EA on APB: Sometimes ideas are too big

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 19 August, 2010

Publisher saddened by Realtime's demise.

APB publisher Electronic Arts has expressed sadness at the demise of Scottish developer Realtime Worlds.

Realtime recently went into administration following lacklustre sales of online action game APB.

Speaking to Eurogamer at gamescom, EA Partners boss David DeMartini told Eurogamer that he wished Realtime had had more time and funding to realise APB's potential.

"I'm sad," he said. "We had worked on Hellgate a couple of years ago and the situations are not dissimilar.

"Sometimes ideas are too big. We were on the distribution side on both of those.

"It's sad because it affects people's lives. People look at that and are frustrated that it wasn't as good as they had hoped.

"What's really sad is thinking about people who've worked on that game for two or three years. And now they're not going to be working at Realtime Worlds anymore.

"To me that's sad. I wish they had more time. I wish they had more funding to have been able to take that game to where it needed to get to.

"It was absolutely on the track with Davey [Jones] as the creator. But literally it's a situation where they ran out of time and they didn't have what they needed to be able to finish it at the quality level that would have resonated well in the marketplace.

"Because of that a lot of people are taking a big impact. As far as the industry goes that's sad for the industry.

"A lot of people are going to be moving around to other companies and I feel bad about that."

Realtime and APB are in limbo following recent events.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • Armoured_Gideon #1 2 years ago

    A worthy notion, sunk by an inarticulate promotional campaign, and a bafflingly constructed cost structure. I'm sad people have lost their jobs, but if there was an appetite for it, it would have worked. No amount of retroactive damage-controlling interviews can salvage a product that was flawed from the off.

    Best of luck to all those leaving Realtime.

  • LiveForever #2 2 years ago

    Maybe EA should have given them more time and money? As the publisher.

    If something isn't finished it should not be released.
    Edited by 2 at 19/08/10 @ 11:40

  • LeeroyJenkins #3 2 years ago

    @LiveForever: You don't think the $101 million of investment that Realtime Worlds burned through was enough money to make a game?

  • Machetazo #4 2 years ago

    Would it have done better business, with accompanying console releases? I can't help but believe that it may have found more attention.

    I know that there was an extent of demand from players for a 360 release, that never materialised. On PC, I get the feeling that, in addition to the resource issues raised, APB was just too far small of a fish to compete in the same space as WoW, and other big name MMOs.
    There also was something wrong with the communication behind the game, let alone the over-ambitious/constrictive pricing structure. To this day, I know that I for one, have barely any idea of what the game is, if it isn't a gang-based GTA MMO-alike. I do know that I'm not interested enough now, tbf, to find out.
    They over-stretched. I feel bad for those affected by the result. Hope they get back on their feet again, soon.

  • Sir_TimAlot #5 2 years ago

    Maybe in this case ideas were too small?

  • Whizzo #6 2 years ago

    It's quite simple really, APB wasn't a good enough game, especially one that was a full price release with a ridiculous pricing plan.

    360 owners dodged a bullet, they didn't miss out.

  • SAMagic #7 2 years ago

    @Machetazo :
    iAPB was just too far small of a fish to compete in the same space as WoW, and other big name MMOs.
    Possibly, though I'm not so sure. RDR sold incredibly well. Granted, a lot of people are still playing its multiplayer, and it's a console game, but there's definitely an audience there. It's easy to imagine that there's a sizeable demograph of people who enjoy open world shooters and that they could be enticed into playing (and paying for) an MMO based on such.

    This is definitely a shame for the industry itself, as it will result in publisher's being sceptical of similar ideas for future MMOs. Yes, too many have jumped on the bandwagon, eager to somehow capture the magic of WOW's popularity, but it would be good to see some MMO concepts done right all the same.

    I don't know about you guys, but I'm eager to play an MMO FPS reminiscent of Planetside. I'll have to stick with Bad Company 2 for now I guess.

  • Raznilof #8 2 years ago

    Well said, emphasising indeed the lives of those developers that have spend years of their lives (and usually not just from 9 to 5 either) working on a project. Always sad when things don't work out, doesn't matter if it was deserved or not.

    edit: added "working on a project"
    Edited by 1 at 19/08/10 @ 12:03

  • Woffls #9 2 years ago

    I don't think more time and money on APB would have made any difference. They had more than enough of both, and I don't think the concept was profitable to begin with. I can't think of any successful retail MMO's that aren't based on an existing franchise with an established user base, so I think making the game was a bad move in the first place. I forget what happened between them and Microsoft, but they should have played it safe a bit longer and developed Crackdown 2 and maybe another IP, then attempted it when they had money to waste and more experience.

  • gav082 #10 2 years ago

    If this came out on 360, I would have bought it. Me and my Flatmate used to chase each other around on crackdown one and talk about how great APB would be when it was released on the 360.

  • DjchunKfunK #11 2 years ago

    The lesson to learn? Don't let EA anywhere near an MMO. :p

  • cnlfailure #12 2 years ago

    Distribution deal : the publisher has little-nothing to do with the making of the game and is purely responsible for the logistics of getting it into retail for a fee.

    /just saying

  • swisstony #13 2 years ago

    @djchunkfunk

    should we be worried for old republic then? (not being sarky, a genuine question)

  • drxym #14 2 years ago

    Almost the same thing happened with Tabula Rasa. The developers spent absurdly large amounts of money and time constructing some massive edifice without considering if people would ever play it, at least to the extent of recouping their investment. On top of that (and this is all too common), the MMO is released while it is broken, buggy, lacking content etc. which hardly endears itself to early players or generates buzz.

    You don't have to spent a huge fortune to make a successful MMO and setting expectations to WOW levels is a surefire way to fail and fail hard. Maybe EA should have spent the money of 4 or 5 smaller efforts, knowing that probably 1 or 2 of them would have succeeded even if the others didn't.

  • Kaspar #15 2 years ago

    Repeated - EA didn't publish APB, and so had no financial input into it. RTW were self-funded (lots of venture capital investment) and the game was marketed/distributed (remarkably poorly, on both counts) in conjunction with EA Partners.

  • Crea #16 2 years ago

    In further defense of EA, word went round internally at RTW that EA was lowering sales and review estimates steeply as we approached release, and rumoured to be cautioning against premature release. But we were fucked for cash, it seems, so could not afford to take this very obvious advice.

    On the other hand, I was reading that sales in the US to date have been less than 10k. Which speaks of a very specific marketing fail given that it's sold quite a bit more in the EU. I wonder where the blame lies for that particular bit of incompetence.

    Edited by 1 at 19/08/10 @ 13:36

  • sink257 #17 2 years ago

    @swisstony, SWTOR is published by LucasArts, not EA.

  • Freek #18 2 years ago

    And made by a developer with a ton of RPG experience. So it's in a much better place to compete with established franchises.

  • abot #19 2 years ago

    EA had enough faith in APB to distribute it so why don't they purchase RTW. I don't see EA coming in to rescue RTW. If they are not standing behind it right now then why should anyone purchase RTW.
    Edited by 1 at 19/08/10 @ 16:13

  • thegoldenvision #20 2 years ago

    I remember APB getting an incredibly favourable preview from Edge (it was on the cover and described as the PC's GTA beater!) and just thinking that it looked hopelessly unfocused and overambitious. Gave the beta a whirl and it was so far short of what it needed to be it was scarcely believeable. Multiplayer is GTA IV's weakest suit by far yet APB managed to be about 10x worse than that.

    Coupled with the 'innovative' pricing structure, that game needed a lot more than extra development time to save it. A complete rethink was required.

  • xenoss #21 2 years ago

    And sometimes, execution of said ideas are just too sloppy.

  • Emmit_Assassin #22 1 year ago

    No one really wanted this on the 360, the pricing would have been ridiculous. M$ are money grabbing bastards and we gamers suffer for it. No BBC iplayer, no 4OD, no MMO's and over priced content because M$ are theiving wankers.
    Better this came out on PC only and vanished with a sigh than sink the prospect of MMO's on the 360 for good with its noisy demise.
    A good idea sunk by innefectual advertising and a bad subscription structure. If only the big guns could make up their minds exactly who they are aiming these things at, rather than making mass market crap and forcing it to attempt to appeal to everyone and his delinquent goldfish.
    Kinect could go the same way if they keep trying to push hardcore gamers into thinking its for them. Its not, its for prople sick of the limited Wii and are looking for the next step up. Why they can't price it for them and aim all the advertising at them, instead of making it too expensive and telling us there will be more hardcore games for it 'in the future'.
    Confusion leads to lost sales, dumbasses!

  • dudefella #23 1 year ago

    More funding would not have helped this game at all.