EA did a big thing today, taking down five Need for Speed games overnight, much to the surprise of many players. Wait I haven't gotten on the bus yet, how did the children's day suddenly kill my childhood?
Although a member of the Need for Speed development team first posted the incident on the Reddit forum, the incident was too sudden. At present, the five games "Need for Speed 10: Life and Death Cabeng valley", "Need for Speed 12: Endless Storm", "Need for Speed 13: Shift", "Need for Speed 15: Variable Speed 2", "Need for Speed 16: Outlaw Race" have been removed from all digital malls. Fortunately, in addition to "Need for Speed 10", the remaining four games can still be purchased on Steam, and players who miss it may wish to pay attention to it. But it is worth noting that the servers of these five games are still planned to be completely shut down on August 31 after three months, so if you are not a true love fan, it is really not recommended to start at the original price.
"Need for Speed" as a non-real old racing game IP, has gone through nearly 30 years, although the early works are not a big hit, but the game's main easy to use and refreshing operation feel, has always been the advantage of the game. And the unique police car system, including the police mode officially added from the third generation, is constantly improving the playability of the game. Until the seventh and eighth generations of the "Need for Speed: Underground" series, the game has become a top racing game, and it is also the most successful work of "Need for Speed", of which "Need for Speed 8" is the highest rated work in the series. In addition, the game has obtained a large number of real vehicle licenses, and even real engine sounds, which is a huge advantage in the comparison of similar games.
However, due to EA's decision-making and other issues, the series of games has undergone many changes, changed to the "Need for Speed" released as a year old, and even rumored that 11 and 12 are almost "back-to-back" development, which leads to the resources left for 12 development are very poor, although Maggie Q was invited to play live-action CG, but the lack of all aspects caught up with the financial crisis, almost leading to the ultimate of the entire series.
Since then, the "Need for Speed" series has been constantly trying to change, but the effect has always been less than expected, and THE SMS Studio and Black Box Studio, which have always been the pillars of the series, have led the former to go out and concentrate on their own "Racing Plan" because of the quality of all aspects of the work; the latter is even more tragic, directly disbanded by the EA executives. Therefore, in recent years, the status of "Need for Speed" in the field of racing games has been in constant fluctuations.
The EA removed these five games, naturally got a lot of complaints from players, why can't you notify earlier? I'm afraid it's the question of all players.
More players are expressing their dissatisfaction.
As well as players who use yin and yang weirdness to tease EA.
A "reset version" seems to be possible, and the enthusiasm of players is estimated to be in the eyes.
While there's no guarantee that this guess is correct, licensing fees may be part of the reason EA took down the game.
Considering EA's statement: "Retiring a game has never been easy, but we are now moving to the future of Need for Speed. Over the years, the development team and operations staff have invested a lot of time and effort in developing, creating, selling, and sustaining these games, and we're excited to see you playing them. But the number of players has reached a point where the behind-the-scenes work behind these games is unsustainable. ”
Although the sentence is reasonable, the announcement of the removal of the shelves on the same day obviously did not treat the player as an adult! And suddenly taking down a game isn't the first time EA has done so.
As early as 2014, with the video game site GameSpy announcing the closure of platform services, EA could only be forced to remove dozens of games such as Battlefield 2 and Far Cry. Although EA cannot be completely blamed, the simple shutdown did not find a way to provide follow-up services, and it can only be said that EA has no intention of continuing to maintain.
This was followed by 2015, when EA launched 23 old games on the iOS platform without warning, including many "antique" titles that have landed on the Apple Store since 2009, and launched in March 2009 for $0.99, and "Aviation Commander", which received 700,000 downloads in just two months, is one of the works that was tragically removed.
epilogue
At present, in order to help DICE's "Battlefield 6" to make way, the new "Need for Speed" developed by Critterion has been postponed for a year, but it is difficult to use the overhauled "Need for Speed: Heat" and "Need for Speed 14: Reset Edition" before and after the accumulation of good word of mouth and evaluation, at least let players rest assured to wait for the output of the new work. Moreover, Codemasters, the developer of Dust, which EA acquired for $1.2 billion, is likely to launch a racing game with a new IP this year.
Does this mean that there may be more quality-oriented works later, or that reset versions of games made by old IPs will appear? EA should probably have streamlined the number of games in this way and attracted players with better quality and more durable works, after all, based on the EA ecosystem membership subscription payment and kryptonite content, as long as the game does not turn over, it should be enough to ensure revenue.
As a game that requires full networking, although it is not known when EA will shut down the server, under the premise that its own and multiple friends have begun to sell services, the next generation of "Need for Speed" adopts a stand-alone plus long-term operation model, which may be a good choice for creating excellent word-of-mouth works.