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Post by Battlechantress on Apr 17, 2012 4:35:40 GMT 1
Depending on who you want to believe, they are either about to start layoffs or will be "reshuffling" (read: lying before laying off) up to 1,000 people. EA on the brink?Could this be their excuse to make DA3 even worse than 2? Time will tell. This message was brought to you by the generic form of whatever drug I've been given which is making it difficult to type coherent sentences without several... corrections. Yeah. Faceplant. Still having a "WTF?" moment after watching the season premiere of "Eureka".
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Post by jklinders on Apr 17, 2012 9:57:14 GMT 1
Thought about posting that except EA was in denial about it. Word was TOR was part of the reason.
Whoring off their Origin client was part of the problem too. You don't piss off a consumer base as big as Steam's without repercussions.
I doubt they are in serious trouble though.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 18, 2012 15:18:47 GMT 1
Meh, this sort stuff seems normal. Corperations and business come and go, it's a fact of life in general. Although I would be surprised if EA was going underground before 2020. And I would also be surprised if BioWare managed to stay in business for 35 years.
The only other game company that I know that lasted exactly 35 years is Melbourne House. The guys who made Shadowrun (RPG on the SNES), Way of the Exploding Fist, Ty the tasmanian tiger, etc. They don't have a large reception like BioWare but they managed to hold out before they carked it, along with the rest of the other Aussie game studios, that were all affected by the aussie video game development crash. But yeah, if BioWare can't hit that mark, I think that's pretty sad imo. A once-stella developer that was outlasted by average game studio. The point is that, to stay in business for 35 is a feat itself, especially a software company. Again, I don't think BioWare has the chops pull that feat.
But back to the topic, I think ToR plays a big factor to their finacial problems, due to production cost are higher than they could recuperlate to bring back the losses. ME3 had also made a small dent to their profit, from what I have heard about a ToR guild master was having trouble to keep his guild afloat due to 60% - 70% of his members quitting over ME3. There are a few ligit reasons why they quiting besides the heated boycott, like technical issues that they could not handle. Also the sitaution with ToR will likely to go worse, with WoW still going strong and Guild Wars 2 on the horizon.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Apr 18, 2012 19:45:18 GMT 1
The only future i can see is that TOR will go free-to=play and have options to do micro=purchases.
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Post by Knightfall on Apr 20, 2012 8:24:10 GMT 1
Which sucks, because I still think TOR is a pretty good game. If you're a fan of KotOR, you'll be giggling with delight through most of the Sith storyline. (I totally was.) They just made a horrendous miscalculation by thinking what they had was enough to satisfy the hardcore MMO crowd. The PVP was deplorable, you had to sit through twenty loading screens to get anywhere, and the sidequests got a little stale compared to the main quest. And you had to play the sidequests to play the main quest.
Really, they should've just made KotOR 3. They'd probably be sitting on more money than they've made off TOR (which is still zero at this point).
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Apr 20, 2012 9:16:00 GMT 1
I enjoyed TOR as well and to be honest, if you think away the other people it;s just KOTOR 3 really. Except a lot longer. I did enjoy the flashpoints though.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 20, 2012 10:40:50 GMT 1
Really, they should've just made KotOR 3. They'd probably be sitting on more money than they've made off TOR (which is still zero at this point). Another reason why they shouldn't make an MMO in the first place. The probably of being at least on the par with WoW is almost nil, unless you're aiming for a niche market... which is what BioWare and EA didn't have in mind, all they have is to tackle Blizzard for the MMO crown. Not a good idea at this time.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Apr 20, 2012 10:54:07 GMT 1
Guild Wars 2 seems to be doing good and they are still at the beta.
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Post by jklinders on Apr 20, 2012 13:00:37 GMT 1
Saying they made zero money on TOR is giving waaaay too much credit. They are still a couple hundred million in the hole right now on it.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 20, 2012 13:06:16 GMT 1
Saying they made zero money on TOR is giving waaaay too much credit. They are still a couple hundred million in the hole right now on it. Ouch. That's seemed to be harsh Linders. But truth is the thuth, even it's a hard cold one at that.
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Post by jklinders on Apr 20, 2012 13:09:57 GMT 1
Their stock dropped for a reason Till. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Bioware did not meet projections on ME 3 either. The bean counters will need someone to blame. If C&C Generals 2 crashes which in all likelihood it will because that whole franchise has sucked forever then Bioware will likely get broken up into smaller pieces as part of some kind of restructuring.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 20, 2012 13:21:36 GMT 1
Yeah, true. I can't argue with that, but the way you worded sounded more painful than the krogan who can feel the genophage in their reproductive system.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Apr 20, 2012 13:52:31 GMT 1
Think Bioware should move to poland and get bought by CD Project or Warner Brother games?
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Post by jklinders on Apr 20, 2012 14:10:00 GMT 1
Well several of their best writers have jumped ship and either left the business altogether or are working on other stuff. The writing is right there for folks who are willing to read it...
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 20, 2012 14:22:32 GMT 1
First it's Chris E'Lotole, the guy who was responsible for Thane's character in ME2, then Drew and then other writers that we yet to know. And taking my bets, Patrick Weekes is going to throw the towel in and calling it. I can see that.
Hence I agree that writing is on the wall. It's a matter of time when shit hits the fan.
Although, hearing how writer's have left the game industry had made me a tad worried. Will the future games continue to have moving stories or at least encouraged the new generation to put more effort into the narrative? Because so far we're still behind films and literature in terms of storytelling quarlity. So far, only a handful of mainsteam games have a decent story arcs that I know of in this gen. (Including Witcher series.)
Reason why I've said that because apart from Witcher, there's too little games that are decent RPGs. Someone asked the other day if there's an alternative to ME games and from the said thread, only a handful of games of this gen pops up. The rest of the majority of the list are either not RPGs or older games, from a time when there's lot more RPGs in the scene.
I really hope that the indie wave takes over the scene very soon, otherwise we'll going to deal more dull mainstream games, that still put the empathsis of game mechanics over storytelling techniques.
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