simple conveyor goods, which can and should be beautifully presented and sold to the consumer.
Initially, the company was just a vision that the developers need financing and competent marketing, but Larry Probst from the first days as a general director will be obsessed with the idea that now the developers of games would be desirable to work under the wing of their company, which also needs to actively expand. Well, that is, there was an idea that it was time to redeem and integrate the studio. He saw this benefit because there would be new personnel to train or search for the company Economically less appropriate, rather than take under the dome.
Already in the same 91st year, Electronic Arts buys its first external development studio “DistINuctive Software“, Which in the future is reorganized into the unit”EA Canada“, Will become the most Long -year -old the acquisition of the company will develop well -known such many years of serial games as Need for Speed, NHL, NBA And FIFA. After this purchase, Larry will quickly realize that, buying a company, you can also press possible competitors in the market, establishing the dominance of their games. Parallel to this, such a brand as “EA Sports“. He will receive Exclusive rights to use the symbols of sports teams, the names and appearance of their current players, as well as the arenas.
Now, who would not cord, that this decision does not greatly close the competition in the market, but it is the exclusive rights of Electronic Arts that will not allow in a broad sense to move the company from leading positions. U “Visual Concepts“There will be sports games that are superior in some sense, but in sales they will not be able to collect as much as the crop could harvest at that time.
In the future, the company will acquire studios such as “Origin Systems“,”Maxis“,”Bullfrog“,”Westwood Studios“,”BioWare“,”Dice“And others. In the future, they will develop such games as SPORE, Sims And Ultima, But in this story I would like to focus not on the rights to games, not on future developments, but the consequences. Many studios acquired by Electronic Arts, in the future Closed. It looks like the company used and threw away everyone who does not make a profit.
Partly, it was actually. The studios were really closed because Disrupted some conditions or ceased to bring economic benefits, but this did not mean that all employees lost their jobs at once. As the game designers from Electronic Arts said, the company mainly disbanded the studios when I did not see the options to save it. There were strict violations of the deadlines on their part, and tried to attach existing developers to some similar work. For example, they are thus former developers from “Bullfrog“Not three funny letters were sent, but to the EA unit in the UK, where they also created games.
Developers from “BioWare“They will also tell in the future that they had serious problems until the moment of joining Electronic Arts, but this is exactly the phenomenon (connection) will not affect their decision. Initially, the company will not try to influence the studio at all, but then EA forced EA transfer Studio Games for other platforms. BioWare then made games with the intentions that Here is this game They will only have for “Xbox“, A This one – Only for personal computers. But Electronic Arts will convince that their games have greater potential on other platforms.
It was in this case that there was an example of purely business cooperation. The studios, of course, really did not like the short periods of work, they considered financing not always sufficient, there were some disagreements, but all misunderstandings about the conditions of the task of completing the task. The developers will after noting that Electronic Arts in no way did not interfere in the process itself and they had sufficient Spacious for creativity. There was a clear vision: here we publish, set conditions and help, and you – develop on time!
Of course, such not always appropriate acquisitions, as it was in the case of “Pandemic“, There will be their consequences. In more successful, there were also problems and over time eminent developers left home and this was augered by a headache for the company. When people like people leave the company like Peter Moligne, Richard Garriot And Will Wright, then on the part of the community to the company will slowly be oblique eyes, as this will affect the quality of future games.
Otherwise, the times of managing the company Larry Probst will differ only in that the company will create the first during this time Perennial And strong Sports franchises, on which Electronic Arts is now collecting quite a lot of money due to lobboxes, cards and other donated heresies. He will also try to win a European market that will be a little less than half of the company’s total profit, and then even play out and decides to buy almost twenty percent of the shares “Ubisoft“In 2004, he will try to pull for some threads for the future development, but all this will once again result in a crisis, there will be serious disagreements inside Electronic Arts, and in 2007 Larry Francis Probst will be forced to leave his duties and Leave the company.
John Richitello
Already at the end of February, in the chair of the chief executive director of Electronic Arts, another one will sit Cold to games entrepreneur – John Richitello. He will be the same president of the company, who simply sees Benjamin Franklin’s face in games, but with a bit of other views. From the first days in a new position, Richitello will lead a serious reorganization and reformation of the company and divide it into brands: “”EA Games“,”EA Sports” And “The Sims Studio“. I think to disperse about “Sims»I do not need and you understand how much money this game brings to the company. Just the story of this game alone, its development and description of monetization methods by a third will increase the volume of material.
The new policy of Richitello will not bring the instant profit of the company in large quantities, but will make you feel like on the last outburst in the first years. A year after the appointment of John will occur World financial crisis, which of course will hurt Electronic arts too. Such unpleasant news from this world will entail significant losses in the company and, as a result, a reduction in personnel. The first to go, naturally, not the most profitable, but in the first two years will be Fired already 2600 employees.
Despite the abbreviations, at the same time Richitello will begin to stare at some studios and try to buy them. And this is all despite the fact that John declared about his own hostility to the ransom of other studios and that he is like to look primarily for new ideas. And “at”Take-Two“At this time there will be a small inner crisis. There the story of falsification of financial reports will be revealed there, the executive director will change and the game community with shareholders will have big questions about the future “GTA IV“. At this moment, Electronic Arts will just put your eyes on Take-Two and will aggressively try to buy a competitor.
It all started with a personal letter in Take-Two. Richitello will send him directly Strauss is a potion and will offer the price already $ 25 per share, While the exchange was 16 $ per share. Strauss, in turn, is very short, just in a word, and will clearly answer John: “”No“.
Richitello, as an entrepreneur, did not understand such impudence a little and how was it a refusal if the company is on the verge and its “Need to save“. Naturally, since it was not possible to buy Take-Two for good, you will have to act bad: John Raises the price for the action already For the dollar, Thus, raising the total amount to two billion dollars, and also sends an open letter to the company, where, in fact, it begins to paint what benefits for all parties with a general agreement for such a deal can be.
Firstly, Richitello first of all in the letter will hit the opponent’s shareholders and will inspire them about the risks and usefulness of contributions to the promotion if the company buys Electronic Arts, also reminding about financial and legal problems from Take-Two. And of course, it was nothing more simple manipulation. If the company had real risks and problems, Richitello himself did not find eggs to invest in this purchase. The crisis is in the courtyard, his company incurs losses, and he decided to make such an expensive purchase! He simply wanted to attract the attention of the shareholders in such a way that they were worried and began to kick Straus. But in the end, Strauss himself delicately kicked John, postponing the deal.
Yes, there will be such moments that many are shocking the decision of the director of Take-Two, and the company itself will sit for several years with zero yield and she will be pressed for the lack of promising releases in the future. There will be some kind of damage to the company from the rest of the companies: after an offer from Electronic Arts, other companies also started hint, What they would like to purchase Take-Two, which is why the legs of the shareholders will begin to tremble even more and they will be divided into two camps: some sold their shares as soon as possible, while others filed a lawsuit against Take-Two.
Since the market began to appear on the market Take-Two, Electronic Arts will again remind you of its intention to buy a company $ 26 per share, Only already investors. Strauss, of course, will ask the shareholders to wait and disagree with Electronic Arts, but after the release “GTA IV“Still, he will begin to insure himself and see in this benefit for himself. Well, at least because after the release of Take-Two they began to cost enough than Richitello proposed.
Of course, further Take-Two will have even greater problems, but this does not make sense to disperse, because shortly after the release of GTA IV Electronic Arts will reconsider its proposal and will cancel the deal, Since her own financial problems will no longer allow you to fall off such an amount. By the way, after two years they will remember that they are holders of twenty percent of the shares “Ubisoft“And they will sell them too.
During this period, Electronic Arts will also be experimenting with the purchase of two developers of games for mobile devices and these transactions will be successful, but the company will not bring an intelligence benefit. To get out of the crisis situation, Richitello will decide to go into the digital model of the distribution of his products, which just became the standard.
True, Electronic Arts will not dare to conduct business with “Valve“, Posting their games in”Steam“. No, they were published there for some time, but they did not like the conditions. Therefore, already in 2011, it will launch its online service for selling games for personal computers already directly to the consumer with the ironic name “Origin“. Either there wasn’t enough money for Neyming and decided to take the name a long-purchased studio, or they simply decided to at least somewhere to pay tribute to the developers from the studio that remained to work with EA. For their development of the game Electronic Arts is fair or not, but they will fly out under the ass from the library of the store “Steam“.
After all this bustle, two years later, having more or less normalized the life of the company, Richitello will look at the work done and think that it was time to leave. In principle, he fulfilled his task and now boring to sit in the chair of the executive director somehow boring. Moreover, parallel to this were already ready for the release of the new generation of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and Richitello did not really want to mess with this and still decided to leave the post of executive director, not even remaining in the Council of Directors. On the same day, by the way, the chairman of the board of directors Electronic Arts is already familiar to us Larry Probst.
Andrew Wilson – CEO of EA these days
In September 2013, a new General Executive Director of the company has already been appointed- Andrew Wilson. He is the director of the company so far and with him the time begins to merciless monetization of games. Since then there is already a story a little closer to our days, I ask you to take into account that I decided to emphasize not on all possible news about Electronic Arts, but on those because of which my fifth point with a certain frequency begins to ignite. And even more so, the history of our days is still written and information about it is much more difficult, especially when you have a subjective negative view of the company.
As before, the first thing, when appointing the director of Electronic Arts, Wilson announces the next reorganization of the company, during which there was again a reduction in personnel in the company and work lost more than 10% of employees. In the course of his reforms, Andrew will also close, if not everything, then most of the available Free-to-Play projects of the company.
Well, right! Why is free and with microtransactions, if you can pay for the game and even more – for Lutboxes!
In fact, the entire period of Wilson’s rule can be described by the phrase “Reprint and monetize“. Some games will come out that the company’s PR department will persistently plow like The most expected game decades, but they are all doomed to failure. What are worth “Anthem“And even our today”Battlefield“, Which we do not understand simply because we have a country of game impotent.
But we are still interested in moments when Electronic Arts is simply not able to create something new and tries to reprint something that they already have. So they did earlier, acquiring Exclusive rights U “Disney“To develop games in the universe”Star wars“. This will come out only because Disney closed its own development of games in this universe from “Lucasfilm Games“, Now called as”Lucasarts“.
So, having a license “Disney“On the Universe, Electronic Arts gets the right to just take the existing game from the two thousand fourth years”Star Wars: Battlefront“, To process it under modern requirements and renew it as it is.
Star Wars: Battlefront 2004. and 2015.
Star Wars: Battlefront 2004. and 2015.
And this is not the last experience of modern Electronic Arts at all! More recently, for example, the company announced a new, The revolutionary series of games by student American football, which will definitely be a copy of the already existing series of games “NCAA Football“, Just with a different name. Now they also announced Remaster of the trilogy “Mass Effect“And consider the series”Battlefield»Like games that make sense to release every two years. And most importantly, this game can be introduced even more elements for donat!
I am not in vain since the beginning of this part I disperse about monetization, as this is a sore topic for all of us, for which we do not love Electronic Arts very much. In recent years, this topic was the most loud news around the company, especially at the exit “Star Wars: Battlefront II“. This dispute will reach such an absurdity that the company will decide to give Official comment About microtransactions inside the game on “Reddit“And this playful act will consolidate the company in history as the author of the most incorrect post in the history of the network and will fall into the Guinness Book of Records.
At first, Electronic Arts defended their new microtransaction systems, telling what well done they are and want to cause the player a sense of pride for unlocking each character. For money. Then they will argue their position with the words that in this way they allow many players to save time and get a character for a fee, and not knock it out for hours, but an entire basket there is overdue candy there. In fact, on microtransactions in the form of all sorts of players’ cards “FIFA“And Lutboxes, the company makes a profit about one and a half billion every year!
And no matter how marketer and director of the company tell us that the case of “Star Wars: Battlefront II»For them was valuable experience, they noticed the community reaction and will not be anymore, sometimes Andrew Wilson forgets to drink pills for lies, telling that the company Not going to refuse from micallors and will use them there, where is it possible.
In general, I would call Andrew Wilson not the most adequate general director in principle. This is my subjective judgment. Under his control, Electronic Arts since the first year in the director’s chair begins to bend under the agenda. Here, it seems to me, possible reasons not in marketing, but in the left -handed views of the manager. In 2013, I do not remember such a cult around LGBT,* no one has yet been considered and reacted to threats on their part with them, but Wilson had a reverse opinion. From the first days in a new position, he announces that Electronic Arts will begin to take an active part in LGBT parades from this year and even receive the title of best work for LGBT Person. I will only say in Wilson’s defense that this title of EA will receive a couple of times with Richitello.
Now the situation with the support of LGBT generally reaches the next absurdity and the level of the comedy of the 2000s. The vice-president of the company in serious drove this year stated that Games – This is more non -industrial for gamers, And a new platform for self -expression and manifestation of support, for example, BLM and LGBT movements that now need it so much. Apparently, the company believes so much in this position that even became a partner of the first “Rainbow“Game Prize”Gaymbing Awards“.
In May of next year (2022), Electronic Arts will celebrate its 40th anniversary. I don’t know how she will spend it. Maybe a unscheduled unconventional parade will arrange. Or maybe it will finally close. I don’t want to disperse and make a conclusion about this topic now, since you probably have your own opinion at this company, you can argue with me about many of my subjective statements and views on the situation. And besides, this company personally causes me mixed feelings. I remember the pleasant moments of the game in the old Electronic Arts releases, and the terrible imposition of DLC purchases in new games.
* The activities of the International Public Movement of LGBT are recognized as extremist and is prohibited in the Russian Federation