Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

EA's Conquest of Origin

Posted by Zonk on from the sacking-the-villagers dept.

amitlu writes "Allen Varney wrote about EA's conquest of Origin in the Escapist this week. He covers much of EA's departure from its original values, and even has some quotes from the Garriotts, including, '[CEO] Larry Probst was often not supportive of the things I was doing, but I respect Larry because he was always clear, rational and consistent in his lack of support'"

4 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Don't stop at just the one article! by Turken · · Score: 3, Informative

    So I read the article linked above... and then kept on hitting the next page button. I just finished reading the whole magazine issue, and was impressed with ALL of the articles within. It really gives some good insight and commentary on EA and I highly recomment that people should read the other articles as well!

  2. Re:wtf ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    You can just click the "view text" link at the bottom of the page. That way you can avoid ads and background images, as well as re-sizing the text to whatever point you want for easy reading.

  3. Full Origin Photo by Donut · · Score: 1, Informative

    Can be found here.

  4. Re:Still Around by Allen+Varney · · Score: 5, Informative
    Origin would have been still around if EA didn't buy them

    This is incorrect, assuming you mean Origin would still be an independent publisher. As I interviewed ex-Originites for the Escapist article, the theme that emerged was that by 1992 Origin definitely had either to find a buyer or go out of business. The company's position as a publisher was unsustainable in the changing market.

    It is certainly possible the right buyer (i.e., someone other than EA) might have kept Origin largely intact in body and spirit as a studio, even to this day. But as I describe in the article, EA's internal politics, and its attempt to produce all games the way it produces sports games, made it impossible for them to exploit Origin effectively.