Ben-DutkaElectronic Arts hasn't been very popular in the eyes of gamers. But the company wants to change that.
New CEO Andrew Wilson is embracing a "player-first" mentality for the future, as he recently explained to Bloomberg . He admitted that EA hasn't always been viewed in the best light, and that it's important to acknowledge the problems:
"In all honesty, as I came into the role, there was this sense in the marketplace that maybe we weren't doing all that we could for the player. And my objective number one was to really re-instill a player-first mentality; a player-first culture inside the organization."
Wilson has several ideas to make EA a "player-first" company. First on the list is showing games earlier, as they just did at E3. Another way is to release public betas earlier on in the development process, and we're seeing evidence of that strategy with the Battlefield: Hardline beta, which is currently in a testing mode on the PlayStation 4 and PC.
He added that not releasing a new Need for Speed – for the first time in over ten years – this year proves the company's "player-first" idea. The bottom line is they don't want to launch a game until it's "great" and thus far, the gamer response has been "really positive." Well, sure. You mucked up Battlefield 4 and now you gotta fix things. Makes sense.
Well with ubisofts behavior recently and origin improving greatly everyone I know seems to have had their option of them improved.
For me getting rid of the online passes was an amazing Start.
Sigh…
OK MS#2 you're all about games and gamers and bla bla bla. Should-have been about that in the first place.
Last edited by Corvo on 6/24/2014 10:21:19 PM
EA Executives were quoted as saying, "2013 really was the best collective effort we could muster. Sim City was a mess and NBA Live was barely functional, but we think we're finally gonna get Battlefield 4 completed any day now. Clearly, we're incompetent. So we are looking to put the power into our consumers' hands. Get their input throughout our development process. That way when they spend another $60 dollars on a flaming pile of crap, they'll realize that they're at least partly to blame."
Last edited by SHADOW on 6/24/2014 10:30:56 PM
Gotta get your house in order first, then start initiatives. Otherwise you just further the spread of your incompetence.
Also it's time to get some new IPs that aren't shooters.
To be fair, they have a little bit of everything. They're also making the new Battlefront.
Last edited by Killa Tequilla on 6/24/2014 10:57:35 PM
I think one of the problems a company like EA faces is that gamers know that EA are a bunch of suits who aren't into gaming themselves. It's all marketing and going for that greener and bigger would-be market.
Anyway, I try not to be too idealistic when it comes to content providers.
I'm loving Titanfall btw. EA let me try it free!
John Ricitello made similar noises when he took over in 2007 and what became of that? EA became even worse than they had been and they were none too good to begin with. If they're really sincere about putting players first then they could stop forcing studios to push their game out the door in 18 months or before it's ready. They could stop carving out content to sell back to gamers on day 1 and lay-off the microtransactions and pay-to-win free titles. Maybe they could sell off their IP and studios before closing up shop altogether!
Any of those would demonstrate more sincerity than Wilson is showing. A company that would issue the statement that they issued after winning their first Golden Poo award from the Consumerist is beyond redemption.
Last edited by Kryten1029a on 6/25/2014 1:49:20 AM
Actions speak louder than words, guys. Put up or shut up.
I'll believe it when I see it.
sure, sure, yack yack.
they say this, then give them time and they will be doing the exact opposite.
Shouldn't they have been like this in the first place?
I'm pretty sure EA CEOs are contractually obligated to spew obvious lip service like this as part of accepting the role, before going right back to not giving a shit.