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Electronic Arts Shuts Down Origin Systems?
An anonymous reader writes "Waterthread.org has picked up the following on the studio that brought us the popular Ultima and Wing Commander series: 'Game company Electronic Arts is expected to tell its Austin employees this week that the company will be shutting down Origin Systems, its Austin operations, according to sources. Employees will be offered an opportunity to relocate to California or accept a severance package. Company officials could not be reached for comment. Austin is the #3 location in the U.S. for game development with more than 50 companies making major contributions to the game industry, including game development, publishing, tools and middleware and chips and hardware." The Wing Commander CIC has also posted a epitaph for Origin."
Some Origin oldies but goodies.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
I was going to mod you down, but thought I'd reply instaed....
... Ultima Online will now be run from California, and development of Ultima X will continue on the west coast.
Read some of the articles.
This is not the end for Ultima
ultima Online will still continue. I'm sure it will change, especially if people take the sevrense package instead of relocating. But it will still be there.
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
First let me say that I currently play Ultima Online. UO appears to be a project that is being slowly phased out, I base this of the following:
,more than likely, not be back.
1: The next publish (what UO calls updates) is mostly (90%) about the ability to move characters between shards (seperate UO worlds)
2: The event moderaters have been removed and will
3: It is almost impossible to BUY THE GAME in stores anymore. Next to no brick and morter stores carry it and EA does next to no advertizing for it. So how does it attract new customers?
I, too, have been to Origin's site, and yes, it is very impressive indeed.
I have a friend that works there. It is true. Here are the details that I know about:
1. They are not done with UOX. It is in Beta. Origin Beta or real Beta, who knows. They think they can move development to california for the Earth and Beyond people to finish?!?!?!
2. There were 230 people working there.
3. The studio management may have known, but I know they were still hiring and relocating people to Austin several weeks ago.
4. This was the worst kept secret in Austin. Everyone knew last week. Except the employees.
5. UO support moving to california.
6. Origin owned that building.
I have been gone from there for almost 6 years, but I spent 10 there. It is a little sad, but not unexpected. EA tried to shut it down back in '99, but pulled back from the brink for some reason. Feel sorry for their new employees, especially the new GM.
-Donut, Origin Alumni 1990-1999
Ultima VI, Ultima VII, Strike Commander, Serpent Isle, Pacific Strike, Longbow, Longbow2, A-10.
This site tries to install some very weird shit under IE6.
They own that building outright. Moved there in 1995. Bought it from Netware. Brent Thale suggested it to Robert Garriot as a joke, when we were out-growing the building up north.
#1 Lets see...Austin, TX or LA, CA? Score one for Cali.
#2 Activision, THQ, Vivendi, and a host of studios both publisher owned and independent are located there.
LA is the place to be in you are a video game maker who likes to buy all the talent, suck it dry as fast as possible and then fire that talent and start again. Whoa, did I just hear someone describe EA?
Basically they have been cashing the Ultima and Wing Commander cows for years, complete list from IGN:
publisher
3DO, CyberMage, Super Wing Commander
Amiga
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet,Wing Commander
Apple IIe/c/c+
Ogre,Omega,Ultima,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
Atari 400/800/XL/XE
Autoduel,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Atari ST
Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Commodore 64
Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet,Ultima: The First Age of Darkness
MSX
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Pony Canyon),Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Macintosh
Super Wing Commander,Ultima III: Exodus,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
PC
Abuse,CyberMage: Darklight Awakening,Privateer 2: The Darkening,Shadowcaster,Ulitma IX: Ascension,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Pony Canyon),Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima IX: Ascension,Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds,Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet,Ultima VII Part II: Serpent Isle,Ultima VII: The Black Gate,Ultima VII: The Forge of Virtue,Ultima VIII: Pagan,Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams,Wing Commander,Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger,Wing Commander: Privateer,Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams,Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire
PlayStation
Crusader: No Remorse,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger,Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom
Saturn
Crusader: No Remorse
Sega CD
Wing Commander
Super NES
Wing Commander: Secret Missions
developer
3DO
CyberMage,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
Amiga
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Wing Commander,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
Apple IIe/c/c+
Ogre,Omega,Ultima,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
Atari 400/800/XL/XE
Autoduel,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima: The First Age of Darkness
Atari ST
Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Commodore 64
Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet,Ultima: The First Age of Darkness
Game Boy
Ultima: Runes of Virtue,Ultima: Runes of Virtue II
MSX
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Pony Canyon),Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Macintosh
Super Wing Commander,System Shock,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
NES
Ultima: Exodus,Ultima: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima: Warriors of Destiny
PC
Crusader: No Regret,Crusader: No Remorse,CyberMage: Darklight Awakening,Strike Commander,Ultima Collection,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Pony Canyon),Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima IX: Ascension,Ultima Online,Ultima Online: Age of Shadows,Ultima Online: Lord Bl
Goodbye, Origin
For twenty two years Origin Systems set the tone for the computer gaming. Ultima, Wing Commander and dozens of others set the gold standard for which the rest of the industry could only hope to catch up. This era has finally come to an end as Electronic Arts readies an announcement that it will shut down the Austin-based Origin studio.
This is not the end for Ultima or Wing Commander. Ultima Online will now be run from California, and development of Ultima X will continue on the west coast. Hopes that another Wing Commander game would be developed in Austin were dashed long ago; the longtime belief that a California-based EA team would develop the next Wing Commander title may, ironically, be bolstered by this news.
What it is, however, is a tremendous moral loss on all fronts. Origin Systems will always be the ultimate symbol of gaming's greatest days, and its dissolution to a faceless corporate entity is, sadly, equally symbolic of the world today. Origin entertained, challenged and inspired our generation in a way that seems impossible today. Though the individuals who developed our games long ago moved on to greater careers, the very existence of the company itself continued to stand for something special; something amazing.
The CIC will continue to dedicate itself to Origin's legacy - we will redouble our efforts to archive anything and everything related to the company. We will strike to make the world remember what Origin meant. I wanted to end with a quote - something plithy and literary to express the meaning of such an ending. I came up with only this:
If I recall correctly,
U4: word of passage that allows entry into the abyss
U5: allows entry into dungeon Doom in the center of the underworld
Yeah... Because Wing Commander was sustainable with the horrible finances OSI had! Without EA there never would have been a WC3 or 4, as there's no way Origin could have funded them.
I hope you'll also realize that the Wing Commander movie really had nothing to do with EA. When Chris Roberts left the company after Wing Commander 4 he negotiated for the movie rights to Wing Commander for a certain number of years. After that, there wasn't any EA involvement to speak of.
Strangely, on #3, that isn't even that big a deal- This wasn't very widely publicized, but you can actually download it (Ultima Online- Complete including Age of Shadows, both 2d and 3d clients) *completely legally* WITH a 2 week free trial account from a few places online- Fileshack has it, I believe, past that, I don't know.
Source 1
Source 2
Here ya'll go! Free Ultima Online to mourn the loss of OSI with.
Actually, the Ultima Series is still living outside our memories as well. :-) Groups of dedicated fans are working on updating the original games with modern graphics/sound, rewriting U9 dialogue so that it's in line with the history within the Ultima universe, creating programs that enable the pre-9 Ultimas to run successfully under Windows, adding multiplayer/online abilities to older Ultimas, creating fan fiction & fan spinoff games, and all kinds of other fun things.
I learned about this months ago. But maybe that's because I'm in an Urban Planning program, and it was big news that the Playa Vista Development finally found their office tenant.
This development has been followed closely by a whole lot of people. Environmentalists freaked out about it, because it borders the Ballona Wetlands. The protest caused them to completely redesign the site *and* include several acres of wetlands restoration (because Hughes Aircraft, the former owner of the site, was none too kind to the native flora and fauna). Urban planners and designers are fascinated to see if the site can work, because it incorporates a lot of new (old) ideas, such as a mix of uses, high-density development, and a range of income groups.
When they originally were planning the site, Dreamworks SKG had just formed up, and was going to move in as the big anchor office tenant. When the project was massively delayed, they backed out, and one of the big issues was finding another tenant to take over that huge, state-of-the-art space. EA finally anted up late last year. They're cashing out their Irvine, San Jose, and Austin locations, and consolidating everything there.
If they're paying moving costs, it's a pretty good deal for folks moving, especially from San Jose. Units in Playa Vista start in the low $200k range, and the complex has a *ton* of amenities (including its own childcare center, market, and amphitheatre). Every unit has broadband built in and I think even data jacks in the walls, and the complex has its own intranet for reserving rec rooms, checking out events, and so on.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind living there myself... my husband feels it's a bit remote, though (you'd never guess you're in the second-largest city in the country; Lincoln Blvd. looks empty except for Playa Vista). It's between Venice and Marina del Rey, though, just about 5-10 minutes in one direction or the other.
I'm sure that they're counting on the consolidation saving them on staff, and it sucks that some people will lose their jobs. Me, I'm not crying about them bringing a whole mess o' jobs into Los Angeles, since I live here, but I suppose it does suck for those in the locations they're closing. I don't know if it's a good business move for them... unless they're changing their (fraudulent) policies on MMOG billing*, they'll have no business from me for a while, so who knows? But it's an interesting development, to be sure, from many perspectives.
*Used to have an Earth and Beyond account. Discovered from personal experience (twice) and a guildmate's experience that E&B accounts *always* expire two days before they are supposed to (according to the date that comes up on the screen to nag you EVERY FRICKIN' TIME you log in, after you've cancelled). You have to call them, during business hours, to get it fixed. Sure, they'll fix it right up, but oh... you got booted in the middle of a battle and now you can't log in, but they're closed? Pay up or die. I chose to leave my account permanently expired.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
The Ultima series died at 7.0
It's virtue lied in a combination of a HUMONGOUS open-ended, non-linear world with SO DAMN MANY non-generic niches, It was probbably the most replayable game in the world. I played 6 and 7 maybe 3 times each, and I just kept discovering more and more stuff I didn't find the previous times.
Then things started to go down. 7 Part II was nicer than 7 graphicswise, was as complex and full of niches as 7, but it was LINEAR. So much for a huge world you could explore at your leisure. You were now guided by the nose through the game.
Then came 8. Oh, the pain, the PAIN. Not only was it non-linear, it was DUMBED DOWN into oblivion. The game-world was no longer one large map.. rather, it was a series of "screens" you go from one to the other. 90% of the niches in the game unrelated to the plot were gone. Much of the gameplay was replaced by jumping puzzles that looked like a birdseye 2D tombraider-wannabe. And here, they put the good old Ultima atmosphere (with the mandolin music that followed when you were in the forest on the way to cove) to rest with 3 0.44 magnum shots to the forehead. Let's skip 8.
Enter 9. Gariott is no longer around. Still, 9 was a good try. Really, it was. The goal was in the right direction, and they were actually going for it. First, they put in the heaviest block, a 3D engine. Second, they got the atmosphere back, and they made an almost-successful attempt at bringing back the humongous world that was U7. But they fell short. There were no niches with side-quests and goodies to discover. There was no replayability. It was still linear. And there was no future - EA pulled the plug.
Then came UO, and EA decided they did not want me to be their client no more. They shut down all of Origin except for UO.
The genre was not completely lost though.
Two titles by other companies prevailed in my consiousness:
Elder Scrolls3: Morrowind made a shot at a humongous world. They did manage to get that right. But they went astray. There was no Garriot. No Lord British. There was no atmosphere. It was just an endless [beautiful] world of immensely over-recycled content, unbalanced gameplay, flat-as-a-plank characters and utterly boring [and endless] fed-ex quests that required spending too much of the game time on travel. The company who made it just wasn't Origin, it lacked a guide. And the game was a flop.
The one light that did indeed shine bright in the genre was Gothic. I truly salute the guys who made it. While it posed a slightly different atmosphere than Ultima, It was immersingly wonderful. The world was huge. The story thick, unpredictable, brutal at times. Real-world trust-noone and fend-for-yourself style. Main storyline put aside, the game world was accessible in an unlinear fassion.
And in a streak of genious, they took all the effort put into making the first game world, added a similar amount of effort to create a second, and had a world twice as big for Gothic II. Kudos guys.
Ultima genre aside, we come to the lancers. The wing-commander/privateer teams were stashed (and bought by M$), making Starlancer and Freelancer, games made by great devs, having the ability to soar, and trampled to garbage by executives with the intellect of a retarded coccaroach. Freelancer could have been a "Privateer 3", and could have borne the title proudly. It had it all. Graphics, missions, weapons, secret niches.
All but a decision to force down the plot on you at square one, drive you faster than you'd like towards its end, forcing you to finish it, then having you stuck in a beautiful humongous and largely-unexplored galaxy, with NO quests or goals of any kind save for random encounters and randimized generic missions to "go discover it" and make money you no longer need. Woohoo.
I'd love to meet the moron who made that call.
Or the one saying you can't take more than one mission at a time. DAMN. What was THAT good for?
I take solace in the fact that the team is still together, and maybe the executive
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I currently live in Austin, TX, and a friend of mine works at Origins. He told me about it this past weekend. According to him, this was open, but unannounced knowledged.
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