If you ask what are the best game manufacturers in the world, it is estimated that everyone can give their own answers, such as R Star, Nintendo, Sucker Punch, FS, etc., I am afraid that I can't really count them for a while. But if you ask which game company in the world is the worst, then the answer should be quite consistent, and the names of Asian penguins and North American EA are about to come out.
As one of the three major IPs in the FPS industry, "Battlefield 2042", its performance really disappointed fans around the world, tens of thousands of people applied for refunds, and the number of online people repeatedly reached a new low, so that players could not help but sigh, EA destroyed an IP. Let's flip through EA's old account today, why did the once brilliant game overlord fall to such a point?
It's a lot to say how many games and studios EA has ruined, and it's fair to say that as a player, you'll never be exposed to role-playing, simulation, adventure, real-time strategy, racing, basketball, or even zombie fighting to get along with EA.
But the original EA is not as greedy and evil as it is now, but a rather thoughtful game company, EA's founder Trip Hawkins was born in California in 1954, graduated from the famous Harvard University, in 1978 he entered an unknown company, but in just four years, the company grew from 50 people to 4,000 people, with an annual revenue of $1 billion, this company is now Apple!
According to this script, Hawkins should be an Apple elder Silicon Valley elite, but Hawkins finally chose to leave Apple and create his own game empire. In 1982 Hawkins left Apple to pull an investment and found a game company, which we now know as EA.
Although Hawkins is only a technical background, but his own business sense is very keen, he saw the saturation of the console game market at that time, and the rise of personal computers represented by Common64, etc., and it was also at this time that the concept of third-party game studios was widely recognized, and a large number of publishers urgently needed the development of games, so Hawkins directly designed the commercial core of EA into an agent to publish games, and in the following period of time EA successively released 6 games, including "Hundred Battles", "Worms". Pinball Pinball" and other heavyweight works that have a great impact on the later game industry.
As a newly established game company, EA's early development level was indeed the first echelon of the game market at that time, and the biggest difference between EA and other publishers at that time was the use of cross-border thinking, the use of special packaging and the developer's name written on the cover, but also effectively imitated the exquisite appearance of the album design, which was well received by the media.
The first games released by EA were very successful in word-of-mouth and sales, and they became the hottest games of the year, after all, everyone has games, but my marketing is stronger than yours, and it is always easier to be seen. EA packaged the developers who made the games like stars, and even made advertisements for them, which no one did at all in those days, and according to the current experience, such an approach can indeed greatly drive the sales of the game. At the same time, EA also sent out franchises to other studios, and EA provided funds for studios that were only responsible for developing games, which were common now, but in the 80s, these operations could be said to be both novel and effective.
EA's advanced operations laid the cornerstone of the company, and under Hawkins' leadership, EA quickly grew into a third-party game company to be reckoned with in North America. After completing all this, Hawkins chose to retire and start a business, and was succeeded by Larry Hollobuster, the vice president of sales at the time, and here EA began its own downhill road, which became the nightmare of countless players.
Just like Apple began to squeeze toothpaste year by year after Cook took over, EA under Larry's leadership did not fall to the bottom, but greatly expanded the company's IP by acquiring studios, but the name of studio killer was also completely launched.
In the period from 1991 to 2007, "Magic Gate", "Command and Conquer", "Red Alert", "Sims", "Battlefield", "Need for Speed" all fell into the hands of EA at this time, and in 2004 EA also planned to acquire Ubisoft, but for various reasons plus Ubisoft's strength, this matter was finally closed.
Acquiring so many studios at once is also a huge burden for the company, after all, these masterpieces can hurt the company's vitality with poor sales, and these studios acquired by EA have basically been dissolved after internal digestion, such as the familiar Westwood Studio that developed "Red Alert" and "Command and Conquer", which is a classic case of EA destroying the studio. In addition, there is also bullfrog studio that developed "Theme Hospital" and is forced by EA to develop new works, and constantly forced old employees to leave, and finally forced to disband. And Maxis Studios, the development team for SimCity and The Sims, was also disbanded.
For a long time, in the eyes of gamers, EA was simply a plague god, and which studio was basically cold. The reason why EA has changed so much before and after is actually very simple to trace back to the source, that is, one word - money.
Those acquired studios can only develop works with KPIs on their heads, and redemption is even more impossible. And in addition to completing KPIs, EA also requires to be able to make money and be able to make a lot of money, which is actually two different concepts, even if a game can sell hundreds of thousands of sales, but too much development investment will also be directly cut off, which is why many IP obviously sell well, and ultimately it is the real reason why it is hidden in the snow.
To be honest, this approach is still effective, EA does sit firmly on the throne of the North American game market, but the price of a thousand bones is to sacrifice countless studios with dreams. Although the creation of games is certainly inseparable from money, but blindly focus on revenue, when creating for the purpose of absolute interests, although the game developed is not necessarily bad, at least it will not be a work that makes players shine.
After 2008, online games in Europe and the United States began to emerge and hot, EA also immediately modified its business strategy, foreign investment in page game manufacturers decided to share a piece of the pie, internally is to accelerate the production of AAA, that is, the so-called annual goods game.
In 2011, EA launched its own Origin platform, directly skipping the channel to firmly grasp the income of the PC side. After the mobile game wave EA was not absent, various IPs were adapted into mobile games on the shelves of Android and IOS platforms. From EA's point of view, these operations are all ways to make the company profitable, but in the eyes of players, this is a challenge to the bottom line.
The Origin platform is outrageously rotten, and the adapted mobile game has no highlights, but is full of kryptonite elements. In 2012, 2013 and 2016, EA won the title of the worst company in the United States for the first time, winning the Treble, which shows that the player's reputation for EA is definitely not a prejudice.
In the face of such a situation, how should EA choose to converge and concentrate on polishing the quality of the game? The third generation of the head of Andre Wilson is indeed so, reducing many radical business programs, but the fundamental symptoms are not cured, the core idea of EA is still to make money without leaving room, violent transplantation, kryptonite card draw, the phenomenon of new year games is more serious, such as "Star Wars: Frontline 2" is the best embodiment of EA's greedy nature, a well-priced game has added prop charges, not paid clothing like glory, but real heroes and equipment that can affect the game experience. If you want to collect them all, either kryptonite or liver to burst, if you want liver, start 4000 hours, even if you work 8 hours a day, it will be close to 2 years...
Looking back at EA, from the continuous street-beating "Battlefield" series to "Anthem", to the fire of "Apex Heroes", EA has become a presence that players love and hate, love because there are a group of developers who really love the game within EA, and continue to produce more high-quality works. Hate is because EA always tramples on the player's bottom line, harvesting everyone's wallet again and again with ugly eating.
It is true that a commercial company wants to make money, but the spirit of EA is to use everything to achieve this goal, it implements this idea in the studios it acquires, the games it develops, the players it faces, although it can still be beautiful now, but if you just want to desperately use players to squeeze players, more insults are also reasonable, right?