Criterion's Need for Speed next year News

About goddamn time they were given this franchise to work on!

Go EA!

Seriously. They pretty much rock in my book since last year.

Sounds promising :o)

@menage Sadly it hasn't worked for EA, not yet up on EG but looks as if there are huge cutbacks throughout EA studios, and half of their projects have been scrapped with talk of focusing on high profit titles (hope DICE can still make a follow up to Mirror's Edge and turn it into the masterpiece the original could have been). Broadly speaking it seems the idea to improve their image among gamers and offer an alternative to Activision has failed.

I hope this new Need for Speed game is better than Burnout Paradise, a game that I found got alarmingly dull all too quickly, something I couldn't say was true of the earlier games. It was also a bit flawed design wise until they patched it many months later, adding the much needed restart option for example. The open race routes were initially confusing despite the supposedly helpful signs that popped up (sometimes too late!) and looking at a tiny map while doing 150 mph wasn't the easiest thing to do. I much preferred the non-open world structure of the earlier games as the lack of civillian life (and drivers) were far less obvious than when free-roaming.

Perhaps Paradise was just one Burnout game too many for me though?

I'd rather have a new Burnout to be honest.

edit: a linear one. Agree with you completely Darren.

Yeah Burnout seemed to go from being a racer even my non-gamer mates could play and enjoy (Takedown), to something far less accessible (Paradise). You should only ever have to concentrate on the road and other traffic; forcing you to pay attention to the map and (at times) far from clear signposting suddenly made it a harder, more 'serious' game, and it lost something in the process.

I still loved Paradise overall though (online is amazing), and can't wait to see what these guys have in store for NFS.

Yeah never understood why they did that with Paradise, remember years back Burnout staff talking about having large arrows directing people on the corners to avoid frustrating them, seem to have forgotten their own lessons.

Oh well, roll on Split Second!

Burnout Paradise was freakin' awesome and you lot are all mental! :P

Burnout Paradise 2 please! :D Admittedly, I'm looking forward to see what they do with NfS. Will have to be pretty special to outdo Split/Second!

Burnout Apocalypse please!

Set in the burning wreck of Paradise City... ;o)

@Vertiocal Stand

Yeah, I'll take that back.

But if no one buys games that should be bought instead of the crapness we'lll all be in trouble.

Hopefully Bioware won't suffer.

They should keep Criterion on Burnout and just keep the same monkeys on typewriters bashing away at Need For Speed.
Because it sells every year whether it is any good or not

If they try to literally follow in the footsteps of Shift and keep going with the realistic racing angle, I predict failure. Seems as though EA like to shake up NFS these days though and go with a different style every time, so hopefully it'll be a bit different.

And so, more funding is being put behind the Critierion creative director, Alex Ward. Sadly he is the most unpleasent person I have ever had the misfortune to meet, he is incredibly abusive to his staff. Senior EA people are aware of this and ignore it because he makes them money, which just proves to me that EA doesn't give a damn about the people making the games, only the numbers on the end of the spreadsheet.

I feel sorry for all the people being laid off, but I feel worse for the people who have to work for Alex Ward.

"I feel sorry for all the people being laid off, but I feel worse for the people who have to work for Alex Ward."

Quoted for truth.

So, go on Doctor What - say something libelous. Tell us all about Alex Ward (I wanna know)....

Anything I say would only be libellous if it was inaccurate.

I think my favourite example was during the development of Burnout Paradise. The project had continued on many months longer than it was supposed to take, requiring daily overtime for at least a year. (Yes, that's a year of overtime with no thanks, only dev managers walking around with a list asking people in Friday afternoons if they would be coming in on Saturday - no pressure there then.)

EA has a sabbatical system, whereby after a large number of years with the company you are given a couple of months off as a reward for your long service. Several mid-senior people on the team had booked their sabbaticals, along with once-in-a-lifetime holidays, for about six months after Burnout Paradise should have finished. They were working their arses off everyday, looking forward to their holiday, and trying to get everything as finished as possible before they went on their well-earned break.

These people sent around emails in the days before they were leaving, reminding their parts of the team that they were going away and to ask any important questions.

On their last afternoon, Alex Ward sends an incredibly sarcastic email to the whole team, ridiculing these people and, in tone, alleging that they were neglecting their duty to the company by taking a holiday when the game wasn't finished. These people worked incredibly hard, and the last email from their boss before leaving for a two month break was a snide message saying that they wouldn't be taking their break if they were really dedicated. What a nice bitter taste to leave in their mouths after all their hard work. Of course, he didn't take any personal responsibility as the Creative Director that it was his own choices and leadership that meant the game had overrun by so long.

So, that's one of the more mild, but telling, examples of his attitude to his staff.

As a smaller issue, you know how when you're really good friends with someone then you can insult them as a joke, knowing that they won't take it personally, and knowing that you have judged how they're feeling that day so it will be okay? He does that with everyone, just without bothering to become friends with them. Basically, his version of 'friendly' is an insult that he thinks is funny.

He will also avoid eye contact with anyone lower than a senior level.

And he'll tell people that their work is shit, in those terms, to their face, in front of a whole room. Then stare at them.

And he can't seem to speak (off-camera) without saying 'fucking' somewhere in the sentence.

And he'll ridicule anyone who disagrees with him (even though he'll take the idea six months later when his own one doesn't work).

And he doesn't seem to realise that his only terms of reference exclusively come from 80s films... Okay, so that's not about his management style, but it does get annoying after a while.

... And like I say, EA management in the UK know all this and still they tolerate him, because the money from the games comes before the people making them.

One of my 'favourite' quotes from him, when questioned by a designer about whether we should test the game at standard definition was: 'We don't care about standard definition gamers!' The person in question was then generally derided for not thinking about the future of gaming. Then the game was released. Then they had to quickly patch the shoddy standard-definition visuals, because it turns out that quite a lot of people don't live in the future yet.

So, it was a deliberate decision to not check the quality of the game for non-HD gamers. What a nice chap.

"And he'll ridicule anyone who disagrees with him (even though he'll take the idea six months later when his own one doesn't work)."

My favourite was when he 'invented' checking traffic in Burnout Revenge, loved it so much he forced you to play it as the very first event in the game, and refused, or more likely furiously ridiculed, anyone who tried to tell him it was a bit rubbish....

Wow, you two really hate the guy :D.

(And. if he's the one who invented the checking traffic thing, I hate him too.)

There are very many people I bump into who used to work at Criterion who despise Ward. Not dislike, despise.

Interesting. Thanks for the insight guys. I now know who not to send my CV to when I start applying for jobs. I will however, continue to buy Criterion games if only to support the work that goes into them.. anyone who's played the Burnout series knows that they're good games at the end of the day, just a shame to hear about what goes on behind the scenes.

Wow, thanks for filling me in Doctor What! I'd seen his name come up in a similar vein a few months ago here on EG.

The only other dev I've seen described here in a similar manner is Gavin Raeburn (formerly of Codemasters)!!!

Am I a bad person for liking DiRT, GRID & Burnout Paradise so much? :(

Creative Directors are rude, egotistical, management dick heads? Who would have guessed.

If you are in a creative industry, you will get a bollocking once or twice in your career from the Director/Project Lead. Sometimes deserved. I've had one or two and they were followed by apologies (which is rare but the director was a thoroughly nice chap who knew that a happy crew gets shit done and quick if you treat them with respect) but they do help you realise your mistake and you never do it again. But then its scary the amount of horror stories that are coming out of the games industry when egos are allowed to run rampant simply because the Director had a "Hit" and suddenly they are allowed to abuse the hell out of their teams simply because they bring in the money. Its even scarier when the industry is so fragmented and there is no unions so management just shrugs and thinks its not their problem because they have to keep the project lead happy.

My favourite was when he 'invented' checking traffic in Burnout Revenge, loved it so much he forced you to play it as the very first event in the game, and refused, or more likely furiously ridiculed, anyone who tried to tell him it was a bit rubbish....

All those in favour of kicking Alex Ward in the balls a million times, Say aye.

Criterion's games are mostly as good as they are because of a few good designers and a whole lot of incredibly good coders, the majority of which would also make pretty decent designers too, I think.

Yes, I fully accept the case that there is the need for a person at the top to have strong opinions, and I also know that sometimes this will lead to disagreements, but Alex Ward manages to be offensive on pretty much every scale. I've never met anyone so pathologically unlikable that I could not think of a reason to justify their existence until I met Alex Ward.

Twoism: there are many happy places in the industry that you can work, and there are many troubled places, but Criterion was a miserable place whenever Ward got involved. They had some brilliant people there, but I would never go back while Ward works there. He really is as bad as people say.

Don't send your CV to Critierion; besides Ward, EA hire people when they need to bulk up their team then fire them as soon as project finish - you don't need that when you're new to the industry. Admittedly, part of the reason for that is that Ward only approves of projects that involve smashing cars (he only let Black through to appease the lead designer and has continually blown any sequel ideas out of the water) so between ramp-up periods he has no plan for how to look after his staff. Poor management driven by an ego the size of a hotel.

"AYE!"

I wouldn't get too excited about this version of NFS.
Read the article-
"Next year's Need for Speed has been under development now for some time at our award-winning Criterion Studio,"

That's Criterion Studio NOT the Criterion Team.
The Criterion Team who brought you the previous Burnout games fragmented and most of them left EA ages ago.
They've gone on to work at Media Molecule, Hello Games, Fireproof Studios, Codemasters, Slightly Mad Studios, Black Rock etc.
Anywhere to get away from the hellhole EA made of the place and, yes, Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry.

Ward is the most arrogant, egotistical, big mouthed waste of space I've ever had the misfortune to meet.

Split Second looks to be a far more interesting and fun game if the guys at Black Rock can pull it off.

Please can I express my upset at Dr Whats comments he is obviously using a name which suggests he is me. I would like to reiterate as I did in the last article, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at EA and Criterion. Alex Ward has proved himself on many occasions to be a great Designer. I have enjoyed all of his games. I wish this coward poster would consider changing his name

It always raises a chuckle how any Criterion news here always raises the spectre of Ward. Even more impressive is how he's still the obnoxious twat I meet 9 years ago.

Please can I express my upset at Dr Whats comments he is obviously using a name which suggests he is me.

Yup. A guy who registered well over a year before you is totally stealing your name and running it into the ground. How thick do you think EG posters are?

Lol. What a tool.