Episode 14 - Mediocrity at the Top

(I wrote this article before KlaSinclair posted this article. It is kind of fitting we are kind of on the same brain wave.)

There are 41 titles listed on the EA website that they are currently supporting. 6 of them are not out yet so lets ditch those. The remaining 35 have come out within the past year… maybe year and a half. Only one of them was an original, all new title. Two games based movies are new franchises, but not original. That leaves 32 titles that were sequels, including 3 games that are sequels to movie franchises. Oh and checkers. But I don’t think that counts as new.

That 1 title… was BLACK. The game that some people preordered and paid their five bucks at GameStop then didn’t ever pick up after they played the demo.

EA is the largest publisher in the world and make billions of dollars. I bet they even have a robotic butler at their home office that massages everyone’s feet. I would like to think that the largest game publisher could come up with more than one new game. Hell, I can come up with an idea for a new game. Does that make me as good as EA?

Truth is, the sequels that EA is putting out aren’t even that good. It’s not as if these are stellar games with awesome new revisions and way better graphics. They’re not. For the sports games, they basically just sell you an updated roster. How good could they be with only a year of development? Same with the Need for Speed series. Can Carbon be that great if Most Wanted came out only a year before? It’s little tweaks, but they are selling the same game. (Actually, NBA 07 has a crap load of glitches and people are really fed up. What’s wrong, they cant even port a game properly?)

Most of the games EA puts out are not bad… usually. They’re just predictable. I enjoyed Need For Speed: Most Wanted, but that’s because the last NFS game I played was on the PS1. It was good, but nothing amazing. Certainly not amazing enough for me to buy Carbon a year later. Same with Call of Duty. I didn’t play the first one. I played the second one on my 360. It was great, really. But I’m sick of World War 2 games. Can I have a new war please? I’m not buying COD3.

From a business perspective I can see why EA does what they do. Putting out sequels to games that have an installed fan base pretty much guarantees you will sell copies. There is no risk involved. And in business taking risks is generally seen as a bad thing. That’s why they all wear suits. Cause there would be chaos if that ever changed.

From a gamers perspective however I would want the largest publisher to be trying to be innovative. Could it possibly ruin their bottom line? Yeah. It could. But we are talking about video games. Taking a chance is what started this whole crazy thing. Developing a computer that hooks into your television to play videogames was a crazy idea in 1972, but it caught on.

We are videogamers. We crave new and innovative technology and games. Look at DS sales. These things are flying off shelves and I’ll bet some of the reason is because the games are new. Do we need two different franchises of World War II first person shooters coming from the same company? No. But EA gives us Call of Duty, and Medal of Honor. And We’re at Call of Duty 3 now… Medal of Honor doesn’t have numbers; it has counted too high.

I’m not saying EA is the only publisher at fault, they’re not, but as the largest one they are more at fault then, say Raven. EA makes a ton of games, and with it, a ton of money. If anyone should be taking a chance to try and put out some original content it’s them. They have a lot of power and influence in how this industry moves. We are currently seeing more sequels than we ever have before. EA is a big part of that. If they actually start to try something new that will force everyone to do the same thing.

I’m not even going to get into microtransactions. That my friends, is a rant for when I am particularly pissed off.