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Peter Moore Talks About His Experiences In the Gaming Industry
Over the past several days, the Guardian has posted a five-part interview with Peter Moore, head of EA Sports. Moore was also the president of Sega, and a vice-president at Microsoft, so his experience at the top levels of the gaming industry is extensive. He describes how he came to be employed by Sega, the development of the Dreamcast, and its subsequent flop when confronted with the Playstation 2. He also discusses his involvement with the development of the Xbox franchise, how the integrated hard drive "killed" the original model, and he gives his account of how the Red Ring of Death fiasco affected the company. The series ends with a look at EA Sports' plans for the future, and how they're trying to create a new business model beyond the micro-payments popularized by iTunes, which Moore calls "a rip-off."
Over the past several days, the Guardian has posted a five-part interview with Peter Moore, head of EA Sports. Moore was also the president of Sega, and a vice-president at Microsoft, so his experience at the top levels of the gaming industry is extensive. He describes how he came to be employed by Sega, the development of the Dreamcast, and its subsequent flop when confronted with the Playstation 2. He also discusses his involvement with the development of the Xbox franchise, how the integrated hard drive "killed" the original model, and he gives his account of how the Red Ring of Death fiasco affected the company. The series ends with a look at EA Sports' plans for the future, and how they're trying to create a new business model beyond the micro-payments popularized by iTunes, which Moore calls "a rip-off."
So in other words he has a lot of experience with companies that end up failing? Lets see... As the summary states the Dreamcast failed, when he worked with the Xbox he ended up when they started having the RRoD, and how he hates his current company (which can't make a decent game IMO) for charging micro-payments. Sure he has experience, but he doesn't seem to have any decent experience in succeeding.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Moore calls micro-payments a rip-off. I call Madden '97 to '08 a rip-off. No I didn't read the articles, I don't care what the head of EA Sports has to say. Not to be mean, but I've never played an EA sports game that was anything but mediocre. I'm not even against sports games in general, but my friends and I would much rather play NFL Blitz or Wayne Gretzky 3D hockey for the N64. These are games that are actually FUN, not just shiny.
The 32x and the mega-cd thingie killed Sega. The dreamcast was a actually a really good console.
But I can't be arsed to read the article and find out if he was responsible for those two abortions.
Azural - instrumentals
Nah. Paying $49.99 for software that incorporates stricter DRM than a 99 cent iTunes song... now that is a rip-off!
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
This guy a porn star or what?
Is the bog a bug? Lug of flug shrug mug. poooooooo
After RTFA, I would just like to point out that Moore doesn't call iTunes or micropayments "a rip-off."
After mentioning the 99c US price for individual iTunes tracks, the interviewer tells Mr. Moore that the UK price is 79p. Mr Moore responds "you're being ripped off." The inference here is that 79p is not equal, given to the exchange rate of US Dollars to UK Pounds, to 99 cents.
This is one of many (growing) examples of the /. summaries being inaccurate, sensational, and combative. I expect this from the comments. In the summary, I expect at least the pretense of some sort of journalistic integrity.
Sigh.
1. How to make lots of mistakes as a top guy in video game companies or divisions.
2. How to get people to continually decide a history of accomplishing #1 means they should hire you as a top guy at in their video game company or division.
I have to admit, I'm jealous of his talent for the above. According to the latest SEC filings, the guy is making $2.15 million in salary a year - and I'm sure he has plenty of options and benefits - so here's to hoping TFA articles gives me some insight into how to convince people I'm worth similar pay regardless of my competence or lack thereof.
success of companies rarely depend on one man. and modern games are not made by a single man alone either. publishers dont let that much of creative freedom to anyone.
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I would definitely agree that $0.99 for a song is a ripoff. I think $1 to play 3 songs in a bar is probably a ripoff.
I know I don't speak for everyone, but as far as music goes, I don't listen to individual songs, but albums. There have been very few bands as of recently that have an album that you can listen to straight through.
I'm a musician so I definately have a longer musical attention span than most. I'm sure writers don't really appreciate tabloids, artists don't appreciate the posters you see at Wal-Mart, etc.
Starting to ramble I guess, but my point is that a 3 minute song hardly constitutes music anyway, it's more of an idea. Compare with Mile's Davis's 'Bitches Brew' or Beethoven's 9th. You can't make a 3 min clip out of those songs.
To me 99% of what is on i-tunes is worth less than a dime a dozen.
I was at Microsoft at the time (though not in E&D division). It was immediately obvious to me that it would take over the motherfucking world. This sorta means that vision-wise, I'm better than those overpaid retards who keep pumping shareholder money into a console that will never provide any ROI. The worst part is (well, for them anyway), Sony PS3 will provide ROI in a year or two, when Blu Ray really takes off.
Let's save everyone time and slim it to 5 words instead.
EA makes really bad games.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
I don't generally say this about people -- OK, Bill Gates -- but back when I was a journalist, I had occasion to interview Peter a number of times when he was with Sega. I'm sorry to say that he's an extraordinarily skillful liar. He has absolutely no compunction whatsoever about looking you right in the eye and flatly declaring something you both know is true is in fact false. It's quite a talent, but you've got to be a bit of a sociopath to pull it off properly.
Twenty years ago, if you repeatedly lied to a journalist (I mean really lied, not dodged or fuzzed or dissembled) reporters would just stop quoting you. We called it the death penalty. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, do a Google search for Larry Speakes, Ronald Reagan's press secretary, and you'll learn why you thought Marlin Fitzwater was Ronald Reagan's press secretary.
These days there's really no downside to lying to a reporter. Peter is a great example. You can probably think of a few others.
Wow, so this guy has been present at each company during the production of their worst failing systems ever...well, so much for EA!
...he says that 79p is a rip off when tracks are 99c in the US (currently about 54p). Nothing more.
The quote about Apple and the music industry shows an incredible amount of ignorance and assitude. Here's exactly what I'm talking about:
First, the notion that the music industry should not have stopped selling CDs is simply asinine. I'm in my 40s and even I don't buy CDs anymore. They're outdated, obsolete, and completely unnecessary. The market has spoken, consumers don't want to buy music on shiny plastic anymore.
Second, the implication that the music industry should not have started selling singles again shows what an ass he is. And it also shows he knows nothing about the music industry. I grew up with music in the 70s and 80s. Back then we had the 45 single. If you didn't want to buy the whole record, you'd buy the singles for about a buck each. About the same price as a song off of iTunes or Amazon. Which is an awesome deal considering inflation.
And here's the deal about singles, musicians and the music industry made money back in the 80s, 70s, and 60s. The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Who, all survived selling both LPs and singles. Heck, until the 60s the entire music industry was based on selling singles. Artists started creating complete works called albums and the record industry was forced to sell them kicking and screaming. They did not want to kill off their highly profitable business model selling hit songs on vinyl. Oh the irony.
And of course this shows what an ass Moore is because he honestly believes that the music industry should ignore the demands of its customers and force them to buy what they do not want. That's exactly the reason the music industry is in trouble in the first place. If that's what Moore is going to do with the gaming industry, I give it five years tops!
And last but not least, third. Exactly how is Apple ripping customers off who buy songs off of iTunes?! God, if you're going to say something that stupid, you should at least attempt to support your argument with facts. Heck, you should at least make an argument. He just concludes it as true.
Once again this shows ignorance because Apple does not make a lot of money selling songs on iTunes, most of it goes to the music industry. Apple makes its money selling hardware. So Apple is certainly not ripping anyone off selling music.
And as I point out above, the cost of buying music on iTunes is actually pretty cheap compared to the price of singles in the 70s and 80s.
So in conclusion, Moore is an ignorant retard and an ass. The Deamcast was cool but it was a financial failure. The original Xbox admittedly lost 4 billion dollars. Expect EA to go bankrupt within five years.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Nintendo always was around the same price point for their systems; they've been going the longest and know their marketplace well.
The Wii IS the next logical generation. The other two are a huge price jump to skip a generation ahead which was because they were marketing on penis envy to an older audience (who has that problem.)
As disposable income has gone down, we have 2 game systems that have gone up in price. When I was a kid, nintendo was a BIG purchase for my parents and the 80s econ wasn't as bad now-- plus having irresponsible debt wasn't as popular (for families.)
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Nintendo has proven there is a market for a console one generation behind the XBox 360 and the PS3. But that could be a tougher sell the next time around.
Depends on whom they are selling the consoles to.
Wii had a big success because they weren't selling them to user who would buy PS3s or 360s.
They didn't try to sell it to hardcore gamers who would want to pick up the biggest baddest machine available.
They tried to sell it to a completely different market of casual gamers. The ones who weren't going to buy a console in the first place.
They targetted family setting, casual flash-game player, etc... they managed to sell console to a whole range of population which never had a gamepad in their hands before
and got a brand new empty market where there wasn't any other console to compete with.
If there's still such a separating in targetted market, the next generation of Nintendo hardware will be doing well even if it is several years behind the hardware of PS4 or Xbox-whatever, simply because they aren't selling the new nintendo in a market that buy these competitors.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
i've been having sleepless nights since i posted it. oooh the agony ....
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Here is a nice and convenient list of all parts for those who don't wish to bother with the guardian's stupid related links section that lists nothing in order.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Moore called 79p for an iTunes track a ripoff because it is $1.45 USD. He was not attacking the micro-payment system, because he is obviously masturbating to the idea before the interview if you read the article. He wants to charge a fee for weekly updates of the player stats in tune with the real player's achievements. As well as other nickle & dime rip offs.
The downside of being killed is the upside of being dead.