Slashdot Mirror
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."
RIP to the best of the old-school studios, from a former OSI employee and servant of the Crown.
Everybody else just made crappy games. We created worlds.
Having been to Origin Austin and seen their digs, there is no way a company like that could even justify the real estate costs they run up. It's crazy.
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
Before EA gutted the UO team and started taking it on a rambling development path towards an Everquest clone, Ultima Online was quite an amazingly complex and intriguing game. Despite contemporary wisdom 2d games have plenty of potential if not more than 3d games. UO of 1999-2000 is considered the greatest MMORPG ever for just about any play style besides ph@t l3wt collectors who hate risking said phat loot and even then it did ok.
There are a whole lot of UO emulated player run shards alive and kicking today. Many are attempting to recreate that era for UO which changed, like I said when EA gutted the OSI team. I have found www.preuor.com the best shard for that purpose. They have meticulously made efforts to recreate the small things that made UO great. Try it, you'll be surprised how fun a 2d game mmorpg can actually be and best of all its free (no monthly fee or game purchase required).
www.preuor.com
No, the AoS client that you download doesn't come with the code to enable the new AoS areas. I have a 4-5 page tech support ticked on this issue.
In the end they refused to get me a code. This are several postions on uo.stratics.com (the official UO boards) about this 'issue'.
Whoa, did I just hear someone describe EA?
... holy hell I hate them for that one. BUURRNNN!!!
That's EA to a freakin' T, and it practically brings tears to my eyes the projects and franchises they've run into the ground. Okay, namely it's just Ultima Online 2 that will never see the light of day, and it boils my blood that EA dropped the ball on that one! They're riding UO 1 like tobacco companies ride cigarette sales, and
1.) There was a study done. Literally on a ratio of like 3 to 1. For every 3 titles that come out EA needs to buy or sell one small company. EA buys away its competition.
2.) It markets the hell out of everything. NBA live for example has out sell Sega ESPN basketball every year. Soon competition from Sega might disappear and voila less competition again. They can keep the baskeball standard low for 5 years while they tweak their engine. Not good for consumer
3.) EA is losing quality yearly like M$ especially on the PC product line.
I wouldn't be surprised if Vancouver's in there, or at least in the top 5.
About 4 blocks from my house is the huge EA Canadian headquarters (950 employees) where they do all the sports games, and then downtown we have Radical Entertainment, Relic, Threewave, Rockstar Vancouver, Barking Dog, etc...
Origin's games were an important part of my fun when I was younger. I still remember the "Stones" music from the Ultima VII serie. And for various reasons, I still see the attack of Kilrathi Mang when listening Bach music. /tear
... ...
EA destroyed Bullfrog, Origin,
What do they sell now ? The Sims
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
Just last week I bought Dungeon Siege, the first computer game I've bought in a year, just so I could play the fan-based remake of Ultima V featured on slashdot the other day. It was a neat concept to remake an old (but loved) game.
There's also a user created Wing Commander mod for Vega Strike.
I really dig the user-created remakes. They're just so crappy in comparison to the originals.
-----------
Since you're here, you should sign up for a banner / pop-up free website on AloofHosting.com. 50MB disk space, 500MB transfer, FTP, and a pissed off monkey comes with each free account.
* Monkey may not be available in your state. *
Even things regarding a game's difficulty is being gutted. Whens the last time anyone here played the singleplayer mode of any game and actually had trouble with it?