EA approach changing - Mythic

By Rob Fahey Published 2 November, 2007

Publisher focusing on quality.

Electronic Arts is working to change the way it goes about making games - with a view to releasing higher quality titles, and "games that players really want to play".

That's according to Mark Jacobs, boss of the firm's EA Mythic division, which earlier today delayed its forthcoming Warhammer massively multiplayer game by three months in order to spend more time polishing the game's features to a rich, lustrous shine.

Speaking to Eurogamer this afternoon, Jacobs said that part of EA's new philosophy is "talking to the community, getting their feedback, and being involved" - and praised the company's CEO, John Riccitiello, for focusing on allowing studios such as Mythic, Pandemic and Bioware to "make great games".

According to Jacobs, the decision to delay Warhammer was made based on feedback from players in the beta, with some changes planned to the game's player-vs-player modes as well as a hefty dose of overall polish.

"No game has launched badly from a technical standpoint and ever recovered," he explained. "If you launch badly, it's tough to come back." If you're nodding and looking a little bit sad at that sentiment, we're guessing you worked on Star Wars Galaxies - or maybe just played it at launch...

You can read our full shake-down of Mark Jacobs on the reasons for the delay, the plans for the beta program and how he has sleepovers for the Games Workshop guys in his house (well, sort of), right over here.

Comments (41) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • Cannibal #1 5 years ago

    Is it April 1st already?

  • dsmx #2 5 years ago

    I think I speak for all of us when I say, they said that last year and still nothing has changed.

  • AZA #3 5 years ago

    Whats the article say? I cant see for the tears from laughing at the sub heading :p EA Quality? ha ha yea right.

  • Nige #4 5 years ago

    Shame they didn't do it a few years ago when their approach was roundly criticised for being pants. A few more people might still have jobs.

  • Stranded87 #5 5 years ago

    I don't see why it's so hard to believe, their yearly sports titles have been received better this year and supposedly have more polish for the most part, skate is a great game- sure we'll have to see how the sequels go but so far so good, Need For Speed Pro Street has been in development for much longer than any other recent Need For Speed Game and now they're letting Mythic put a substantial delay on their game to polish it. Not to mention all the positive stuff Bioware have said about them since being acquired, and i have a feeling Bioware are the sort of company in which most of the talent would leave if they weren't being given the freedom to do what they want.

  • Rodster #6 5 years ago

    EA focusing on quality over quantity. I guess hell has frozen over.
    Edited by Rodster at 02/11/07 @ 20:03

  • AZA #7 5 years ago

    Bioware have said the nice things so they don't lose their jobs when assimilated :p

  • Stranded87 #8 5 years ago

    'Bioware have said the nice things so they don't lose their jobs when assimilated :p '

    Yeah that possibility certainly occurred to me, but as i say i reckon most of the talent there would sooner leave and reform under a new name than have to sacrifice much of their creative freedom.

  • AZA #9 5 years ago

    aye, wont be the first time thats happened am I right? I think thats how Lionhead got started wasn't it? If so Lets just hope if they do they don't become th next Lionhead studios and promise the world and deliver nothing.

  • JediMasterMalik #10 5 years ago

    What's the big joke? It's true really, a lot of what's coming out of EA has been alot more original and interesting than what they'd been doing in the past, they're really pushing for change.

  • Cannibal #11 5 years ago

    "Yeah that possibility certainly occurred to me, but as i say i reckon most of the talent there would sooner leave and reform under a new name than have to sacrifice much of their creative freedom. "

    But, they'd have to sacrifice the IP Mass Effect which has taken a lot of their time and is meant to be a trilogy.

  • estoo #12 5 years ago

    EA games are 99% of the time highly polished anyway, polish is not what they lack, it's substance. As the old saying goes :You can't polish a turd. (Love FIFA this year tho...)

  • VMerken #13 5 years ago

    Seeing is believing. I think a lot of people are going to watch what happens with Bioware. A nice "test case" would be the second Mass Effect game (it's a trilogy, I believe), as they will effectively be Bioware games from the pre- and post-EA era.

  • Nikanoru #14 5 years ago

    So what they're saying is that they admit all their crap is worthless?

  • Xerx3s #15 5 years ago

    Bwahahahahaa! Best joke of the day! EA wouldn't know a good quality if the got slapped in the face by it.
    "No game has launched badly from a technical standpoint and ever recovered,"

    Hmmm, odd. So what are all those incremental updates with astonishingly bad quality doing to the top 10 then?

    Sorry mate, but making this crap up because your overlord tells you to really doesn't build any credit.

  • Nige #16 5 years ago

    Yeah the Nth generation of FIFA is better than the 17 or so before it... but how preposterous does that sound?

    What the biggest independent publisher in the world should have done (a f*cking long time ago) is invested some of it's considerable expendable income, expertise, and influence on actually innovating, rather than (or at the very least, in addition to) milking the sh1t out of tired old franchises, paying over-the-odds for crap movie-tie-ins and investing in harebrained bandwagon schemes like the legendary spazfest that was 'EA.COM'.

    Contributing to the death of the Dreamcast, owning the MMORPG market and then letting everyone else pinch it, sitting around on their arses in a huff over Xbox live revenues while their competitors made hay, and watching Wii with a total and complete sense of bewilderment are just a few of the many corporate bumjangles that their clueless leadership ought to be strung up for.

    EA was once led by people who grew within the company, and shared it's vision. Then after making a few bob on the Megadrive & PSX, it seemed to forget what it was good at. Coincidentally at around this time it started hiring f*ckwit icecream salesmen, and people from the music industry (who'd grown tired of running the likes of EMI into the ground).

    It's about time they got a grip and acted like an entity with some kind of integrity. The very name 'Electronic Arts' is now synonymous with lack of effort and imagination, and focusing on 'branding' is yet another example of how much they've lost touch with reality. It's time to start inventing, EA.

  • Guv #17 5 years ago

    Resistance is futile!

  • ElephantMonkey #18 5 years ago

    EA Sports! It's in the game

  • The-Bodybuilder #19 5 years ago

    >"with a view to releasing higher quality titles, and "games that players really want to play".

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  • The-Bodybuilder #20 5 years ago

    >"sure we'll have to see how the sequels go..."

    You damn right they're gonna be sequels. Lots and lots of'em, probably twice a year.

  • JayeM #21 5 years ago

    I have to counter-act all the negativity. I love EA.

  • thepiedpiper #22 5 years ago

    i can't see the words through all that spin!!!!

  • Krun #23 5 years ago

    In the dim and distant past (longer than some of you have been alive) EA made some of the best games and their name was seen as a mark of quality. Then they got bigger and bigger and bigger and some how they became this huge corporate factory. I do hope they can find their roots and get their customers to love them again like they did so very long ago.

    Oh and I seem to remember a lot of the "talent" left bioware ages back, yet bioware continues.

  • MaxiSleep #24 5 years ago

    What a shame they did not do this with hellgate

  • Wolfos #25 5 years ago

    Isn't there some sort of law against lieing?

    Let's be honest. EA was nice back in the day of Megadrive fun but now simply dosn't want to play any other game but "world domination" and quick money. Owning half the collective tallent in gaming history gives them a big head and a swollen ego. The nearest we will get to "games we want" is if they some-how buy out Squarenix and NIS and Koei and MS and Nintendo ¬_¬ And we get a smash brothers game better then whats currently being made (read : impossible)

  • Drakron #26 5 years ago

    "EA made some of the best games"

    Name then.

    And just for you to know, there is a big difference in "developing" and "publishing" so make sure you are not going to name games that they only published.

  • XsV #27 5 years ago

    I can never understand corporate cock sucking. Why on earth would you ever defend a brand or corporation, even have a sense of loyalty towards an inanimate entity? Very strange.

    Fuck EA.

  • Vice.Destroyer #28 5 years ago

    >The very name 'Electronic Arts' is now synonymous with lack of effort and imagination

    @Nige, I couldn't have put it better myself. Regardless of which genre, given the choice of an EA game or another studios title, the smart money avoids the EA option. It's not just FIFA vs Pro Evo. Don't forget Medal of Honour vs any other WWII shooter. Need for Speed vs PGR. NBA Live vs NBA 2K-whatever.

    Please don't get me wrong, sometimes I get happily surprised by how fun an EA game can be. I don't think I have recovered from all the fun that I had from the Godfather. Awesome game, many, many times better than Just Cause.

    But mostly, I get the same feeling playing EA games that I get when reading the Sun. Here is a product aimed at the lowest common denominator.

  • Pulsar_t #29 5 years ago

    Bring back Trip Hawkins! He should be head of EA, and besides who here ever played a mobile game made by his Digital Chocolate firm?

  • Cheapshot #30 5 years ago

    They made Skate and it's one of the best games I've played all year so they're obviously doing something right. Good for them I say.

  • Krun #31 5 years ago

    @Drakron

    I will name "then"

    Powerdrome
    Battlechess
    Marblemadness
    Populous
    Powermonger
    Syndicate
    Themepark

    This by the way was back when they called themselves Electronic Arts and in those days developer and publisher sat next to each other in the same office/bedroom.

    I haven't even mentioned the original sports games they made either because I'm not a sports game fan and didn't own them. But I owned all of those and EA games listed, they made up a large proportion of the games I bought as a kid with an Amiga. Why because ALL of those game in that list where the BEST you could buy, EA on the box cover told me I'd get something well made. If you think there are rubbish badly written cash in games about now you need to time travel back to the 80s to see the utter trash that was churned out.

  • Nige #32 5 years ago

    I'll leap in with the pedantry before Drakron does :-)

    Powerdrome - t'was a good game. Never really got into it myself, but plenty did. A proper EA game.

    Battlechess - an Interplay production, distributed by EA in Europe - and maybe elsewhere.

    Marble Madness - port of an Atari arcade. Published by EA. Good game, in its day.

    Populous, Powermonger, Syndicate, Themepark - all Bullfrog productions. But before EA bought them and drove everyone mad with crap like Hi-Octane, and the dreaded sequelitis.

    But you're right to mention all these games. Because back then, EA had the common sense to get involved with these titles, which at the time - were all fairly mould breaking and genre defining.

    Edit: Oh, and Chuck Yeager's Air Combat ruled, as did Indianapolis 500. And let's not forget Deluxe Paint, ooo - or Degas Elite!
    Edited by Nige at 03/11/07 @ 23:34

  • jynxce #33 5 years ago

    First, I'd like to apologize because I like to game and can't excuse EA because I'm not a pseudo-sports gamer. The apologists that are content to rely on the regurgitated annual sport updates.

    It'll take more than an EA hype man to make me not sigh when I see EA's logo flash across the screen. They might have mastered the presentation delivery, but remain completely base on the the material within...

  • Ryze #34 5 years ago

    Many people hate Burnout 3. I love it, and Burnout Legends on the PSP.

    I have no problem at all so far with EA buying Criterion, for example.

    It's like having a talented independent artist or group getting signed up to a massive label.

    As long as they stay creative - I've no problem with their budgets becoming huge.

  • Ryze #35 5 years ago

    But - what Nige says about the crap churning.

    Get it sorted.

  • Chufty #36 5 years ago

    Don't forget Leander

  • Skywise #37 5 years ago

    EA has a tendency to stop the online services of their titles far too soon. I would think really hard before buying an MMO from them. It'll be hard for the game in such a competitive market to make an impact anyway.

  • PinkSpider #38 5 years ago

    "yep, EA are changing, perhaps a little slowly, but it can be seen."

    Yuss, Ive noticed it. It's not massive but its still happening (I think I first noticed with Skate actually being good).

  • aldo_14 #39 5 years ago

    EA is now pretty much a 'franchise' company - at one point they did release good games (and some still are), but much of their output is the equivalent of McDonalds burger flipping. And quite often seemingly forced out at the lowest possible quality level to get in money as soon as possible.

    EDIT; stuff like Skate, MySims, Spore, possibly Army of Two is indicating they're making more of an effort nowadays, at least - albeit you have to wonder what will happen to those 'brands' in the future if the first iteration succeeds.

    (actually, I'm wondering - how many of EAs better new games come from bought-over studios? i.e. ones which might still have a bit of independent spirit left)
    Edited by aldo_14 at 05/11/07 @ 09:47

  • sharky_ob #40 5 years ago

    Can't really argue with this.

    The EA titles I've played recently (Skate, MOH Airbourne) have been really high quality. Never thought I'd say that....

  • kangarootoo #41 5 years ago

    I have to agree that some of the more recent games from EA have been very good.

    Regardless of what you feel about the direction Burnout has taken, none of the games in the series could be described as awful.

    The Fight Night series was also overall really well turned out.

    Skate is one of the top 20 games of the year in my book.

    Their record is clearly mixed, but EA actually do have really good processesin house and know a damn site more about making good games than many of the indie studios out there (I feel bad saying it, but its true).


    My only real issue with them is the way they work some of their staff (not all of them, but I've heard a fair share of bad stories). I only wonder what effect this apparent new focus on quality will have on some already poor employment practices.