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Electronic Arts' Domination Of The Market - Bad?
Will writes "A recent article at Gamemethod makes claims about how big companies can squash the little guy, and good gaming along with it: 'With almost 600 million dollars in sales in 2003(not including December), and 20% of the entire market, Electronic Arts is a developing and publishing powerhouse... Why should you be worried that EA rules the American gaming market and dominates sales? Well, if EA becomes too large of a force in the industry, it has some potentially damaging side effects that will hurt us, the consumers.'" It goes on to specify that "competition breeds creativity", suggesting "there's a problem when EA has enough money to buy out any studios that bring out a hit game", and concluding that "the progress of games as a medium will continue, but at a snail's pace in comparison to the previous years of fierce competition."
20% isn't enough of a market share for EA to truly dominate the videogame industy. Compare this to the 90% share of the OS market that Microsoft has... or the 50+% share of the console market that Sony has. While EA is a 900 pound gorilla, we're nowhere close to them 0wn1n9 us all. As far as I can recall EA has never stifled the creativity of the industry... (and no, I don't work for EA)
More of an issue is that games are so much more expensive now that anyone willing to invest the money at all to cover a development budget is likely to be a lot less willing to take risks. Which usually means churning out clones. I remember watching (and working on) the Ultima series when it went from Richard Garriott churning out an entire game with just hard work (and a little help with the music from his buddy Ken Arnold), to a $50,000 budget for Ultima 5, to a $250,000 budget for Ultima 6, then on up into the millions. Ultima 9 was well into the tens of millions from what I've heard.
The only way a game company is likely to take a risk on a totally new type of gameplay with multi-million dollar budgets is if they have a "name" developer like Sid Meier or Will Wright. A few of the shareware and budgetware and college student developers that aren't busy churning out clones of Tetris, Pacman, and Shanghai will turn out new things from time to time. But of course they'll never have the flashy graphics of the big expensive titles. Want to look for and/or support innovation? Download some of their work. Maybe someday the mainstream game industry will develop something like the Independent Film world, though so far they haven't gotten too far in that direction (just one festival, the IGF). While having a few big publishers rather than a lot of little publishers might lead to less creativity in games...
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At the basic level, I only buy games that I know I like or in a series that are now sentimental favorites of mine. The only EA games I think I have are 2 from the SSX snowboarding series for my PS2. I think if I had to name the publisher for most of my other games I'd score about 60% or so. I would have a better time remembering the developers. Anyway, if they (EA) release a bunch of stale games, people will look elsewhere. In the games market, there will always be an elsewhere.
It's actually that business-centric attitude which has ensured that EA is the only major third party publisher that's still around from the 80s.
Everyone else is on life-support or alive by name only simply for the free marketing and publicity one can milk from 'Midway' or 'Atari'. Not even 'Sierra' was that lucky.
It may seem tragic - but EA is to games what Warner Brothers is to film. Sometimes they get something right - but most of the time they don't. And they're the only ones with the money to put out content on a regular schedule.
That aside, the only way this would be 'Bad(tm)' for gaming in general, would be if EA was leveraging its advantage in an anti-competitive manner. If it was strangling the distribution chain RIAA-style to keep (comparitive) indy titles off BestBuy's shelves, or if it was essentially blackmailing console developers into schemes to dissuade competition.
That hasn't yet happened. Although meatspace distribution has been a hackneyed, independent-unfriendly mess for over a decade - it isn't of EA's making.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
EA buys companies left and right that have made some successful games. They then tinker with the company, forcing them to make less sucessful games. When they make a couple games that aren't blockbusters, the division is gutted and shut down (or just the name is kept).
They have done this with MANY divisions of their company. Most notably Origin a few years back.
"there's a problem when EA has enough money to buy out any studios that bring out a hit game"
How is this a problem? Sounds like a huge incentive for people to start a small company and create a truly innovative game.
I think the trouble is more that there isn't anybody really capable of turning the industry on its head several times over. Game fans really do want more of the same thing over and over, especially the sports fans. Baseball hasn't changed, why should the video game based on it?
If there really were a market or just a desire for out of the mainstream games, and the talent to produce such games, the open source game efforts wouldn't be so pathetic.
But it's much easier to sit back and whine about how big corporations have made you jaded than it is to be creative.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
I will just use the following facts to demonstrate why EA's domination is bad based based on certain dates for Battlefield 1942:
Sept 11, 2002 : Battlefield 1942 1.1 pre-release patch is released.
Sept 13, 2002 : Battlefield 1942 is in stores, mMany issues reported making the game anywhere from fully to non-playable depending on your system, even after patching.
November 15, 2002 : EA announces addon for Battlefield 1942, Road to Rome. Still no patch for many reported issues.
November 27, 2002 : Patch 1.2 is released finally, fixes a lot of things, but still some issues.
January 22, 2003 : Road to Rome is gold
February 3, 2003 : Patch 1.3 is released.
Im not even going to talk about secret weapons addon, facts are EA had released an addon for a game before they even had their 2nd post-release patch, and thats damn weak. Any company who announces an addon for a game before that game is reasonably patched is rather poor.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
what about those small gaming companies who are struggling and running out of money? they would be stoked to be bought out by EA. They get cash, finish their game, then leave EA and use their money to form another dev studio.
I'm not saying it's all as easy as that, nor are the contracts likely to allow that in all cases, but that's a small developers dream isn't it?
There must be some good stories in all these buyouts.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
Twenty percent is a dominant market presence? Good grief.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
First, I have nothing against monopolies. However, EA is simply not a Monopoly. They do have competition.
Nintendo, Sony, Atari(aka Infogrames), Microsoft, THQ, etc, all put out competing proeducts, many of which perform better then EA's games.
All EA has done is two things. First, they have mastered the art of creating mass market games. Second, they buy up the studios that create the mass market games that they did not create themselves.
END COMMUNICATION
EA in my opinion makes crappy games. I havent bought one in over a decade. If EA spent as much time/money developing new game concepts as i does on "expansion packs" i might buy their stuff. But they stick with the tried and true which to me == old and tired. Sure the sims was cool when it first hit, but not nearly as cool as the original "Sim" games. When Maxis was in control SimCity rocked, now it is lacking a soul. EA has a way of extracting the personality out of a game. I like playing games that you can see the developers passion in. Doom is a perfect example, it was made by people, not a bunch of codemonkeys doing the 9-5. Im sure that EA has plenty of talented people working for them, thats not the problem. The company is too big, to "P.C.", and not willing enough to take risks. It would be nice to see them start a trend for once insted of following them.
I want 2D games back.
From what I recall, Will Wright said that The Sims was developed and brought to the market because EA came in and bought Maxis.
When "independent" the stockholders of Maxis were dragging there feet and di not want to invest in Will's newest dollhouse concept. All that changed when EA bought the company. EA bought Maxis because they viewed Will as the great inventor of SimCity. They gave him free reign on his new project, and probably a ton of cash to work on it with. From that buy out they helped create what I theink is one of the most innovative recent games.
The expacks are probably a light for their heavy cost, but that does not detract at all from the fresh new game type that The Sims brought to the table. It is a highly successful idea spawning multiple games that are trying to emulate it.
If it weren't for EA, I don't think The Sims games would be around today.