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Electronic Arts To Aquire Mythic Entertainment
Pika writes "According to the Business Wire, Electronic Arts is to acquire Mythic Entertainment, makers of the popular MMORPGs Dark Age of Camelot and the forthcoming Warhammer Online.
With EA being well known for killing MMORPGs, even those with loyal and sizable followings, how does this bode for Mythic's titles?"
And to that I think I speak for everyone when I say, "Well SH*T."
-PB_TPU_40 The trick to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Given the success of World of Warcraft EA might see this as more of a cash cow than a sacrificial lamb.
mine is certainly one of them !
.... R.I.P
*cries* EA hasnt done almost anything right since acquiring bullfrog
... unless they were about to go under, this has to be a bad thing for every Mythic employee that wasn't also the owner. Despite claims that the "175 member development team will remain in Fairfax" or somesuch in the article, I cannot imagine any situation where, five years from now, any of the current employees will still work for "EA Mythic" in Fairfax. Either the corporate slavedriver pressures will push them out, or they'll quit or move when a "corporate realignment" moves the jobs to California.
There's nothing inherently wrong with working for a big company. There's just something inherently wrong with working for EA.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Sure they say they will let Mythic retain all creative direction, but we know how that worked out for Richard Garriot and Origin Systems.
Execute? [Y/N] _
That doesn't mean they won't end up destroying it anyway. EA doesn't have the right mentality to keep MMOs alive.
No, because SOE has yet to actually kill one. EA had Earth and Beyond, was testing Motor City Online, and for a brief while had a Battletech: 3025 game in widespread beta. In addition to those being killed or canceled, they also canceled Ultima Online 2, another Ultima Online spinoff and fucked the Sims Online hard enough to make Maxis walk funny for years afterward.
To be honest, for a minute I was in favor of EA acquiring and killing lots of MMOs, simply because I can't stand the current paradigms that most of the MMORPG genre are based on, like level treadmills and timesinks.
Then I remembered that just five short years ago, EA killed my MMO dreams when they shut down Multiplayer Battletech: 3025. I place much of the blame for the tepid and weak pool of current MMO offerings on the axing of MPBT:3025, which was bar none the finest multiplayer 'mech experience I've seen.
Damn you, EA. Damn you to hell for continually working to make MMO games suck forever.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
true I guess :-| EA does not listen to the programmers period. Its all about the bottom line and most of the better games in history broke the bank before they made the bank...
The next expansion appears to be a half assed attempt at getting more money from their current subscribers and/or tempting those bored with thier wow level 60's to come back for a few weeks..
With EA now taking over Mythic I can now imagine an online LOTR on smack with a model very similar to WoWs...
look forward to losing your rank if you have to go away, buying your abilities even though you had to grind for them and really really crap RvR ?
all my luv out to MrsDuck !
Because with MMOs the game must be added on to and improved upon to keep people interested. People don't want to play a MMO for a month. MMOs are supposed to have more longevity.
EA has more of a, put the game out, get all the initial sales you can, then start over with a new game, mentality.
They purchased the publisher of my favorite game series of all time (Bullfrog and the Syndicate franchise) and then let it rot. They are worse than Microsoft and Symantec when it comes to buying up the competition and then craptasticizing the product line.
Warhammer Online has a powerful license and it covers a market that's shown to be highly profitable by a competitor (if WAR was unlike WoW before that'll be rectified in no time). That ranks it pretty highly in EA's priority list. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if EA attempted to turn Warhammer into one of their pet licenses.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.