Games Industry Discussion

[Zello]

https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/26/electronic-arts-lays-off-350-people-the-most-under-ceo-andrew-wilson/

 

EA layoffs

 

Sorry for the double post

[Tchuck]

Expected. EA had massive marketing etc departments, and those are becoming more and more redundant in today's world. Why have a whole team of 20 people doing marketing, if all you need is cash to put in the hands of influencers and call it a day? 

 

"Thankfully" the game teams were intact in this round.

[Tchuck]

Double post, but f*ck it.

 

Here's the actual reason why Anthem failed and BioWare is sh*t.

 

And look at that! It wasn't because evil EA forced them to be sh*t!

[Static]

Not sure how you got that out of the article when half of it is about the issues of trying to use frostbite and that it even mentions that the whole "use frostibite or else" was a company wide initiative led by Söderlund.

 

So yeah sure, EA aren't responsible for the dumpster fire, but they sure as sh*t didn't help any.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Static

[Jason]

Well, everything EA touches right now is turning to sh*t. The only good press they've had since f*cking Dragon Age Inquisition is Apex Legends. They've had the worst E3 conference every year for the past I don't even know now, their sports games are infested with lootboxes and have declined quality wise according to both players and critics. NFS might as well be shelved, DICE have lost their golden touch, The Sims hasn't been relevant in yonks but knowing that franchise it's probably doing alright sales wise. And then to make matters worse they have a golden goose of an IP in Star Wars but all they've done with it is shag it up a wall.

 

Out of all their studios the only one that's performing is Respawn and that is purely because Apex has been a smash hit, Titanfall is also a massive flop.

 

The one thing all these failing studios have in common is that they're owned by EA (and use Frostbite!), that doesn't just happen to be a coincidence. EA have got them selves and almost all their studios right up sh*ts creek and lets be honest, we all know why: $$$

[Tchuck]

3 hours ago, Static said:

Not sure how you got that out of the article when half of it is about the issues of trying to use frostbite and that it even mentions that the whole "use frostibite or else" was a company wide initiative led by Söderlund.

Objection!

 

BioWare in 2013 decided by themselves to move forward using Frostbite for their games.

 

And a GM for BioWare came out and said Frostbite was their own decision, not mandated by EA.

 

Anthem is failing because BioWare has ridiculous development practices. Absolutely ridiculous. They spent 5 years just dicking about. A year and a half from release, and they didn't even have a mission implemented.

 

2 hours ago, Jason said:

The one thing all these failing studios have in common is that they're owned by EA (and use Frostbite!), that doesn't just happen to be a coincidence. EA have got them selves and almost all their studios right up sh*ts creek and lets be honest, we all know why: $$$

Correlation != Causation. EA bought them because they were successful. EA gave them big, big money to develop the games that they wanted to develop. Titanfall 1 and 2 were solid games. They didn't sell as well as they could, despite EA pouring tons of marketing dollars in it. Is it EA's fault? Apex came out of nowhere and made big money. 

 

EA doesn't get studios up sh*t creek. It gives them the paddle and finances their canoe. The studios themselves will get themselves there.

[Jason]

20 minutes ago, Tchuck said:

EA doesn't get studios up sh*t creek. It gives them the paddle and finances their canoe. The studios themselves will get themselves there.

And EA owns those studios. If their studios aren't performing it then falls onto them to sort it out. I understand that EA gives them a fair bit of freedom to make what they want as long as it has a monetisation plan but I mean like, almost all of EA's studios are flopping. Does that mean EA can just go "welp, not our fault, we gave them the freedom they needed"? No, not really IMO. It's on them as much as it's own the studios.

 

Their sports titles ongoing lootbox shenanigans, Battlefront 1's lack of SP campaign, Battlefront 2's P2W stuff, Battlefield V's whole PR disaster, Anthem's complete disaster, Titanfall murdering its self with poorly picked release dates - apparently a Respawn decision, but again EA should be taking charge here, that was a bad release date and everybody knew it. Every game they release right now has some sort of train wreck to go along with it, usually multiple.

 

There's no smoke without fire and all that. Something is wrong at EA from top to bottom.

 

As for Frostbite it's a funny coincidence that almost every other studio has switched to Frostbite but it was apparently totally BioWare's decision. Again, that's a whole other no smoke without fire situation. If every EA studio is switching to Frostbite even if it's to make a game not really suited to the engine without significant work then yea, it is only natural and understandable that people will assume EA are pushing Frostbite onto their studios.

[Tchuck]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

And EA owns those studios. If their studios aren't performing it then falls onto them to sort it out. I understand that EA gives them a fair bit of freedom to make what they want as long as it has a monetisation plan but I mean like, almost all of EA's studios are flopping. Does that mean EA can just go "welp, not our fault, we gave them the freedom they needed"? No, not really IMO. It's on them as much as it's own the studios.

They own, but they are essentially run as independent studios. BioWare decides what they're gonna work on. Respawn decides what they're gonna work on. They have all their hierarchies, their leads, their directors, their producers, who decided how the game will be done. EA is essentially the publisher to the majority of studios they own. They fund their games, and they reap the benefits. If BioWare f*cks up, it's not EA's evil fault.

 

And it makes sense to keep these studios operating independently in that manner. EA bought them for a reason: they have a track record of developing good games, so it's fair to believe that they were going to continue developing good games. So instead of adjusting them to the EA way of making games, it's better to let them do their thing while keeping an eye on it. 

 

Which isn't what people tend to think when they think EA. In the average gamer's mind, EA is some hellspawn that buys studios and corporatizes everything so that they are run the EA way, killing their creativity and whatnot. But in reality, EA buys the studio, changes very little in their processes, and gives them funding for their next project. 

 

9 minutes ago, Jason said:

Their sports titles ongoing lootbox shenanigans, Battlefront 1's lack of SP campaign, Battlefront 2's P2W stuff, Battlefield V's whole PR disaster, Anthem's complete disaster, Titanfall murdering its self with poorly picked release dates - apparently a Respawn decision, but again EA should be taking charge here, that was a bad release date and everybody knew it. Every game they release right now has some sort of train wreck to go along with it, usually multiple.

Well, their sports titles still are their golden goose, Battlefront 1's lack of SP was dice's choice, ditto for BF2 P2W stuff (they were headed by some pretty money hungry people at the time), Anthem was BioWare's own doing with their horrible development practices, Titanfall again not EA's choice.. What was EA supposed to do? If they give the studios they bought the freedom to make the games they want to make, people will complain EA didn't do enough to help development; if they tell studios what to do and how to do, people will complain that EA is breathing down devs' necks and not giving them freedom to make the game they want to make. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

11 minutes ago, Jason said:

There's no smoke without fire and all that. Something is wrong at EA from top to bottom.

Sure, but pick into the failures, look at the development teams, look at the decisions that they made. My point is that these games that failed/were rushed, failed not because of EA being evil and greedy; but failed because development processes failed. Failed because the studios themselves made bad choices. sh*t, the flying mechanic in Anthem, one of the few things people actually like, was actually a suggestion by EA execs! The whole BioWare team on Anthem was refusing to look at other games to see how things were being done. Refused to take advice from other studios. What is EA supposed to do? 

 

13 minutes ago, Jason said:

As for Frostbite it's a funny coincidence that almost every other studio has switched to Frostbite but it was apparently totally BioWare's decision. Again, that's a whole other no smoke without fire situation. If every EA studio is switching to Frostbite even if it's to make a game not really suited to the engine without significant work then yea, it is only natural and understandable that people will assume EA are pushing Frostbite onto their studios.

Of course, people will assume lots of things. Without access to the facts, that's all that they are; assumptions. EA has a stake in having their studios using Frostbite, as it spreads the development costs of the engine through multiple games, and saves money from licensing other stuff. But there's no mandate. And blaming an engine for the failure of a game is also shortsighted. Sure, Ragtag had a lot of issues with Frostbite; but these are minimal in comparison to their many other issues. Sure, BioWare had issues with Frostbite in Andromeda and Anthem; but these were minimal compared to the lack of direction, lack of decision, lack of consistency, terrible development practices, refusal to seek advice.

 

sh*t, BioWare Austin developed The Old Republic. They had valuable experience in knowing how to handle multiplayer RPGs and sh*t. BioWare Edmonton refused to communicate with them and exchange ideas about how to realize certain aspects of design...

[Jason]

Fair points but personally I can't agree that EA are blameless. Yea, giving their studios independence is great but say if I was in charge of EA and all of my studios flopping, regardless of reason, I'd damn sure do something about it. This isn't a new problem either, it's been on-going all generation pretty much.

 

Independence is great when it works but when it's not working you need to reel some things in.

[Zello]

On 2/9/2019 at 5:28 AM, Zello said:

Sooo...when is Bioware shutting down?

[Tchuck]

22 minutes ago, Jason said:

Fair points but personally I can't agree that EA are blameless. Yea, giving their studios independence is great but say if I was in charge of EA and all of my studios flopping, regardless of reason, I'd damn sure do something about it. This isn't a new problem either, it's been on-going all generation pretty much.

 

Independence is great when it works but when it's not working you need to reel some things in.

Oh yeah, EA aren't blameless at all. I agree totally with you, they should have stepped in and fixed things. Remove that madwoman from Ragtag and mandate how the process will be. Fire the heads of BioWare who have been instituting terrible development practices, and bring someone in to fix things.

 

I know for Battlefront 2, they did step in. When it became clear that the microtransactions model was just pure hot garbage (and, actually, crafted and decided by DICE), they brought in some lady whose name escapes me to redirect the focus and try to fix things. 

 

22 minutes ago, Zello said:

Sooo...when is Bioware shutting down?

They'll probably wait to see if Anthem makes some kind of money. And wait for the release of DA4. If that doesn't fixes things... Yeah.

[Jason]

Apparently DA4 was announced without EA's blessing as well? Yet more whatthef*ckery going on at BioWare.

 

I don't see them binning BioWare to be honest though. I mean what do they do if they bin BioWare? Who's left after that point? Respawn, DICE and EA Sports studios? I know they have a few other ones like Ghost, Maxis etc but multi-platform AAA wise BioWare is one of their most important studios. If I were them I'd straight up just get them back to making what they know, SP RPG's. Single player games can be incredibly successful, Ubisoft always do very well with them for example, and they can be great for PR for a multitude of reasons, EA's reliance on multiplayer was always going to come back to haunt them eventually I think. There's a real case of AAA MP burn out around at the moment IMO.

[Tchuck]

I think they'd keep BioWare Austin as it is, but BioWare Edmonton would at least go through some massive restructuring. Trim down the staff, and focus on one game at a time. Andromeda, Anthem, and DA4 kind of had overlapping development periods, right? I'd wager they'd get BioWare Edmonton to focus on one IP, and shuffle the others around. Absorb some of the talent into the other studios too.

[Zello]

 

 

Fox saying something positive about games.

[BLOOD]

On 4/18/2019 at 8:07 AM, Zello said:

 

 

Fox saying something positive about games.

And Not fake news...wow 👍

[Jason]

Sounds like Apex is stuttering massively. They simply aint able to keep up with what Epic are doing with Fortnite I don't think. That and IMO the game doesn't lend it's self very well to the more improv and "watch this" style gameplay that Fortnite nails. Apex has to be played like a proper FPS, and in a BR setting that kills a lot of the replay value IMO.

 

EA are back up sh*t's creek then.

[BLOOD]

With a market capitalization of $960 billion or nearly $1 Trillion and a cash of $150 billion, Microsoft can buy Activision Blizzard, EA, Take-Two, Sony, and Nintendo combined three times. 

 

Anyway, I want Netflix to use its stock currency- a stock market capitalization of $170 billion- and buyout a publicly traded US video game company (I keep saying this every year now). 

Edited April 23, 2019 by BLOOD

[BLOOD]

Breaking News! 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-close-trillion-dollar-value-214025003.html

Edited April 24, 2019 by BLOOD

[Guest]

Wait wait wait... The US Government is really moving against microtransactions and lootboxes?

For the moment it seems like this law (still in an early stage) will have an impact just on games played by minors (PEGI <18/ESRB <17 I guess). If you want, there's Kotaku's article: https://kotaku.com/u-s-senator-introduces-bill-to-ban-loot-boxes-and-pay-1834612226

 

According to rumors FIFA 20 is going to have a deathmatch mode, 22 players on the pitch split into 2 teams will try their best for killing their opponents.

Mhh, but they could also proceed for the "naked route" for obtaining that 18+ rate, they wouldn't even have to pay licences for jerseys at that point! But it might be a problem to ask players if they want a very accurate version of themselves in the game...

[Zello]

Hey BLOOD where are you? I miss you man.

[BLOOD]

@Zello  thank you, miss you too and everyone...mobile version not working for me. Social Point released its second title of 2019 yesterday, Word Life which is their first venture into puzzle. Loot Boxes and MTX ban will destroy Activision Blizzard and EA -both with terrible reputations and declining franchises- making Take-Two (which have many divisions with great brand loyal) become the largest publicly traded game company. GO TTWO, onward to $300.00!

[BLOOD]

Social Point's Word Life is the best puzzle game on the market right now which i downloaded (interesting i had to uninstall another puzzle game Wordscape). With that said, their first title of 2019, Tasty Town have been downloaded 1 million times on the Google Play since launching nearly four months ago.  I said years ago, Social Point could add $5 billion plus into Take-Two's valuation  and increase annual revenue years from now and that no double going to happen. Go TTWO!

 

Note: I am buying Red Dead Redemption 2 again later this summer. 

Edited May 12, 2019 by BLOOD

[BLOOD]

TTWO's Q4 2019 is here ladies and gentlemen. Updating the thread with financials and release news will be more appreciated. Go TTWO!

[Jabalous]

The market has been crazy since late 2018. The upside momentum since the start of 2019 has been unbelievable and volatility has now returned. I expect a negative reaction in the share price of TTWO after hours. Apart from Borderlands, the next worthy catalyst for Take2 would either be a purchase of a label of a good quality, or of course Grand Theft Auto VI. Red Dead Online isn't meant to flourish in anyway to how Grand Theft Auto Online flourished, and it's for obvious reasons. I don't see much upside for the company in the near future beyond its peak valuation, and the same situation for the other publishers (i.e. EA and ATVI).   

[BLOOD]

$3b in revenue 2020, $3b in cash in 2020 currently $2.5b from $1.6b. Take-Two wants to invest in acquiring studios for all of its labels and even diversifying (oh Social Point will now contribute 10% from 5%). M&A activities is starting with their crown jewel label- Rockstar Games: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-05-13-rockstar-acquires-dhruva-from-starbreeze-for-usd7-9m

 

GO TTWO! (I expect them to surpass EA in valuation soon).

Edited May 13, 2019 by BLOOD

[Jason]

That Rockstar acquisition is all Rockstar's doing I suspect. It's literally a near 300 man studio built to create art and assets for video games, which is becoming the main hurdle in AAA development. They've got a fantastic CV as well having done work for games like Forza Horizon, Days Gone, Spider-Man and Halo 5.

 

Wonder if a reason for that acquisition is because they need the extra manpower to assist in creating multiple cities in an upcoming game? 🤔

 

In other Rockstar news, GTA V is up to 110m copies sold and RDR2 at 24m. That's 1m copies sold since the last report in February, so I think it's fair to say RDR2's lost it's legs. RDO's dismal display probably not helping there either.

[BLOOD]

12 hours ago, Jason said:

That Rockstar acquisition is all Rockstar's doing I suspect. It's literally a near 300 man studio built to create art and assets for video games, which is becoming the main hurdle in AAA development. They've got a fantastic CV as well having done work for games like Forza Horizon, Days Gone, Spider-Man and Halo 5.

 

Wonder if a reason for that acquisition is because they need the extra manpower to assist in creating multiple cities in an upcoming game? 🤔

 

In other Rockstar news, GTA V is up to 110m copies sold and RDR2 at 24m. That's 1m copies sold since the last report in February, so I think it's fair to say RDR2's lost it's legs. RDO's dismal display probably not helping there either.

RDO's six month in market is doing way better than GTAO in its own six months according to Take-Two. RDR2 did not lost its leg probably a bit of competition and price changes, heck ATVI and EA will kill to have a game released after six months do 24 million copies and slow down 😁.

 

Rockstar Games' last acquisition was 11 years ago buying the studio now known as Rockstar New England. They already formed their own studio in India three years ago- Rockstar India which have 500 employees, Dhruva will increase that to ~1,000 in Rockstar India alone. Plus this could be preceding Take-Two buying 9 Story which will be kept separate from Rockstar and 2K's media ventures. On 2K, the label already gaining from parent company's investment with Hangar 13 UK (Brighton), and the new unnamed 2K studio in Silicon Valley headed by Michael Condrey. Private Division their Indie-centric label (business division) will make its own small acquisition soon. That leave Social Point which is a complete free-to-play company with 360 employees, they dont want to expand through acquisitions like their sister labels (divisions) but i can see the co-CEOs changing their mind about that strategy even though i like the way they divide their employees into mini-teams which is paying off with new hits like Tasty Town, and the best puzzle game ever- Word Life. The labels do whatever they want as long as they make money for the holding parent company at the end of the day. Best corporate structure EVER (yeah i apologise for criticizing that in the past).

 

Take-Two Interactive is the best publicly traded company right now!

 

(Note: Totally immune and not dependent on Loot Boxes and MTX which SZ even stated during the call)

Edited May 14, 2019 by BLOOD

[BLOOD]

Take-Two is now a wall street darling after two decades. Congratulations to Strauss Zelnick and 5,000 unmatched talent.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/two-analysts-conservative-forecast-good-123253494.html

 

(Note: an new all time high incoming. GO TTWO!)

Edited May 14, 2019 by BLOOD

[BLOOD]

Happy 2nd Anniversary to my greatest contribution in GTAForums. Thank you all.

[Zello]

What happened to this thread? Where is Blood? I need his thoughts on the R* North taxes situation.