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EA Aiming For 50% Innovation
Talking to 'The Street.com' EA Worldwide Studios president Paul Lee gets grilled on game delays and industry stagnation, and reaffirms EA's commitment to new IP. From the article: "There [have] been countless games in our industry that have looked great and didn't play particularly well. Going forward, there's going to be a lot of me-too products that look great -- because they all look great -- that aren't necessarily going to do great. But if you take a look at what we have -- you know, Spore is innovative game-play, and at the same time it's got great graphics. And I think that's what really knocks it out of the park. Innovative game-play helps drive [the cause] of gaming. And if you can do that, and you can have great graphics, I think that the market is bigger than just having one of the two."
but when I RTFA I found he mostly talked about how he was sinking a lot of resources into Sony and Microsoft, which means they may have missed the boat since all of my peeps are buying the Wii when it comes out.
It's the games. Seriously, I don't care how the investors think about it. I was looking at investing in EA or Nintendo, but after reading this I just don't think they get it and will miss the wave that will dominate gaming for the next two years.
I'll still buy Spore and other Will Wright projects, of course.
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And it has a very great danger of doing a whole bunch of stuff Not Very Well. Sort of reminds me of City of Heroes, in everything I've seen about it - great costume designer (creature creator) but the gameplay doesn't live up to it.
Naturally, this speculation isn't that valid as I haven't played it either. But I'm not asserting it's "knocking it out of the park" or even that it will fail. I am simply skeptical that it's going to be the Only Game I Ever Play because of all the uniquely combined elements.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
It sounds to me like the basic premise for their 'innovations' is that they plan on tacking GTA-style emergent gameplay onto ever title they can. Granted, it's a nice touch in certain titles but for God's sake, don't just shove it into games where it has no purpose. Going from one marketing gimmick (yearly sequels) to another (go wherever, do whatever) just because your original tactic is failing miserably doesn't make you save any face in my book.
A bump to 75% innovation would be nice for the market and allow them to keep Madden ;)
This is almost as good as naming a directory '-rf'.
My UID is prime... is yours?
What will they think of next!
"Johnson, you're not innovating enough! You gotta get your innovation up another 8% by the end of the month, or I'm kicking you back down to playtesting!"
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
subject said it all. i loved that game and would love to pay $60 for the chance to pass the experience on to my own son. ea: don't let this 'innovation' stuff go to your heads.
Burst into laughter when they read the headline? Thought not.
It's not just seeing "EA" and "innovation" in the same sentence, it's the fact they seem to be aiming for a specific percentage of "innovation" in their games. It all seems very accountanty.
Developer: I've got this great new idea for our game! It'll be revolutionary!
Boss: Sorry, I'm not sure if we've got enough innovation left in our budget for revolutionary, can you scale it down to a neat twist on an existing idea?
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
"EA aiming for 50% of the games they put their name on, but don't develop themselves, to be innovative." I guess it doesn't roll off the tongue as well.
A block of code, sufficiently well-written, is indistinguishable from magick.
A lot of people are casual gamers or weren't raised on PS2/Xbox and have problems with the controls. Maybe they ought to consider things like autoaim that Quake had for FPS and action games so you don't have to work 2 thumbsticks to aim... Of course that would require them to compensate by making the AI more difficult.
But if you take a look at what we have -- you know, Spore is innovative game-play, and at the same time it's got great graphics.
who wrote this crap? Maybe it's just this headache I have but this article seemed practically unreadable.
nothing
How exactly do they plan on innovating with their next 40 installments of Madden and NCAA Football? Seriously, EA is the king of beat a dead horse. I think this is the first time I've actually seen EA and innovation in the same sentence.
I can see it now, EA's new committment to innovation will result in a revolutionary new option in NHL 2007: the ability to skip the hockey and jump straight to the fights.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Hopefully that means just one phase or something. . . like the "spore" phase.
But the idea that a Cell phone's limited interface will allow it to play the same game as a PC. . . just indicates it's not going to be that good.
Or, alternately, that Will Wright has succumbed to Molynieuxism and is over-promising. Which seems likely. . . but what parts are being overpromised? THAT'S what concerns me.
That said, I'm drooling over Spore and will probably buy it, but I'm approaching it with serious skepticism. And I'm mildly amused I was modded to oblivion for a "spore might suck" sort of comment.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
- American Mcgee's NHL 2007
- Madden 007 2007: Goldenpunt
- Lord Of the Sims: Hobbit Date
- Harry Potter and the Milking of Franchise
- Need for Medal of Honor: Third Reich Racing
- The Burbz: Virtual Emo
- Burnout Soviet Russia: Cars Blow Up You!
- Lord of the Rings: Street
- Command and Conquer: Dubya vs. Everybody
And of course,...just a half-assed attempt at being completely innovative.
Half empty, half full - ad naseum.
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.
Sure there's a game going on that you want to win, but you don't have to spend all your time on the "main quest". In fact, some people may choose never to finish the game. Instead of scoring and defending, get mini-quests from fans and do them! Do karaoke at center ice! Wander out of the stadium and interact with real people online! Build a tree-house out of hockey sticks! End sentences with exclamation marks!
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
How can the game be even an evolution simulation while leaving out the possibility of fur. From what we've seen so far they seemed to have left out any possibility of creating MAMMALS of any kind. No live birth (only eggs), no hair, no mammary glands.
If I can't evolve my creature to look like any REAL creature as well as imaginary, then what's the point of giving me constrained freedom. If I can't evolve a mouse into an ape into a human, then why play an evolving game.
Seriously, the scale bump mapping looks great, but if the PS2 can do great fur for Shadow of the Collosus and the XBox 360 can do fur for Kameo, then the average 2007 gamer PC should be able to do fur no problem. I just hope that Will Wright rectifies this design error before the game ships - and doesn't make it a Mammals expansion. Just so you know I am looking forward to this game, I just thought I would cut through the irrational exuberance surrounding it.
Im selling....
EA will just buy another company and use their innovation, and then promptly ruin it.
The first time I saw the Spore hype I was completely estatic. It looked AWESOME. I still think it looks AWESOME. There's a very high likelihood I'm going to get it, but I am beginning to feel skeptical. It feels too much like the Black and White hype as you mentioned above. Which is scary because B&W sucked donkey nuts.
RTS on the Wii - I dunno, it's got a Definite Maybe. RTS is. . . I dunno. There's about a billion things they can do with the Wii and the controller and I just feel like RTS/FPS is really (pardon the marketroid term) thinking inside the box.
I have a hunch there's going to be much bigger and much better concepts than RTS for the Wii. Plus I'm getting old, losing time, and basically SUCK at RTS nowadays. And I was a pretty decent starcraft player on Kali/Bnet. But I'm old and have been handing my balls to player after player in Rise of Legends the last two weeks.
Here's to getting a Wii and (probably!) Spore! *clinky clinky cheers-type sound*
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
What EA's core competency really is, is that they turned software from a high-tech endeavour to a manufacturing practice - and run their software manufacturing plants in much the same way that apparel and auto makers run their manufacturing plants.
By taking this approach, EA can make more cames for the same investment - and even if they're not the best games, they're good enough for many people in much the same way a Honda is good enough compared to a BMW.
I expect EA will have *great* innovaton in business partnerships with Sony and MSFT and *great* innovation in union-busting and pushing the edge of labor laws - and a continued track record of almost no innovation in games. And their shareholders will be happy for it.
Innovations like "Vista DRM will only activate certain Direct-X-11-features for EA games" could be an incredible innovation for MSFT DRM as a reference customer and EA as a competitive advantage.
Please remember everyone there's a big difference between Innovating and Inventing -- Microsoft's a master at the former but sucks at the latter -- and EA aspires to do so as well.
In the end, games primarily provide entertainment . If it's not novel or new, it eventually gets relegated to second tier things- things you do to while the time away and have nothing better to do.
For them to keep moving forward, they have to have people want to have their games and to schedule part of their time for them. I just don't see the bulk of the stuff EA's producing of late doing that for the most part. I mean, how many more NFL/NHL/NBA 200x games are people going to be willing to keep plunking down $50 or so for? That's their bread and butter right at the moment- sequels of "hit" games with "cooler, more realistic gameplay" than the previous versions.
Hmph... Like with Clear Channel and the RIAA labels and music, EA's more the cause of the current malaise than anything else. Unfortunately, entertainment can only be mass-produced so far before it's no longer really entertainment and more mere killing of time.
But hey, if you're willing to plunk down $50 for the equivalent of doing the crossword puzzle on the Sunday paper (which is what most of EA's offerings have become...), then more power to ya!
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
As will all future releases by him.
It's very simple, he appeared on the cover of Wired.
Push technology, SEGA, Smell-o-Vision over IP, the New Economy, Newt Gingritch, all cratered after appearing on the cover of Wired. It's sort of a Karmic slashdotting effect.
What's 50% innovation? Are they just going to release a new football game where the players have capes?
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
good point. My guess would be the only creatures they're demoing are furless for one and only two reasons - um, wait it's three - ok, here goes:
1. fur is added later in design and uses a lot of graphics, so they don't want to demo that part until it works well.
2. mammary glands and shape alterations between male/female imply having two basic X/Y paths for the biomorph, plus are probably also later in the graphics design schedule. Again, they don't want to demo such things until they work well, is my guess.
3. not everyone is as sex-obsessed as you appear to be. You'd love my uploaded Sims 2: University lots and stories, even though I don't actually show anything, I just make you think I showed it.
So, in short, I think we can expect that fur-bearing mammals will exist, with two or more genders, but that it's not ready for game time yet.
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That was the first "oh shit" moment with Spore for me - when Will Wright was talking about the cell phone port as well.
Hopefully that means just one phase or something. . . like the "spore" phase.
But the idea that a Cell phone's limited interface will allow it to play the same game as a PC. . . just indicates it's not going to be that good.
He means like how they have Sims 2 for the PS2 and PSP and also on some cell phone game thing.
It's kind of like the old Animal Crossing for the Gamecube lets you play a download game from it on a GameBoy when you connect them, where you get a mini game.
Remember, they were talking to the marketing droid side, not the Will Wright side. They don't grok any of this. They just push tin.
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Here's to getting a Wii and (probably!) Spore! *clinky clinky cheers-type sound*
I'm with you there. It looks like all the sweet games will be on the Wii, and Will Wright likes to port to other boxen, so we can expect a Wii port at the very least.
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It lies in the system, the fact of the matter is that when you think about artistic ideas and gameplay and consider it as merely IP; something merely attainable by investment, you've been mistaken. You can't "invest" in creating a masterpiece, you need insight and artistic individuals. It doesn't take much to make "IP", and it doesn't cost much either. All it costs is intelligence to write a good story or plan a good game, and if you don't have that, then well, fuck you.
.50*0=?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I liked it a lot. I even liked the newest of its ilk, Evil Genius. A little too much actually. Nearly had a breakup w/the girl because of it.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I don't think innovation will come from one of the big game developers. It will come from the small niche / indie game market. Why don't EA games try to stimulate that by doing things like popcap did with publishing their open source framework that allows anyone to reduce some of the effort that accompanies building games. I just finished a small game based on this framework and its fun to build and to play. How much inhouse frameworks/tools does EA have? If you want innovation you need to create the possibilities for doing that.
...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
I think sports games are, in a way, harder to innovate than other genres. That's because you're essentially boxed in to how the sport works and handles itself. You can't really change the rules, too much, without people complaining about how unrealistic it is. (Then again, some people LIKE that, which is why games like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz have a sizeable fanbase) That, and you HAVE to release a new version each year. I don't see any other franchise where this has to happen (imagine a new FF or MGS or Halo every year).
... you now have something people are willing to pay $50-60 for, even though most of what they REALLY want is an updated roster list.
... that just plain sucks.
Furthermore, what most people REALLY want from year-to-year, and why people keep buying these damn games, is primarily roster updates. It'd be brain-dead easy to create a Madden game, then just have it download new rosters every year. You'd only have to update the game itself (engine, etc.) every few years, when there is enough innovation or graphics/gameplay update to warrant a new version.
Obviously, that would be a bad business decision for EA, revenue-wise. They COULD recoup it by forcing people to buy the roster updates, but it's hard to convince people to pay even $20-30 for just a list of new names. Instead, what they do is just re-use the existing engine, add in a couple of small tweaks and features, and voila
I think in the end, it just comes down to the consumer. As a football fan, I'll admit that I enjoy playing football games (the last one I bought was NFL 2K5). However, I'm not going to buy one EVERY year, since that's just too costly. I'll pick up a new one every so often, and I'll live with outdated rosters for a bit (or just not play a football game for a while). But I DO know there are folks who ARE big sports fans and really want a new game every year. Or friends who stagger their football game purchases from mine, so that maybe I got 2005, and they'll get 2006, and my other buddy will get 2007, etc. Rather than bitching, just vote with your wallet.
Now about EA locking up all these exclusive sports licensing deals
-- jchenx
How come devs (paid and free alike) get flamed when a product is delayed, yet when another product is released on schedule but with flaws requiring ~100M patches, they get flamed still. Why i ask? Damned if you do, damned if ya don't.
-D
Rather than releasing late or releasing on time and buggy, you could... *gasp* make a realistic release schedule. That way, you give the customers a good product when you said you'd give it to them.
...when current innovation is 0.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
Damn, wish I had mod points today :-)
Maybe they should readjust their numbers.
Like, why 50%? We don't need that much. They could cut it down to, say, 38.3% Innovation, 90% profit whoring.
Note: The discrepancy in the numbers is best explain by the same math that convinces EA they make a profit.
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
EA announce that one in every two games they release will be a direct rip-off of a Nintendo game.
The real question is, can you do bouncing tits? On a more serious note... no wait, I was serious about the tits! Anyways, I don't think it's an evolution game in the sense that you have natural selection and genetic mutations going on automatically. It's more of an ID game, no?
The Chair Corp. comic(*00-12)
...it was title "Harry Potter".
New properties != Innovation!
It'd be nice if EA actually backed some new ideas besides those by Will Wright (apparently the only employee of the company to retain his soul). But because the company, back in their 8-bit computer days, were the publishers of so many wonderful creations, I have to rate the company as having a net deficit in the wonder-and-goodness department until they at least get back to that level.
Electronic Arts was hot stuff once. I doubt we'll ever see it at that level again.
Remember, they were talking to the marketing droid side, not the Will Wright side.
Hells yeah. I was watching the Spore E3 demo recording, and noticed that the game internals organizes the different creatures you encountered in "trading card" format (called the Sporepedia)...
Given the Sim City already made the jump a few years ago to collectable card game, I can see that Will may be positioning Spore to do the same from the start. Spore (the Card Game) is going to be better suited to compete with Pokemon and the other "battling creature" games. This kind of collectable card game spin-off is money in the bank.
I haven't bought an EA game since the NFL license announcement. I won't buy another EA game until the NFL license is up and anyone can make an NFL game again. That was the final straw for a company that treated their employees bad and customers worse.