WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Electronic Arts Story- Part Two 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.560 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.360 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.480 and I love all things tech. It is time for 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.959 a tech Stuff Classic episode. This episode is the part 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:28.240 two to last week's part one, The Electronic Arts Story 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.720 Part two. It originally published on May two thousand thirteen, 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.680 which is interesting because the previous one published on May, 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.199 which means these published back to back. I must have 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:44.040 missed a day or something. But I'm not gonna miss 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.040 a beat because we're going to pick up where we 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.640 left off and continue the Electronic Arts Story. Let's listen in. 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:52.680 One thing I didn't mention at the end of the 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.800 last podcast was that was the year e A purchased 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.600 Origin Systems, and that's the game company that was founded 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.360 by Rich Garriott, the guy who created the Ultimate series, 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.080 and they also had another series. They had James Combat 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:11.000 simulate simulators. They also had the Wing Commander series, and 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.440 so that was a big move on their part. But 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.520 then we move on into and that's when the three 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.080 D O console actually hit the market. Uh, and then 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.200 e A also released the first Need for speed for 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.840 the three D O because e A was actually a 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:31.240 partner in that three D O console experiment. They were 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:36.080 not the whole owners of that, which I guess in retrospect, 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:38.440 I'm sure the company thinks is a good thing. But 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.720 they were partners, so it wasn't like Hawkins had severed 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:47.200 all ties once he left e A. Uh. Now again, 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.800 we're not going to mention every single release that Electronics 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.400 Arts had um Electronic Arts I should say had throughout 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.400 their history. That it would be ridiculous, and you'd also 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.640 get tired of hearing A say FIFA. Uh like thirty 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:03.960 or forty time we say FIFA. He's just that word. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.360 First of all, I didn't if you're in the United States, 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:08.720 you're probably thinking, I don't know what that means. And 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.399 even if you're not, after you've heard it that many times, 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.280 it starts to lose all meeting and become something of 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.720 a cone that we're just saying over and over to 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.200 achieve enlightenment. But so I don't have anything for for 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.040 ninety four, Lauren, do you? I don't want to skip 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.079 over you you've got anything that was? That was actually 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.200 the year that Hawkins resigned as chairman of the board 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.880 for e A. Okay, so now he had actually not 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.600 just left as the CEO, but also left the board 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:36.840 of directors. Uh inve e A acquired a company called 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.320 bull Frog, which was a game development studio in the 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.600 United Kingdom, and they were known for a couple of 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:47.079 different series, their theme park series and their series called Populus. 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.040 Did you ever see Populous, Lauren? I did not see Populous. 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.000 I did play some of the theme parks. Okay. Well, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.120 Populus was a game where it puts you in the 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.799 role essentially as as like a god, and it was 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:04.240 a job to try and shape landscape so that fild 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.120 stuff and worship you. Right, yeah, this this is what 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.679 m Yeah. Indeed, I was about to say that this 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.200 is what I think black and White because that was 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.919 the same studio later on Black and White definitely was 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.600 was something that was inspired by the populist games. You 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.640 could definitely tell that Populus was was not quite as 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.120 sophisticated as that, and there were there were different ways 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:30.639 of winning Populace. You had opponents that would also have 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.400 their own worshippers, and you were trying to dominate the world. 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.160 So if you wanted to go over to the your 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.160 opponent's side when your opponent wasn't looking, and start digging 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.920 down until all of the villages were submerged in water 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.160 and all the little villagers drowned. And it was both 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.920 entertaining and horrifying at the same time. All of these series, 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:52.360 by the way, we're serious that he had published and 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.080 so um so the acquisition of bull Frog was kind 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.480 of a good following steps since they had done pretty well. 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.200 Right yeah, now now he has decided that they want 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.800 this as an actual part of their development team, not 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:07.520 just a title that they published. Once Bullfrog joined the A, 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.440 they the division began to develop the Dungeon Keepers series, 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.920 which reached some acclaim I thought, I always thought it 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.360 was a very entertaining series. And that same year, in 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.840 ninety the Sega Saturn platform launches, and so does a 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.920 platform that would become one of the most disruptive platforms 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.880 in video game console history, because at this point Nintendo 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:35.080 is pretty much the heavy hitter. I mean, Nintendo is 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.359 owning video game consoles. Sega keeps coming out with consoles 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:43.360 that from a specs perspective, might beat out whatever the 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:45.840 Nintendo console is at that time. But but just but 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:47.960 just that the games. The programming that was going on 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.000 for Nintendo was incredible, right, Yeah, the Nintendo had all 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.840 the momentum, so Sega, while it had its fans, just 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.400 didn't have nearly as many as Nintendo did. Well. Was 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.720 also when we saw Sony get into the game with 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:04.120 the PlayStation console, and that really shook things up. You know, 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:08.880 a CD based console that had far more graphic ability 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:13.200 than the Nintendo consoles did. Uh. And that that gave 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:15.719 e A a lot of opportunities as well to develop 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.240 for yet another platform, because remember e A wants there 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.599 to be as many platforms as possible because it means 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:23.960 that no single platform has enough power to tell e 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.640 A what to do. Um. And then e A also 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.920 starts to port several three d O titles to the Saga, Saturn, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.400 and Sony PlayStation platforms in order to take advantage of 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.640 the thirty two bit processing power. So in this sense, 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:39.960 they didn't have to develop new titles. They just had 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.240 to retool these titles for the three D OH so 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.560 that they would work on these other systems. Now, I say, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.640 just that's still a pretty big thing to have to do, 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.000 but it does. It's different from having to build a 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.400 game from the ground batch. Yeah, you don't have to 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.200 go through the whole conceptual phase at all. Uh. I 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.400 don't have anything for ninety six, so we're gonna go 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.040 right into nine seven. Sounds good. So e A in 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.440 ninety seven acquires Maxis, And this is this is a 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.240 big one, folks, because this is the company that was 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.480 responsible for sim City. The first sim City game came 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:14.240 out in ninete, so almost a decade earlier, right and 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.760 h And since then, will write who is who's the 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.280 designer for Maxis had had been making all kinds of 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.479 all kinds of related titles as sim Earth, Sam Aunt. Yeah. 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.040 I was a big fantasy man. Yeah. Yeah. On the 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:26.600 on the s n E S it was. It was 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:31.200 great Aunt simulation. Man, I got it. Sounds so goofy 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.240 and I had so much fun playing it. I'm not 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.040 going to argue with the goofy part, but hey, I 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.600 like lots of goofy stuff, so I am not one 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:41.640 to talk. And once e A acquires Maxis, that's when 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:43.880 will Wright starts to work on a game that would 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.320 become an important part of e A's arsenal. In fact, 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.200 you could argue it's the most important game that e 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.560 A ever came out with, and that is the SIMS. 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.240 So will Wright starts to work on the SIMS back 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:59.080 in ninety seven. It would be a few years before 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:01.720 that game would come out. Uh. E A also gets 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:07.080 into the online gaming market. They launch Ultima Online, which 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:09.480 was one of the earliest, at least one of the 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:14.080 earliest successful massively multiplayer online role playing games in the 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:19.720 Western Hemisphere. So Ultima Online goes live and starts to 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.800 prove the model that online gaming could be a thing. 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.480 Keeping in mind this is before broadband penetration had really 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.200 spread out throughout the United States. Uh, there were people 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:34.000 who are playing this on dial ups. Oh my goodness. Uh. 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.400 And so it was you know, this was the earliest 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.480 days of that, and it was before really in those days, 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.640 it came down to Ultima Online or ever Quest. Those 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.760 were the two big names. And it wouldn't be until 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:51.320 the world of Warcraft that that dynamic gets really shaken up. Um, 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.160 and you had people who were hardcore fans of one 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.520 and hated the other anyway. That that same year, nine seven, 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:04.360 bull Frog chief Peter Mullineux leaves e A to start 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.520 a new studio and supposedly one of the reasons he 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.840 left was that he felt that e A was getting 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.840 two hands on in game development, that they were interfering 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.000 too much in the actual development of games, and that 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:21.160 he felt that the pressure was to establish a game 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.120 and then just churn out sequels right right, And this 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.240 is in U is in direct opposition to eas original 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.160 mode of operation, wherein they were they were treating game 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.800 developers with extreme respect and kind of letting them do 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.680 whatever they wanted on the principle that whatever they wanted 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.400 would be awesome. Yeah, and yeah, and but but since 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:41.320 then had, as we discussed in our previous episode, decided 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:43.319 that that, yeah, that that the real way to go 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.559 is to create brands and and really um push the brandin, 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.800 find a brand that resonates with an audience, and then 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.160 all you have to do is keep on creating uh 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:54.880 sequels to that and that, and people will buy it 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.319 because you've established an audience for it. This is not 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.560 an unusual idea. We see it all across video games. 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.800 I mean you could think another media too, of course. Yeah, 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.360 you can think of dozens of franchises that exist. Only 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.120 you can look at entries to various franchises where you 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.360 think this really didn't live up to what the original 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.280 was or what later entries were. This was clearly something 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.679 where a company was trying to cash in on a 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:24.200 previously existing title. Um and and in some cases it's 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.400 it can be the death of a franchise or or 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:32.439 even an entire company. Well. Then moving on, in n 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:38.560 Electronic Arts moves its headquarters from San Mateo to Redwood City, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:44.000 and e A also acquires yet another company, Westwood Studios, 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.600 which was the company that developed the Command and Conquer series, 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:52.240 which are real time strategy games. Um. I'm terrible at 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.160 real time strategy games. I'm just I can't. I don't. 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:56.760 I don't have a brain from either. I can't. I 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.920 can't manage. Yeah, I cannot manage the many assets. I 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:06.040 can't keep track of everything. Obviously, if I were going 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.280 up against Kirk and Spock, they would be able to 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:12.960 defeat me because I can't think three dimensionally. Um Also, 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.720 Electronic Arts formed a partnership with Square, being the Japanese 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.480 game company that's that's most famous for for RPGs like 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.080 say Final Fantasy. You might have heard of it. Um 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.680 and Uh, Square and and e A worked out this deal. 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.560 They formed a Square E A here in the States 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.200 and E A square over in Japan. Uh. The idea 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.480 of being to transfer titles that were happening in each 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:38.800 place to the other and and see see how they did, 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:40.440 you know, try to try to bring stuff that wasn't 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.760 being seen in each country over to the other, because 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.160 there were I think, especially in the Final Fantasy series, 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.240 if I'm not mistaken, there were a couple of entries 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.040 in the Final Fantasy Series that happened in Japan that 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.560 at that point had never been seen in the United States. Correct, 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.320 and uh, and and people were you know, RPGs had 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.360 a little bit of a following over here, but but 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.199 none of the really big cool titles were coming over 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:06.040 and so and so. So I meant that you had 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.480 to have like a Japanese game console, and then you 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.599 had to import the titles because of course, the the 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.719 media for the Japanese consoles would not work on the 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.360 United States. It literally would not play correct. I mean, 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:20.880 you know, aside from the fact that you would have 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:23.640 to learn Japanese in order to play them very effectively, 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:25.959 which is a whole other issue. But um, but yeah, so, 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.920 so each square E A and A square each had 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.439 a stake in the other um which which which is 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.280 an interesting fun business model. And uh in that same year, 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.240 they brought um Bashida Blade to Parasite Eve and Zeno 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.120 Gears all to the American market for the PlayStation. Huh wow, 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.360 so another big move on e A's part. Also kind 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.920 of interesting to see a an alliance in the video 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.400 game world. Uh. Some people would call that, uh frightening 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:57.559 because you know, when you're talking about being such a 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.079 big power player and you already have a reputation for 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.600 scooping up smaller companies and then to make an alliance 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.480 with another big company, just that starts to make other 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:12.320 people feel really nervous, kind of nervous. Yeah. Seven years 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.719 after e A had acquired Origin Systems, Richard Garriott, who 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.480 was the founder of Origin, leaves e A. He had 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:23.320 finished work on Ultimate nine, which was the final uh 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:28.319 entry into the Ultimate series besides the online stuff. And uh. 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.199 He also seems to feel very similar to the way 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.679 other people who departed e A felt that that it 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:39.000 was just it was not the most ideal creative environment, right. 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.480 Apparently a bunch of his former team members, of former 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:44.760 Ultimate team members felt very much the same way because 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.679 after e A canceled Ultimate Online to UM at the time, 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.240 a bunch of a bunch of them jumped ship to 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.480 go join Garriott at the new company that he had formed, 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:58.400 Destination Games. UH. Garriott would not see very much success 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.520 here in the United States over the next several years, 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.520 but recently interesting thing is that he had a kick 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.480 started campaign for a new game that is inspired by 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.679 his old Ultimate series, and the kickstarter funded in like 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.719 two days, it was, and then went on to meet 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.599 lots and lots of stretch goals. Anyway, back to e 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.599 a h. Still in they published their first Medal of 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:24.800 Honor game, which is again another one of those big 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.679 franchises that UH that they're very well known for, and 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.760 that debuted on the PlayStation platform. UH. And that same year, 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:38.640 Sega debuts a new video game console called the Dreamcastcast. 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:42.120 I own a Dreamcast. I like it a lot. I 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.360 actually got my Dreamcast after the Dreamcast had already run 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.760 its course and was no longer in production. UH. And 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.160 I inherited a lot of games from a friend of 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.520 mine who was not really playing them anymore. And you know, 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:56.640 I think Dreamcast it's another one of those things where 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.319 we've done an episode of about Sega. We did a 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.679 full thing about Sega's um Uh successes and it's it's 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.520 notable failures and it's interesting. Again. The Dreamcast was one 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:12.120 of those consoles that was phenomenal. It performed really well 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.520 potatoly if you stacked it up against its competitors, but 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.240 it just, you know, it just never never really caught on. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.400 It never cut onto the to the extent that it 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.440 needed to in order for a viable platform. I think 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:25.280 it was a little bit niche for for the for 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:29.320 the mainstream American market real time especially um Also that 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:31.560 year was when Square e A put out the Final 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.280 Fantasy Anthology, which brought some of those games that had 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:38.280 not been published yet in America over here. So in 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.400 two thousand, that's when the SIMS debuts, and it is 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:47.720 a huge success, and it really gave e A a 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.600 access to a brand new audience, which we usually refer 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.600 to as women. It turned out, it turned out that 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.600 they didn't know at the time when they were producing 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.920 the SIMS. They had no idea that was going to 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.160 resonate with a female audience. And in fact, when they 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.200 were first building the SIMS, it was just going to 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:09.360 be a a way of building homes, and then they 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.120 created these little virtual characters to inhabit the homes and 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:15.480 realized that it was way more interesting to see what 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.000 the virtual characters were up to than to build out 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.400 the houses. So that's when the SIMS focus shifted to 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.960 these virtual people, and your job was to give them 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.440 as much of a life as you possibly could, which 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.840 became increasingly difficult than the game, where you're thinking, I 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.000 don't have enough time. That's just like real life. I 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.520 don't have enough hours to give this person a good 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.560 job and a and a satisfying social life. Still have 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.600 them go to the bathroom without having a terrible accident 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.840 in the middle of the living room. But uh, Anyway, 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:49.960 it was a huge performer, and they immediately started to 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.840 to develop expansion packs for the SIMS and also go 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.520 into development for the sequels to the SIMS because it 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.160 was clear they had touched the nerve and that It's 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.280 also the year and two thousand, that's when Sony launched 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:08.440 the PlayStation two. Yeah. Um. Meanwhile, back on the PlayStation one, 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.040 Square e A put out Crymno Cross that year, which 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.160 is my the only RPG that I've ever played all 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.720 the way through. I'm not really an RPG person. I 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.440 love that game with a burning and fiery passion. It 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.160 is it is the best. Um. But but I think 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:24.480 that it's interesting that, uh. I mean, although it had 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.800 been out already in Japan, I think it. You know, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.120 they were like, no, that's PlayStation two. Whatever, this one's 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.280 fine on the PS It'll still sell really well. And 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.600 Sony was very good about supporting their old consoles even 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:42.160 when they're introducing a new one. PlayStation two games were 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:46.040 developed for the PlayStation two well after PlayStation three debuts. 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:50.600 So um, they have a very different strategy compared to 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.560 say Microsoft. And speaking of Microsoft, in two thousand one, 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.480 that's when Microsoft launched the Xbox. So now we have 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.880 even more competition in the video game console world. At 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:05.280 this point, e as just having kittens. Nintendo launched the GameCube, 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.600 and e starts developed games for all the three major 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:13.480 console platforms, which of course does not include Sad Trombone. 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:18.679 So Xbox, PlayStation two, and GameCube are all great platforms 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:20.680 for e A to develop for. They just they see 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:26.920 that as endless opportunity. So uh. They then that same 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:31.119 year closed the Bullfrog division of e A. Now this 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.000 this kind of brings us to another thing that people 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:36.280 have criticized EA for, not just the fact that they 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:38.480 bought up companies, but that they would later go on 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.840 to close them when they realized that they weren't performing 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.080 quite as well as they wanted. Yeah, they just the 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:46.760 things weren't working out. And a lot of the people 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:48.800 who worked for these divisions came out and said, well, 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:50.640 the reason things didn't work out is because they were 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:55.439 so adamant on us producing a brand and just concentrating 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.720 on that brand as opposed to letting us develop do 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.000 what we do, which is developed games. And so you 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.840 have this series of stories of all these different divisions 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:06.760 being or different companies rather being bought up and turned 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.800 into divisions for e A later getting closed. Um that 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.639 you know, some would say that all e A was 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.120 really doing was buying up competition and shutting it down. 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.040 You know that that ultimately that's what turned out to 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.520 be the case. Uh oh yeah. Whether or not it 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.960 was intentional is absolutely you know, that's that's that's completely 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:27.679 beside the point. It didn't matter if it was intentional 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.879 or not. That was the effect, right, So, uh, it 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.600 was it was kind of rough and around that same time, 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.119 e starts to make licensing agreements to make games based 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.560 on films and other properties. Uh. These included big name 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.760 properties like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Godfather, 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.600 and James Bond. I think that that fits in really 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:49.960 well with their strategy of of latching onto brands and 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.639 not necessarily producing the best games, because a lot of 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.960 those titles, especially in those early days, were not not playable. 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:57.960 I mean, and and that's that that goes back all 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.760 the way, you know, and any film title games kind 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:02.960 of spotty. There are a lot of times where I 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.080 feel like like companies rely very heavily on the name 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:12.240 of the franchise to sell copies, and so therefore the 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:14.560 amount of time and effort you need to go in 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:20.080 and build a very compelling game sometimes slips through the cracks. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.280 So um, you know, in that case, you end up 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.040 getting these games that are based on these beloved franchises, 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.240 but they failed to really live up to gamer expectations. 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:32.959 This happens. I mean, you can spend hours naming all 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.000 the superhero games that just didn't live up to expectations. 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.159 Not you know, there are a few that have been phenomenal, 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.359 but they are way more that weren't so not a 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:48.680 problem that only e A possesses. Certainly, certainly not. Also 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:50.000 in two thousand and one, I should put in that 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:53.399 UM Square A put out Final Fantasy ten, So that 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.760 was that was one of those I remember seeing the 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.439 previews for Final Fantasy ten when that was coming out 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.840 and thinking that that looked like a put particularly beautiful 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.919 game at that time. But things have changed. It doesn't 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.560 Things that were once the most gorgeous thing you could 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.320 imagine have not necessarily aged. Well, do you have anything 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:16.760 for two thousand two, I do not excellent. Two thousand three, 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.359 e A shuts down Westwood Studios and moves all the 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.520 remaining stuff to EA's Los Angeles studio. The Westwood was 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.040 in Las Vegas, and so they shut that one down. 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.960 So there's another example. They did not keep everybody. They 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.680 laid off quite a few people, but the people who 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.200 did remain were then moved to Los Angeles. UH And 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:43.600 then two thousand four, wait, Lauren, I didn't see your 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:47.240 high sign. My bad. We have we have an intricate 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:49.399 system of hand signals going on in the background here. 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.639 I know. Two thousand three, UH Square decided UM their 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.760 their relationship with e A had been slightly degraded, and 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:58.800 also they had been UM flirting a little bit with 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:01.600 with Enix stud Deos over in Japan and UH and 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.800 so Square dissolved their relationship with e A, UM bought 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.640 back all of their shares and formed Square Enix, which 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.639 would continue to produce the rest of the series that 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.240 people that they were known for excellent, well, excellent for them, 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.240 not so great for e A necessarily. In two thousand four, 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:21.520 e A went ahead and dissolved the Origin Systems division, 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:25.200 so that was the ultimately the division that produced the 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:29.200 Ultimate Games. That one was formally no more as of 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:33.000 two thousand four. E A also acquired Criterion, which was 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:36.800 that was the company that had developed the Burnout games. 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.400 Anyone who's familiar with those the driving games that get 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.680 really super crazy, Yeah, I really love those games. I'm 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.680 not a big driving game kind of guy, but those 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.000 particularly are very arcady. Yeah, yeah, they're They're a little 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:53.520 bit less focused on the physicalities of driving, and so 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.080 if you're not a huge car buff, the Burnout series 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.000 is pretty fun because all the crashing parts some other 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.240 games don't let you do. The crashing parts are pretty 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.040 pretty spectacular and play a large part in most of 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.080 those games. Uh. And then there that was the same 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:10.240 year that someone on live journal who had the handle 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:17.639 e A Spouse posted a rather uh critical post about 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:22.439 e A saying that they had some draconian practices as 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.440 far as employment goes, that people were being forced to 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:29.680 work super long hours six days out of the week, 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.800 they weren't getting compensated for overtime. Um. There were a 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:41.399 lot of pretty ugly accusations, and eventually some uh, some 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:44.800 spouses and some employees of e A got together and 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.160 they filed a class action lawsuit, in fact, a few 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:51.600 class action lawsuits against e A, and that ended up 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:54.600 leading to massive changes in the A and in the 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:57.160 industry in general, because other companies saw what was happening 0:22:57.200 --> 0:22:59.720 and they thought, we better fixed this before it happens 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:04.199 to so uh. In two thousand six, e A settled 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:06.840 a lawsuit that was brought against it by a bunch 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:11.280 of graphic artists and awarded the graphic artists fifteen point 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:15.800 six million dollars in unpaid overtime. And in two thousand seven, 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:21.080 the court awarded plaintiffs of a class action lawsuit fourteen 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:24.480 point nine million dollars and unpaid overtime. So this this 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:26.760 is a different group. It's not the same one twice. 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:30.760 So yeah, that was a big deal. And obviously e 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:35.200 A did not want to court any more problems down 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:37.560 the line, and so they started to really take a look. 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:43.680 Uh and in two thousand five, e A purchased jam 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:46.920 Debt Mobile. So two thousand five, this is before the 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:49.960 iPhone comes out. EA makes its first move into the 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:55.320 mobile gaming world for for phones, not not mobile devices 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:57.439 like game Boy or whatever. You know. It had been 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:00.320 developing games for platforms like that for a while, but 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:02.160 this was the first time it started to really look 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:06.280 into using um cell phones, not even smartphones yet as 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:09.840 a potential gaming platform. And uh, and that was a 0:24:09.960 --> 0:24:13.119 smart move. I mean, we're seeing more and more that 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:17.240 mobile devices are making a huge impact on the gaming industry, 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:21.280 So that was a Whoever was the person who said 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:24.800 we should do this was really they were really looking ahead. 0:24:25.200 --> 0:24:26.960 And that's also the year two thousand five would be 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:31.320 the year when Microsoft launched the Xbox three sixty. We'll 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:34.280 be right back with more on the electronic arts story, 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:44.040 but first let's take a quick break. Al right. So 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:46.400 let's see, I think, according to my notes, we left 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:48.920 off in two thousand five, So two thousand six, e 0:24:49.119 --> 0:24:54.919 A acquires Mythic Entertainment. Mythic Entertainment was responsible for the RPG, 0:24:55.160 --> 0:24:58.879 the m m O RPG Dark Age of Camelot that 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:02.080 they viewed back into thousand one, So now e A 0:25:02.240 --> 0:25:05.720 has decided to acquire another m m O RPG. They 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:10.240 saw that as a way of of maintaining a steady 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:13.040 stream of revenue. You've got all these people who are subscribing, 0:25:13.600 --> 0:25:16.399 so that was the strategy there, And that was the 0:25:16.480 --> 0:25:20.120 year the e A also acquired Digital Illusions CE better 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:23.600 known as Dice and Dice is the company that made 0:25:23.960 --> 0:25:27.840 Battlefield nineteen two. So two thousand six is also the 0:25:27.960 --> 0:25:31.480 year that Sony launched the PlayStation three and and Nintendo 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:34.480 launched the week exactly, both of them one year behind 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:36.760 the Xbox three six, which had had a head start, 0:25:37.600 --> 0:25:40.880 uh and uh, well not a full year, but several 0:25:40.960 --> 0:25:45.760 months behind anyway. But also what I thought was interesting 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:50.320 was I found a statistic here from Bloomberg Business Week 0:25:50.480 --> 0:25:52.840 that said it was an article that was published in 0:25:52.880 --> 0:25:54.959 two thousand six. So that's why I put it here, 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:57.199 because we're talking about two thousand and six here. They 0:25:57.280 --> 0:26:00.800 said that from nine until present day, which at that 0:26:00.920 --> 0:26:04.000 time was two thousand six, e A averaged about one 0:26:04.119 --> 0:26:07.760 point two acquisitions per year. It was buying up more 0:26:07.880 --> 0:26:10.080 than a company per year if you average it out 0:26:10.119 --> 0:26:13.040 over those years, and that one third of the companies 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:18.920 that had purchased in it eventually shut down. So that's 0:26:18.960 --> 0:26:21.360 again showing that that kind of trend that I talked 0:26:21.359 --> 0:26:25.000 about earlier, the criticism that people have laid against it, saying, 0:26:25.119 --> 0:26:28.639 you're buying up these companies and when you are, uh, 0:26:30.400 --> 0:26:33.960 and you stripped the industry of the talent these people have, 0:26:34.680 --> 0:26:37.000 and then you end up closing it down when it 0:26:37.080 --> 0:26:40.480 doesn't meet whatever your performance measurements are. Certainly not to 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:42.280 say that those people didn't go on to do other things, 0:26:42.520 --> 0:26:46.720 but but yeah, yeah, but and it's not necessarily it's 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:50.239 not necessarily the good business model for anyone in the industry, right, 0:26:50.600 --> 0:26:52.880 anyone else. And the big criticism would be those those 0:26:52.920 --> 0:26:55.800 guys and those men and women could have been developing 0:26:56.119 --> 0:26:59.800 games during that time that would have potentially changed the industry, 0:26:59.880 --> 0:27:03.080 but they couldn't because they were under contract or part 0:27:03.200 --> 0:27:06.280 part of this larger organization where they had nowhere else 0:27:06.320 --> 0:27:08.680 to go At that point. Um, yeah, I mean it's 0:27:09.920 --> 0:27:12.480 from from e A's perspective. It's doing all the smart 0:27:12.560 --> 0:27:15.840 business moves. So they're from a gamer's perspective or an 0:27:15.880 --> 0:27:18.320 industry analysts perspective. They might say this is not good 0:27:18.359 --> 0:27:20.120 for the industry, or the gamer might say this isn't 0:27:20.160 --> 0:27:22.080 good for me because I'm not getting great games out 0:27:22.119 --> 0:27:24.440 of it. E A's point of view is that this 0:27:24.680 --> 0:27:28.000 is I'm making money. Yeah, it's solidifying my position. Money. 0:27:28.200 --> 0:27:31.399 Yeah yeah. Money is the a when you're a business 0:27:31.600 --> 0:27:36.679 turns out. Yeah yeah. And I know this isn't financial stuff. 0:27:37.320 --> 0:27:39.320 So I didn't mean to blow your mind's there about 0:27:39.359 --> 0:27:42.399 how money is. Okay. So two thousand seven, e A 0:27:42.560 --> 0:27:47.359 acquires BioWare. BioWare made some of my favorite games of 0:27:47.440 --> 0:27:51.200 all times. Still does uh ballers Gate. I love the 0:27:51.240 --> 0:27:55.280 Baller's Gate games, but the Kicking Phone just this, Um, 0:27:55.760 --> 0:27:59.440 there's a fantastic character who has a little hamster and 0:28:00.160 --> 0:28:02.480 he shouts out random things when you go into battle 0:28:02.560 --> 0:28:07.159 with him, and it's endlessly entertaining. They also made Planescape Torment. 0:28:07.320 --> 0:28:09.879 They made the Star Wars Nights the Old Republic Games 0:28:09.960 --> 0:28:12.840 Co Tour, which, again I was a huge fan of 0:28:12.880 --> 0:28:16.200 the Cotour Games. They made Mass Effect, which I've played 0:28:16.200 --> 0:28:17.840 a little bit of. I never played it all the 0:28:17.880 --> 0:28:21.240 way through, and Matt Frederick would probably hit me if 0:28:21.280 --> 0:28:23.399 he were in the room, because it's actually his copy 0:28:23.520 --> 0:28:25.320 of the game that I have and I haven't returned 0:28:25.359 --> 0:28:30.320 it yet. Um. That year they also acquired Pandemic Studios, 0:28:30.440 --> 0:28:33.800 which was the company that brought us Star Wars battle 0:28:33.880 --> 0:28:37.280 Front and also the game Destroy All Humans, as well 0:28:37.280 --> 0:28:40.200 as some other titles. And that was the year that 0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:45.080 that Probst steps down as CEO. He had been CEO 0:28:45.240 --> 0:28:48.720 since Hawkins had left the company. It was supposed to 0:28:48.760 --> 0:28:51.880 be more temporary than that, wasn't it. I think I 0:28:51.960 --> 0:28:55.560 believe so. But he had led the company throughout those years, 0:28:55.840 --> 0:29:00.480 uh so from two thousand and seven and he's still 0:29:00.560 --> 0:29:03.760 on the board, but he ends up stepping down and 0:29:04.120 --> 0:29:07.680 John Richard Tello a Tillo I guess it should say 0:29:07.760 --> 0:29:11.840 Richie Tello becomes the new CEO, and he says the 0:29:11.880 --> 0:29:14.920 company is going to undergo a reorganization to address the 0:29:15.000 --> 0:29:18.040 problems they've had where they've been acquiring and trying to 0:29:18.160 --> 0:29:21.560 assimilate and then shutting down all these different companies that 0:29:21.640 --> 0:29:25.479 they've been going after over the years. So, I mean 0:29:25.520 --> 0:29:28.320 this is this is an issue that all big companies have. 0:29:28.480 --> 0:29:32.040 If you acquire a company, there's always a culture shock 0:29:32.720 --> 0:29:36.120 era that allows it because unless the two companies are 0:29:36.640 --> 0:29:40.240 practically ideally well aligned, yeah, there's gonna be culture shock. 0:29:40.680 --> 0:29:43.440 So sometimes a company does this so quickly that they 0:29:44.400 --> 0:29:47.760 there's never that period that you need to adjust and 0:29:47.880 --> 0:29:50.120 have things work out. So he was saying, let's take 0:29:50.240 --> 0:29:53.200 the time to really look at how our company is 0:29:53.240 --> 0:29:56.000 structured and make sure that it makes sense. That was 0:29:56.120 --> 0:29:59.680 his That was his statement from the the get go 0:30:00.040 --> 0:30:03.800 when he started right. Also unrelated to that, but in 0:30:04.040 --> 0:30:06.080 addition to the other games that they published that year, 0:30:06.200 --> 0:30:09.800 that was the year that they published harm Nix's Rock 0:30:09.880 --> 0:30:14.200 Band along with MTV Huge huge title. I mean, you know, 0:30:14.400 --> 0:30:17.880 Guitar Hero had been in the years before already kind 0:30:17.920 --> 0:30:22.840 of uh had revolutionized the idea of rhythm games on consoles, 0:30:22.920 --> 0:30:25.800 and Rock Band ended up taking that and dialing it 0:30:25.920 --> 0:30:28.320 up to eleven. As spinel Tap would love to say, 0:30:28.920 --> 0:30:33.200 and uh, I mean, I've had a blast playing Rock Band. 0:30:33.240 --> 0:30:35.600 Even though I adore, I adore the series. It's terrific. 0:30:35.920 --> 0:30:40.120 My musical talent is is pretty negligible, but I still, 0:30:40.200 --> 0:30:42.320 you know, any game that makes you feel like a 0:30:42.440 --> 0:30:44.480 rock star is pretty pretty cool. It is, it is, 0:30:44.560 --> 0:30:46.760 And also karaoke in your own home is pretty cool. 0:30:47.040 --> 0:30:50.080 And also a little cheat boxes that allow you to 0:30:50.480 --> 0:30:53.960 hook up real electronic drum sets to the game and 0:30:54.480 --> 0:30:58.080 actually rock out. It's pretty neat, pretty neat. Yeah. So 0:30:58.720 --> 0:31:02.440 we then move on into two thousand eight, where e 0:31:02.640 --> 0:31:07.640 A has a an attempt to acquire another big name, 0:31:07.920 --> 0:31:12.920 Take two Interactive, which you know gamers will recognize that 0:31:13.160 --> 0:31:18.000 it's it's pretty famous studio. So e A made a 0:31:18.080 --> 0:31:21.400 move to acquire take to Take two turned down the 0:31:21.720 --> 0:31:26.440 initial offer that e A made, and then, uh, the 0:31:26.680 --> 0:31:29.640 negotiations kind of got a little quiet. But everyone kept 0:31:29.720 --> 0:31:32.040 an eye on this because they were really wondering if 0:31:32.120 --> 0:31:35.280 e A was in fact going to acquire yet another company, 0:31:35.320 --> 0:31:37.400 and some people were really worried about what the fate 0:31:37.440 --> 0:31:39.800 of Take two would be. Yeah. I think that part 0:31:39.840 --> 0:31:41.320 of the reason that it fell through was also that 0:31:41.640 --> 0:31:45.360 the the economic crisis that year, yeah hit them really hard. Yeah, 0:31:45.440 --> 0:31:50.960 So e A's attempt to acquire Take two fails, and 0:31:51.960 --> 0:31:56.560 that year the entire world entered into an economic crisis, 0:31:56.680 --> 0:32:00.160 and it affected lots of industries, you know, Realist eight 0:32:00.240 --> 0:32:03.160 being the big famous one in the United States banking 0:32:03.240 --> 0:32:06.640 as well, but it also hit companies like e A 0:32:07.400 --> 0:32:10.480 and uh e A end up announcing that was going 0:32:10.560 --> 0:32:13.600 to cut more than a thousand positions across all of 0:32:13.640 --> 0:32:16.280 its divisions, which ended up being around ten to eleven 0:32:16.840 --> 0:32:20.120 of its workforce, and that the company lost over six 0:32:20.360 --> 0:32:23.760 hundred million dollars in the last quarter of two thousand 0:32:23.840 --> 0:32:27.440 eight due to accommodation of the economic crisis and just 0:32:27.600 --> 0:32:30.400 the fact that it's game releases had not performed very 0:32:30.440 --> 0:32:34.520 well in the market at all um and there their 0:32:34.600 --> 0:32:38.720 stock took a big tumble. So in August fifte of 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:42.440 of two thousand eight, their stock was valued at forty 0:32:42.480 --> 0:32:45.880 eight dollars and twenty four cents per share. By December 0:32:45.920 --> 0:32:48.720 twenty six of two thousand eight, it had fallen to 0:32:49.000 --> 0:32:52.719 twenty five dollars and thirty two cents per share, So, uh, 0:32:52.880 --> 0:32:58.240 not not quite losing half its value, just under at drop, 0:32:58.360 --> 0:33:02.040 but it's but a whole bunch, that's that's terrible, and 0:33:02.120 --> 0:33:05.800 it really what it signaled was that investors had lost 0:33:05.880 --> 0:33:08.160 a lot of confidence in the company. Now, keep in 0:33:08.240 --> 0:33:11.120 mind the value of your company is based upon how 0:33:11.240 --> 0:33:14.280 many stocks are out there. If you're a publicly traded company, 0:33:14.360 --> 0:33:16.200 the value of your company, in part at least, is 0:33:16.240 --> 0:33:18.960 determined by how many stocks you have, and how how 0:33:19.040 --> 0:33:21.200 many stocks are out there in the market, and what 0:33:21.440 --> 0:33:25.160 they're the actual value of each stock is. So you 0:33:25.280 --> 0:33:27.440 kind of multiply those two numbers together and you get 0:33:27.440 --> 0:33:30.200 a rough estimate of what the value of the company is. Well, 0:33:30.280 --> 0:33:32.440 when you lose fifty percent of your stock price, that 0:33:32.480 --> 0:33:35.200 means that your company is losing fifty of its value. 0:33:35.360 --> 0:33:38.400 More or less oversimplifying, but that more or less is 0:33:38.480 --> 0:33:42.960 what it means. Well, two thousand and eight wasn't all bad. 0:33:43.440 --> 0:33:45.200 They did come out with a game that ended up 0:33:45.240 --> 0:33:47.920 getting a lot of critical acclaim and a lot of fans, 0:33:48.200 --> 0:33:51.920 which was Dead Space. I was never a big Dead 0:33:52.000 --> 0:33:54.920 Space player, but I know some people who can recite 0:33:55.240 --> 0:33:58.200 everything about that game, including all the little hidden stuff 0:33:58.240 --> 0:34:00.600 that you had to find to get the backstory right right. 0:34:01.000 --> 0:34:03.680 Also in the negative column that was two eight was 0:34:03.720 --> 0:34:05.160 a year that they were hit with a class action 0:34:05.280 --> 0:34:10.320 lawsuit over the undisclosed edition of Secure Rom DRM software, 0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:13.840 along with games like Spore for the PC and and 0:34:14.880 --> 0:34:17.400 the lawsuit was about the fact that they had included 0:34:17.440 --> 0:34:21.640 this this this uh digital rights management software without telling 0:34:21.680 --> 0:34:24.280 anyone about it, that it was separate from the game software, 0:34:24.360 --> 0:34:27.600 and that it was basically impossible to uninstall, even after 0:34:27.600 --> 0:34:29.800 you would uninstalled the video game. Yeah, so e A 0:34:30.040 --> 0:34:33.560 was falling under the same trap that Sony did, where 0:34:33.920 --> 0:34:38.080 in an effort to try and keep its intellectual property safe, 0:34:38.160 --> 0:34:42.279 it had kind of over well, not kind of it overstepped. Yeah, yeah, 0:34:42.360 --> 0:34:44.759 you know. The point was to prevent people from from 0:34:44.800 --> 0:34:46.960 installing it more than I think it was eight times, 0:34:47.719 --> 0:34:51.000 three times, six times a number of times, right, right, Well, 0:34:51.000 --> 0:34:52.600 it's one of those things where, you know, someone who 0:34:52.680 --> 0:34:55.359 buys the game, their argument is I should be able 0:34:55.400 --> 0:34:57.720 to install this as many times as I want, because 0:34:58.239 --> 0:35:00.160 you know, if I buy a new compute, it or 0:35:00.200 --> 0:35:02.640 I want to be able to transfer the stuff I 0:35:02.760 --> 0:35:05.880 own onto that computer. It's not that I'm you know, 0:35:06.000 --> 0:35:08.799 installing it on all my friends machines. I just want 0:35:08.840 --> 0:35:11.040 to be able to play my game. And the other 0:35:11.160 --> 0:35:13.040 argument against that is that we don't want you to 0:35:13.480 --> 0:35:16.600 install this on or your friends machines. Right uh. In 0:35:16.760 --> 0:35:18.759 In other DRM news, that year, that was the year 0:35:18.840 --> 0:35:22.319 that UM the e A announced plans to require PC 0:35:22.480 --> 0:35:25.440 owners of things like Mass Effect and Sport to authenticate 0:35:25.480 --> 0:35:28.719 their copies every ten days, even if they were playing 0:35:28.800 --> 0:35:32.800 the game offline. Yeah. Um, and this this is this 0:35:32.960 --> 0:35:36.279 becomes a common thread in e A as well, this 0:35:36.440 --> 0:35:39.839 idea of having either a persistent Internet connection or at 0:35:39.960 --> 0:35:43.239 least using the Internet every now and then to again 0:35:43.400 --> 0:35:46.600 verify that you have a legitimate copy of the game. 0:35:46.680 --> 0:35:49.040 So not only would you have to retain whatever the 0:35:49.120 --> 0:35:51.320 disc was, you would have to have that in your machine. 0:35:51.360 --> 0:35:53.240 You would have to then make a connection to the Internet, 0:35:53.320 --> 0:35:55.520 and then the Internet would make sure that that, in 0:35:55.600 --> 0:35:58.799 fact was your registered copy so that you could play 0:35:58.880 --> 0:36:01.360 the game you wanted. Even if you were able to 0:36:01.560 --> 0:36:04.840 just move everything on the game into your computer and 0:36:05.560 --> 0:36:08.000 it's a single player game, you still had to do that. 0:36:08.280 --> 0:36:11.040 And a lot of players objected. Yeah, yeah, especially you 0:36:11.120 --> 0:36:13.560 know two thousand eight. You know, most people had had 0:36:13.600 --> 0:36:17.000 pretty good Internet connections at that point. It was getting better, 0:36:17.080 --> 0:36:19.400 but not everyone wanted to be connected to the Internet 0:36:19.440 --> 0:36:22.839 all the time. And you know, the people who bought 0:36:22.880 --> 0:36:25.720 the game pointed out that this was really a hassle 0:36:26.000 --> 0:36:28.800 for the legitimate game player and people who were pirate 0:36:28.840 --> 0:36:32.040 into the game, were breaking this encryption, They were using 0:36:32.239 --> 0:36:36.719 keys that would allow them to right so that they 0:36:36.719 --> 0:36:40.000 wouldn't they didn't have to authentic kate. They were playing 0:36:40.840 --> 0:36:43.880 pirated copies that they got for free that didn't have 0:36:44.000 --> 0:36:47.160 this DRM in it. And so the players, the legitimate 0:36:47.160 --> 0:36:49.919 players who had bought the game say it, said, look, 0:36:50.280 --> 0:36:53.400 you're only punshed us. You're not you're not stopping piracy, 0:36:53.480 --> 0:36:55.759 and you're making the game a miserable experience for the 0:36:55.800 --> 0:36:58.600 people who actually paid to play it. Yeah. This this 0:36:58.719 --> 0:37:02.800 never did go into effect, this particular bit of of 0:37:02.880 --> 0:37:05.160 d r M. On the A side, they relented pretty 0:37:05.239 --> 0:37:08.680 quickly after community feedback, which was highly highly negative as 0:37:08.719 --> 0:37:11.280 you can imagine. They however, did not learn their lesson 0:37:11.360 --> 0:37:13.560 from it, because they would not they would incorporate it 0:37:13.560 --> 0:37:18.400 again in the future. Two thousand nine, e A acquires 0:37:18.480 --> 0:37:21.400 a play Fish, which was a developer of casual games. 0:37:21.440 --> 0:37:24.200 They had seen how Louis was doing and they thought 0:37:24.360 --> 0:37:27.080 let's get in on that as well. Um they also 0:37:27.120 --> 0:37:30.000 went ahead and cut another fiftred employees, which was about 0:37:30.080 --> 0:37:34.520 sevent of its workforce, and they shut down Pandemic Studios 0:37:34.600 --> 0:37:37.480 that year. So get another example of them acquiring and 0:37:37.520 --> 0:37:41.399 then shutting down a company. Uh, and next I don't 0:37:41.400 --> 0:37:45.560 have anything for me neither. But inn in the summer 0:37:45.560 --> 0:37:50.680 they acquired pop Cap Wow. Yeah, another casual games developer. 0:37:51.160 --> 0:37:53.840 So lots of lots of mobile content all that. Yeah, 0:37:54.280 --> 0:37:56.520 they're ones who owned like The Jeweled and stuff like that. Right. 0:37:57.120 --> 0:38:00.399 They also released Star Wars the Old Republic Blake, which 0:38:00.440 --> 0:38:03.520 was a Star Wars based m m O RPG. Uh. Now, 0:38:03.600 --> 0:38:05.640 we had one person asked us if we could talk 0:38:05.760 --> 0:38:09.040 more about Star Wars the Old Republic and why did 0:38:09.120 --> 0:38:12.160 it move from a subscription based service too free to 0:38:12.280 --> 0:38:16.480 play with micro transactions and and how you know, what's 0:38:16.520 --> 0:38:19.520 the story of its failure if you want to look 0:38:19.560 --> 0:38:22.080 at it in that way? All right, As so I 0:38:22.320 --> 0:38:25.440 actually played Star Wars the Old Republic. I I subscribed. 0:38:25.440 --> 0:38:27.400 I was one of the subscribers. I was one of 0:38:27.440 --> 0:38:29.759 the people who got who rolled his eyes when I 0:38:30.000 --> 0:38:32.120 heard that was going to free to play because I 0:38:32.200 --> 0:38:34.800 had actually bought a I think I was like a 0:38:34.840 --> 0:38:40.640 twelve month subscription in advance. But so Star Wars the 0:38:40.680 --> 0:38:44.120 Old Republic takes place thousands of years before the events 0:38:44.280 --> 0:38:48.320 of the Star Wars movie series, but it puts you 0:38:48.600 --> 0:38:53.640 in either a a Sith role or a Republic role, 0:38:54.200 --> 0:38:57.000 and you have different storylines that we play out based 0:38:57.040 --> 0:38:59.799 upon the type of character you were playing. I think 0:39:00.040 --> 0:39:01.920 part of the problem was that it, even though it 0:39:02.000 --> 0:39:05.480 was an M M O RPG, more frequently than not 0:39:05.760 --> 0:39:08.200 it felt to me like a single player game. It 0:39:08.280 --> 0:39:11.480 felt like another sequel to Cotur, which isn't a bad thing. 0:39:11.680 --> 0:39:14.000 The Coach War games were great. I very much enjoyed them, 0:39:14.520 --> 0:39:18.000 even though the second co Tour game obviously had an 0:39:18.120 --> 0:39:21.399 entire section that was left unfinished because you could see 0:39:21.440 --> 0:39:22.960 it on your map, but you couldn't get to it 0:39:23.600 --> 0:39:27.280 in uh in the actual game. Anyway, the Old Republic 0:39:27.360 --> 0:39:30.080 felt like another sequel to that. It didn't feel as 0:39:30.200 --> 0:39:32.640 much like an M M O RPG. You didn't have 0:39:32.880 --> 0:39:35.440 as many people partying up together and the kind of 0:39:35.480 --> 0:39:38.040 interactions that you would normally expect from and not after 0:39:38.200 --> 0:39:41.960 the initial launched like there was a lot of interest 0:39:42.000 --> 0:39:44.440 in it very early on, but that kind of dropped 0:39:44.440 --> 0:39:45.919 off quickly, and part of the problem was that people 0:39:45.960 --> 0:39:49.600 were completing the storylines for the characters very very quickly, 0:39:50.320 --> 0:39:52.799 and once you did that, you didn't really have any 0:39:52.880 --> 0:39:55.640 incentive to keep playing so it was just like if 0:39:55.680 --> 0:39:57.279 you had played a single player game all the way 0:39:57.280 --> 0:39:58.839 through and then you're thinking, all right, well that was fun, 0:39:58.920 --> 0:40:01.359 but now I want to sell this game and get 0:40:01.920 --> 0:40:03.520 some money back, and then I'm going to buy another 0:40:03.600 --> 0:40:06.919 new game. That's kind of what people were thinking. Well, 0:40:07.680 --> 0:40:10.239 subscribers started to drop off from this game, and e 0:40:10.440 --> 0:40:13.239 A's response was that, well, you know, we could either 0:40:13.320 --> 0:40:16.439 pull the plug on it entirely, or we could try 0:40:16.719 --> 0:40:19.880 and switch our strategy and get more people interested in 0:40:20.000 --> 0:40:23.640 this game. But obviously the subscription models not really working. 0:40:23.719 --> 0:40:25.640 So what if we dropped the subscription and go to 0:40:25.719 --> 0:40:29.600 free to play, and instead of making money through people subscribing, 0:40:29.960 --> 0:40:32.759 we make money by selling items in the game for 0:40:32.880 --> 0:40:38.839 real money, small amounts of money micro transactions. But um, 0:40:39.239 --> 0:40:43.120 and you could still play it for free without buying anything, 0:40:43.520 --> 0:40:45.680 but you wouldn't have access to the entire game. There'll 0:40:45.719 --> 0:40:47.360 be sections of the game you could not get to 0:40:47.520 --> 0:40:49.480 because you would have to purchase them in order to 0:40:49.680 --> 0:40:53.120 have access. And all of the micro transaction items were 0:40:53.239 --> 0:40:56.600 the super powerful cool things with rainbows and unicorns or 0:40:56.640 --> 0:40:59.160 whatever the you know, Star Wars equivalent of rainbows in 0:40:59.200 --> 0:41:03.160 the cub lights. So I realize you're not familiar with 0:41:03.320 --> 0:41:06.480 the venerable franchise known as Star Wars. Yeah no, never 0:41:06.600 --> 0:41:11.319 never seen any of those scruffy looking at um. So, yeah, 0:41:11.520 --> 0:41:14.880 the that was the whole response there was to switch 0:41:15.000 --> 0:41:18.200 order free to play and do micro transactions. Now, this 0:41:18.400 --> 0:41:20.960 is another thing that e A has received a lot 0:41:21.000 --> 0:41:24.520 of criticism for as the whole micro transaction approach. I 0:41:24.600 --> 0:41:28.360 can't say the word criticism either, obviously, but the micro 0:41:28.440 --> 0:41:33.080 transactions are that's another way to try and generate revenue, 0:41:33.120 --> 0:41:35.400 and if you make your game free to play, it 0:41:35.520 --> 0:41:38.919 may be the only way unless you incorporate lots of advertising, 0:41:39.040 --> 0:41:41.440 and either way most players kind of react in a 0:41:41.520 --> 0:41:44.000 negative way. Yeah, that has also been something that e 0:41:44.080 --> 0:41:45.840 A has gotten a lot of flak for, is the 0:41:46.040 --> 0:41:49.719 the inclusion of kind of kind of annoying out there 0:41:49.880 --> 0:41:52.440 advertising in the middle of their games. Right. Well, the 0:41:52.719 --> 0:41:56.960 disappointing performance of Star Wars may have also contributed to 0:41:57.040 --> 0:42:01.040 another dip in e AS stock prices in twelve of although, 0:42:01.560 --> 0:42:03.920 but before we move on, just thank you Chaz our 0:42:03.960 --> 0:42:06.239 listener from Twitter for for writing in about that. Yes, 0:42:06.360 --> 0:42:09.000 thank you very much, yea, And we have a few 0:42:09.040 --> 0:42:10.640 more questions. We will address at the end of this 0:42:10.680 --> 0:42:13.879 episode as well. Also in twenty eleven, something else big 0:42:14.080 --> 0:42:18.239 happened to e A. E A had the honor is 0:42:18.320 --> 0:42:22.440 the wrong word for it had had the unfortunate um 0:42:23.080 --> 0:42:28.200 role as Lull's SEC final target. Lulls SEC being Laugh 0:42:28.280 --> 0:42:33.080 Out Loud Security was kind of a an offshoot of Anonymous. 0:42:34.040 --> 0:42:38.880 It was not necessarily related directly to Anonymous, but it 0:42:39.040 --> 0:42:42.359 was a group of of hackers who decided that they 0:42:42.400 --> 0:42:45.880 were going to cause as much trouble as possible really 0:42:46.040 --> 0:42:48.000 for the main reason they wanted to do it was 0:42:48.080 --> 0:42:50.520 to show that they could. And uh, boy, I bet 0:42:50.560 --> 0:42:52.800 they're regretting that decision right now because as of the 0:42:52.880 --> 0:42:55.960 recording of this podcast, Uh, four of them have been 0:42:56.040 --> 0:42:59.920 sentenced to between a year and two years in very 0:43:00.160 --> 0:43:05.759 US uh jails or juvenile facilities. Well, so, yikes, I 0:43:05.800 --> 0:43:09.480 guess they weren't quite as Anonymous as they thought. Uh. Anyway, 0:43:09.840 --> 0:43:14.239 they hit EA as their final target before disbanding, and 0:43:14.600 --> 0:43:18.080 uh they ended up releasing the log in information of 0:43:18.280 --> 0:43:22.640 thousands of people who were playing Battlefield Heroes. So uh 0:43:22.880 --> 0:43:25.080 that was a big black eye. A had to reset 0:43:25.120 --> 0:43:27.200 all that and send emails out to everybody saying you know, 0:43:27.880 --> 0:43:30.719 it was compromised and you need to change passwords and 0:43:30.719 --> 0:43:34.800 all that kind of stuff. Uh. In twelve he wins 0:43:34.840 --> 0:43:40.839 another awful uh distinguishing feature. Here they were called they 0:43:41.000 --> 0:43:43.680 they were named the worst company in America by the 0:43:43.760 --> 0:43:46.080 Consumerist And this is a this is a thing that 0:43:46.440 --> 0:43:48.520 that the consumers does every year. They've been doing it 0:43:48.600 --> 0:43:51.239 for a while. They gave a Golden poo award. Yes 0:43:51.320 --> 0:43:55.879 they do. It's a very distinguished Uh. Yeah. The way 0:43:55.920 --> 0:43:57.600 it works is that they set it up like a 0:43:58.640 --> 0:44:02.200 tournament bracket and they let people vote on which company 0:44:02.239 --> 0:44:05.399 they think should progress in the bracket. And that year 0:44:05.520 --> 0:44:09.440 e A took home the Golden Pooh. It's final opponent 0:44:09.640 --> 0:44:12.080 was the Bank of America. Now keep in mind this 0:44:12.239 --> 0:44:15.279 is all from reader votes, it's not I mean, I 0:44:15.400 --> 0:44:17.640 think I think the consumers is the one that ultimately 0:44:17.719 --> 0:44:20.360 decides which ones are in the brackets, but the readers 0:44:20.400 --> 0:44:23.040 are the ones who determine which companies progress. Right, And 0:44:23.080 --> 0:44:25.080 this is the Internet, and there are some gamers on 0:44:25.120 --> 0:44:27.479 the Internet, so so I'm sure that that is part 0:44:27.600 --> 0:44:30.120 of why e A made it that far. But but also, 0:44:30.160 --> 0:44:33.839 I mean, was when occupy was happening, So so think 0:44:34.000 --> 0:44:36.560 I mean there were thousands of people on the streets 0:44:37.120 --> 0:44:41.520 protesting the actions of corporations like Bank of America, and 0:44:41.680 --> 0:44:45.560 e A still still beat them out. Yeah, by I 0:44:45.600 --> 0:44:49.520 think it was like close to to you know, twenty 0:44:49.600 --> 0:44:52.160 six or something like that. It's really like that. So 0:44:52.400 --> 0:44:55.640 it was it wasn't even close. It's a runaway. But again, 0:44:56.040 --> 0:44:58.920 you know the platforms the internet. Gamers like the Internet, 0:44:59.000 --> 0:45:01.080 so you know, keep that all in mind. It's kind 0:45:01.120 --> 0:45:03.120 of it was kind of skewed to e A, is 0:45:03.160 --> 0:45:05.799 what we're saying. We've got a bit more to say 0:45:05.880 --> 0:45:08.279 about e A, and then I'll have a lot more 0:45:08.320 --> 0:45:10.640 to say about e A in a follow up episode 0:45:11.040 --> 0:45:22.399 right after this break. So why did it win Worst Company? Well, 0:45:22.560 --> 0:45:26.000 some of the the suggestions were because it had stripped 0:45:26.040 --> 0:45:28.960 the video game industry of talent through all those acquisitions 0:45:29.000 --> 0:45:33.520 and then shutting down competitions. Are shutting down competing studios, 0:45:33.520 --> 0:45:36.240 I should say. So they not only bought up competing 0:45:36.239 --> 0:45:38.160 studios but then shut them down, which then meant that 0:45:38.880 --> 0:45:42.920 that talent and those games would often become inaccessible. There'd 0:45:42.960 --> 0:45:46.000 never be another one because e A would own the 0:45:46.239 --> 0:45:49.239 intellectual property but not have anyone to actually develop the 0:45:49.280 --> 0:45:52.400 games anymore, at least the people who had developed it 0:45:52.440 --> 0:45:55.440 were gone, so it would be a completely different experience. Uh. 0:45:55.520 --> 0:45:58.359 Then there was also sighting of the use of micro transactions, 0:45:58.440 --> 0:46:01.680 just like I said, Uh, especially for any games where 0:46:01.680 --> 0:46:04.680 you already had to buy a game and then on 0:46:04.800 --> 0:46:07.120 top of it, have micro transactions within the things that 0:46:07.160 --> 0:46:09.279 we're not free to begin with. Yeah, So the idea 0:46:09.280 --> 0:46:11.399 of buying like a sixty dollar game and then having 0:46:11.440 --> 0:46:13.600 to spend more money within the game in order for 0:46:13.680 --> 0:46:16.239 it to be a satisfying experience that did not sit 0:46:16.320 --> 0:46:19.360 well with a lot of people who voted in this. Also, 0:46:19.640 --> 0:46:22.120 the one of the things they cited were the exclusivity 0:46:22.200 --> 0:46:25.480 deals that e A had made with organizations like the NFL. 0:46:26.000 --> 0:46:28.520 Now that's a big deal now for e A, and 0:46:28.600 --> 0:46:31.040 made perfect sense. That meant that they had tied up 0:46:31.120 --> 0:46:34.320 the NFL license that they were the only company that 0:46:34.400 --> 0:46:38.400 could put out an official NFL affiliated football game, and 0:46:38.480 --> 0:46:40.719 the same thing is true for other sports as well. 0:46:40.800 --> 0:46:44.760 They made exclusivity agreements with other sports agencies, but NFL 0:46:44.880 --> 0:46:49.440 is an easy example. So e A then shuts down 0:46:49.520 --> 0:46:54.360 competition because no other game company can make an official 0:46:54.719 --> 0:46:58.400 NFL licensed game. They can't use the actual team player 0:46:58.520 --> 0:47:02.080 names or anything. And I'll you know, another football strategy 0:47:02.120 --> 0:47:04.320 game could certainly be enjoyable. When you don't have that 0:47:04.480 --> 0:47:07.480 brand recognition behind it, it becomes a lot harder to market, right. 0:47:07.520 --> 0:47:09.520 I mean why if if you're a fan of football 0:47:09.719 --> 0:47:12.959 and you want to play as your favorite football team 0:47:13.160 --> 0:47:15.480 with you, with the actual players who are on that 0:47:15.640 --> 0:47:18.719 team as your as your players, then you had to 0:47:18.760 --> 0:47:20.920 go with the A because no one else had the 0:47:21.000 --> 0:47:23.719 licensing agreement that would allow them to do that. And 0:47:23.840 --> 0:47:26.600 so that, you know, people said, like, you're essentially saying 0:47:27.239 --> 0:47:29.520 we're the only game in town. Yeah, you're you're further 0:47:29.760 --> 0:47:32.880 further shutting down the opportunities of other studios. Right, So 0:47:33.000 --> 0:47:36.000 that was another reason why they got a lot of votes. 0:47:36.600 --> 0:47:42.560 Uh So the tournaments came out pretty badly for e A. Uh, 0:47:42.680 --> 0:47:44.960 It's showed that that he had a real problem with 0:47:45.120 --> 0:47:48.120 public perception of the company. UM and e A tried 0:47:48.239 --> 0:47:52.440 to kind of uh respond to that, and and a 0:47:52.480 --> 0:47:54.800 lot of people thought that their response was lackluster. This 0:47:54.800 --> 0:47:57.600 would happen again, but we'll get to it. Yeah, I 0:47:57.600 --> 0:48:01.120 don't want to spoil it, but yeah, year also was 0:48:01.160 --> 0:48:04.040 when e A released Mass Effect three, which may also 0:48:04.120 --> 0:48:06.880 have affected its standings as Worst Company in America because, 0:48:06.920 --> 0:48:09.160 as I recall, there were a lot of people who 0:48:09.200 --> 0:48:11.560 were not happy with the way that game ended. Yeah, 0:48:11.960 --> 0:48:13.520 didn't they didn't they wasn't that the one that they 0:48:13.560 --> 0:48:17.280 released a different ending to that you could you could download. 0:48:17.360 --> 0:48:20.279 There were, as I recall, there were there may have been, 0:48:20.360 --> 0:48:21.839 I think there might have been, but I know there 0:48:21.880 --> 0:48:24.440 were at least three different endings that were already in 0:48:24.560 --> 0:48:27.280 the game. But some people argued that the three different 0:48:27.360 --> 0:48:30.080 endings were not distinct enough that you know, you would 0:48:30.120 --> 0:48:32.920 have small details that were different, but that in the 0:48:33.000 --> 0:48:35.320 grand scheme it felt like what you had done in 0:48:35.400 --> 0:48:38.759 the series of games did Yeah, it defeats the entire 0:48:38.800 --> 0:48:41.919 purpose of the Mass Effect series exactly. It felt like like, well, 0:48:42.040 --> 0:48:44.600 while the whole game makes it feel like you're going 0:48:44.640 --> 0:48:49.040 to have this huge impact, ultimately, if the differences aren't 0:48:49.160 --> 0:48:51.400 that great, then it means that you know, what you 0:48:51.480 --> 0:48:53.440 did didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, 0:48:53.520 --> 0:48:55.840 which from an existential point of view is kind of interesting. 0:48:56.200 --> 0:48:59.560 But from a gamer player, uh, you know, experience, maybe 0:48:59.640 --> 0:49:01.600 not so much far right right, it's not called nic 0:49:01.920 --> 0:49:04.960 The game so therefore, so so people said that they 0:49:05.040 --> 0:49:07.880 felt that the game had the end game in particular, 0:49:07.960 --> 0:49:09.960 had been rushed, and that it just wasn't a fitting 0:49:10.280 --> 0:49:15.239 capper to it. Uh and Penny Arcades been Kuchera, and 0:49:15.440 --> 0:49:19.200 I apologize if I'm miss uh mispronouncing his name. He 0:49:19.360 --> 0:49:22.560 criticized the company for concentrating on free to play games 0:49:22.600 --> 0:49:25.240 and micro transactions, and he also said that the company 0:49:25.320 --> 0:49:28.279 was failing to create compelling retail games. So you're saying 0:49:28.320 --> 0:49:31.280 that the games that you are selling for sixty dollars 0:49:31.680 --> 0:49:34.480 aren't really good good and the ones that are free 0:49:34.520 --> 0:49:38.720 to play with micro transactions are irritating. Right. So penny Arcade, 0:49:38.880 --> 0:49:41.840 by the way, has nine hundred and twenty two comics 0:49:41.960 --> 0:49:44.680 that are tagged e A in their system, which as 0:49:44.719 --> 0:49:47.520 of the recording of this podcast, yes as well, Yeah, 0:49:47.560 --> 0:49:50.520 as of as of Tuesday, I think actually Tuesday or 0:49:50.520 --> 0:49:53.080 Wednesday of this week, so they're there. There might have 0:49:53.160 --> 0:49:57.319 been more uh since since then, but it just which 0:49:57.400 --> 0:49:59.920 just goes to show that the gaming community has had 0:50:00.040 --> 0:50:02.480 a lot to say and a lot of criticism to 0:50:02.600 --> 0:50:05.600 lob against the company over the years. And UH and 0:50:05.800 --> 0:50:10.560 in John Richard tell O stepped down as CEO and 0:50:10.800 --> 0:50:13.160 as a member of the board. Uh. Here's a direct 0:50:13.239 --> 0:50:15.600 quote from one of the blog posts that was written 0:50:15.920 --> 0:50:18.080 that he wrote about this. He said, I am writing 0:50:18.160 --> 0:50:21.000 with some tough news. I have resigned my position as 0:50:21.080 --> 0:50:23.680 e AS CEO. I will be around for a couple 0:50:23.760 --> 0:50:25.480 of weeks and I hope to have it at the 0:50:25.600 --> 0:50:28.280 chance to say goodbye to many of you. Larry Probest 0:50:28.280 --> 0:50:30.960 will be stepping in as executive chairman to help smooth 0:50:31.280 --> 0:50:35.120 the transition. Uh. E A also continued to lay off 0:50:35.239 --> 0:50:39.000 employees in part as a streamlining effort at this time. 0:50:39.760 --> 0:50:41.920 And so Probest comes back in. You know, he had 0:50:41.960 --> 0:50:47.279 stepped down and now he was interim CEO. Uh and 0:50:47.719 --> 0:50:50.759 uh that's as of the recording of this podcast, that's 0:50:50.760 --> 0:50:53.879 still the case. They hadn't found a permanent replacement yet. Yeah, 0:50:53.960 --> 0:50:55.839 but they Yeah, that was That was another ten percent 0:50:55.920 --> 0:50:58.920 of global staff that was laid off as of May 0:50:59.120 --> 0:51:02.480 of this year. So tough times over at e A. 0:51:02.880 --> 0:51:05.760 They also said that they planned to open a Dice 0:51:06.120 --> 0:51:10.320 l A office uh where they would be developing games, 0:51:10.440 --> 0:51:13.560 including Star Wars games, because they made a deal with Disney, 0:51:13.640 --> 0:51:17.480 which of course acquired the rights to the Lucas Arts 0:51:17.680 --> 0:51:23.480 stuff earlier, and they won the Worst Company in America 0:51:23.600 --> 0:51:26.160 for the second year in a row. And most of 0:51:26.200 --> 0:51:28.480 the reasons this is the first time that any company 0:51:28.560 --> 0:51:30.719 has ever done this, by the way, done a tow 0:51:30.840 --> 0:51:33.960 for and they they the reasons are pretty much the 0:51:34.000 --> 0:51:37.880 same as But also there was another controversy that happened 0:51:38.560 --> 0:51:41.600 between those two times that ended up costing the company 0:51:41.640 --> 0:51:44.479 big time, which was the launch of sim City five, 0:51:44.600 --> 0:51:48.000 one of the most anticipated games in a long time. 0:51:48.040 --> 0:51:50.279 I mean, like there's certain titles that when you hear 0:51:50.320 --> 0:51:54.120 about them coming out, people old school gamers get really excited. 0:51:54.480 --> 0:51:57.080 Diablo three is a great example of a game that 0:51:57.160 --> 0:52:00.320 got a lot of people talking months before it amount. 0:52:00.360 --> 0:52:03.080 Sim City five is another one of those where people 0:52:03.120 --> 0:52:05.560 who are fans of the sim City franchise were really 0:52:05.680 --> 0:52:10.080 excited by this game. But the big issue was that 0:52:10.239 --> 0:52:12.400 sim City five was a game that requires you to 0:52:12.480 --> 0:52:14.520 have a persistent connection to the Internet in order to 0:52:14.560 --> 0:52:18.080 play it. Even if you're just playing single player offline, 0:52:18.120 --> 0:52:20.040 it's just you and your computer, but you still have 0:52:20.080 --> 0:52:22.920 to have a persistent Internet connection, and they had some 0:52:23.280 --> 0:52:26.120 server issues when the game launched, which meant that people 0:52:26.160 --> 0:52:28.279 couldn't play the game they had just bought, they had 0:52:28.360 --> 0:52:31.040 spent the money, the game was in their hands, they 0:52:31.120 --> 0:52:33.840 wanted to play a single player game, and they couldn't 0:52:33.920 --> 0:52:38.040 do it because the servers weren't working. Now, that tells 0:52:38.120 --> 0:52:40.640 you that this is a huge problem. That that's another 0:52:40.760 --> 0:52:44.120 example of why the persistent internet connection thing is an 0:52:44.239 --> 0:52:48.080 argument that people say makes for bad gaming experience, because 0:52:48.120 --> 0:52:51.680 when you have a technical issue on the game providers end, 0:52:52.440 --> 0:52:56.440 then it's adding a completely unnecessary extra step that a 0:52:56.520 --> 0:52:58.879 lot of things can go wrong with, right, And if 0:52:58.920 --> 0:53:02.480 it's an online game, than that's just the way that works, right. 0:53:02.719 --> 0:53:05.239 But when it's a single player game, then people have 0:53:05.360 --> 0:53:08.840 a real hard time feeling it's infuriating and uh, you 0:53:08.920 --> 0:53:11.040 know again, a lot of people say that the whole 0:53:11.120 --> 0:53:13.879 reason for this was just so that e A could 0:53:13.960 --> 0:53:17.480 have another kind of DRM there that you know, that's 0:53:17.520 --> 0:53:20.200 not e A has denied that. They said that's not 0:53:20.320 --> 0:53:24.000 the reason, but that's the reason everyone says, says is 0:53:24.160 --> 0:53:27.120 a lot of people suggest that's the real reason. Let 0:53:27.200 --> 0:53:29.840 me put it that way. Sure. They also made headlines 0:53:29.880 --> 0:53:32.840 in February and March when UM the CFO Blake Jorgensen 0:53:32.880 --> 0:53:36.640 announced that all future titles would involve micro transactions. Uh. 0:53:36.760 --> 0:53:39.880 He backpedaled really hard a week later. Um let it. 0:53:39.960 --> 0:53:43.239 That did not get a great reaction, and again that's 0:53:43.360 --> 0:53:45.840 probably what contributed to it winning the Worst company in 0:53:45.880 --> 0:53:49.680 America again. Yeah, despite all of this, their their stock 0:53:49.880 --> 0:53:54.440 has been rising dramatically over the course of so far. 0:53:55.040 --> 0:53:58.880 Um and uh really really interestingly, as of as of 0:53:59.080 --> 0:54:02.319 this week, the a couple of the really high level 0:54:02.360 --> 0:54:04.840 people have been selling off a lot of their shares 0:54:05.360 --> 0:54:09.600 in their own company's stock, like fifty seven thousand of 0:54:09.719 --> 0:54:13.719 their shares. Wow. That is Uh. I'm actually looking it 0:54:13.840 --> 0:54:16.440 up right now because it's actually a little lower than 0:54:16.480 --> 0:54:18.200 it was when I wrote it down. Because originally we 0:54:18.239 --> 0:54:20.319 were going to record this episode the day before. We're 0:54:20.320 --> 0:54:23.680 actually recording it right We're gonna record it yesterday. This 0:54:23.760 --> 0:54:28.359 doesn't mean but on May fifteenth, fifteenth, the stock price 0:54:28.480 --> 0:54:30.600 was at twenty two dollars and fifty cents when I 0:54:30.640 --> 0:54:35.480 looked at originally right now on May sixteenth, at four 0:54:35.680 --> 0:54:38.799 forty four pm Eastern time, more information than you need 0:54:38.880 --> 0:54:41.480 to know, it's at two and two cents. So it's 0:54:41.560 --> 0:54:45.640 dropped almost fifty cents, right around fifty cents since I 0:54:45.920 --> 0:54:49.800 checked it yesterday. So it's still and it's obviously not 0:54:50.040 --> 0:54:54.120 at that pre August two eight high when it was 0:54:54.200 --> 0:54:56.759 in the high forties and lower fifties, but it's but 0:54:56.800 --> 0:55:00.200 it's dropped a great deal since then. Um I think 0:55:00.280 --> 0:55:03.240 I think that that well, as of as of Wednesday, 0:55:03.280 --> 0:55:05.719 as of the May fifteenth, anyway, shares where shares were 0:55:05.800 --> 0:55:10.319 up very nearly for the course. Yeah, so it's it's 0:55:10.760 --> 0:55:14.399 I think volatile is a safe word to use. Yes, Yes, 0:55:14.680 --> 0:55:18.320 that that's There's a lot of very very important financial 0:55:18.440 --> 0:55:20.640 publications that are talking about e A right now, which 0:55:20.640 --> 0:55:22.560 I which I always find fascinating, and and all of 0:55:22.600 --> 0:55:25.320 them are going like, be cautious, don't actually invest, we 0:55:25.360 --> 0:55:27.400 don't know about this thing. Yeah, there does seem to 0:55:27.440 --> 0:55:32.480 be a real problem with consumer confidence in an investor 0:55:32.640 --> 0:55:34.879 confidence in a e A. And again that can really 0:55:34.920 --> 0:55:37.799 affect that. You know, e A is a multibillion dollar 0:55:37.880 --> 0:55:41.080 industry company right now. It's you know, it's revenues can 0:55:41.200 --> 0:55:44.640 be over a billion dollars, can be over three billion 0:55:44.680 --> 0:55:47.239 dollars in a good year, and so when you're talking 0:55:47.280 --> 0:55:49.560 about that, it's kind of weird to think that it's 0:55:50.360 --> 0:55:53.000 it's value as a company is in question. That suggests 0:55:53.040 --> 0:55:56.200 that there's been some pretty serious missteps or that something's 0:55:56.239 --> 0:55:58.879 really funky with the industry in general, right right, well, 0:55:58.960 --> 0:56:00.839 you know it's I think it's just basically that thing 0:56:00.880 --> 0:56:03.759 where they're not really they're not really heating all of 0:56:03.960 --> 0:56:06.880 all of this this feedback that they're getting from from 0:56:06.960 --> 0:56:09.920 all of their their from their fans, and that's you know, 0:56:10.239 --> 0:56:13.719 like and they also just renew their license with with 0:56:13.960 --> 0:56:17.680 them the Football Association with a FIFA FIFA and the 0:56:17.719 --> 0:56:23.200 soccer soccer So yeah, sure, football whatever go back to 0:56:23.360 --> 0:56:29.120 France until um so and and FIVA is one of 0:56:29.200 --> 0:56:33.000 those titles that consistently does really well for e A. Sure, 0:56:33.160 --> 0:56:35.440 and and you know again like it's it's understandable why 0:56:35.440 --> 0:56:39.960 would they would want that exclusivity? Now, we asked our 0:56:40.080 --> 0:56:42.360 listeners if they had any specific questions they would like 0:56:42.480 --> 0:56:46.040 us to address, and uh, we We've talked about some 0:56:46.160 --> 0:56:47.560 of them already, so I'm not going to go over 0:56:47.640 --> 0:56:49.880 all of them, but I've got two left that we 0:56:50.040 --> 0:56:53.600 can chat about really quickly. Peter from Facebook said, what 0:56:53.840 --> 0:56:56.600 was the most popular e A game? And if you 0:56:56.719 --> 0:57:00.480 go from the debut of e A till present day 0:57:00.520 --> 0:57:03.320 and you look at all the units sold. The SIMS 0:57:03.600 --> 0:57:06.200 comes out on top with a level eleven point twenty 0:57:06.280 --> 0:57:10.600 three million units sold globally according to VG Charts, and 0:57:10.719 --> 0:57:13.920 second place would go to Need for Speed Underground. Now 0:57:14.800 --> 0:57:17.600 that that doesn't surprise me, because the SIMS is one 0:57:17.600 --> 0:57:19.600 of those games that had a very wide appeal. I 0:57:19.640 --> 0:57:21.280 mean I loved it when it came out. I thought 0:57:21.320 --> 0:57:23.920 this was such a cool innovative game. Also, I thought 0:57:23.960 --> 0:57:28.160 it was funny to lock people out of the bathroom. Um, yeah, 0:57:28.200 --> 0:57:30.720 I did some pretty cruel things. A good good thing 0:57:30.760 --> 0:57:34.480 to know about you, Jonathan, That's great, that's why. Uh. 0:57:34.560 --> 0:57:38.880 And then Ian he asked also on Facebook if I 0:57:38.920 --> 0:57:41.560 could give a rundown of some of the PR meltdowns 0:57:41.640 --> 0:57:44.640 the e A has had. I could, but that's a 0:57:44.840 --> 0:57:47.840 full episode. So I'm going to give you, Um, I'm 0:57:47.840 --> 0:57:52.360 gonna give you three examples of PR attempts that e 0:57:52.560 --> 0:57:56.640 A maybe did not handle very well. This isn't just 0:57:56.880 --> 0:58:00.360 like coming out and saying, uh, we didn't do this right, 0:58:00.400 --> 0:58:02.400 We're going to do better. This is this is, this 0:58:02.480 --> 0:58:06.280 goes beyond this. This comes into marketing mistakes. Okay, three 0:58:06.440 --> 0:58:09.960 big marketing mistakes. Keep in mind that this might not 0:58:10.120 --> 0:58:13.520 be entirely EA's fault. They could have partnered with a 0:58:13.600 --> 0:58:16.640 marketing firm that came up with a terrible idea and 0:58:16.720 --> 0:58:19.640 he just ran with it. Um One of them was 0:58:20.040 --> 0:58:24.960 when e A was marketing the game Dante's Inferno, right, 0:58:25.160 --> 0:58:27.960 remember that, yeah, which had all these different characters that 0:58:28.000 --> 0:58:33.120 were based off the Seven Deadly Sins. So the promotion 0:58:33.280 --> 0:58:36.919 for the Sin of Lust came around and right around 0:58:36.920 --> 0:58:40.360 the same time as Comic Con An e A had 0:58:40.640 --> 0:58:44.800 a booth at Comic Con where they had some young 0:58:45.040 --> 0:58:50.200 ladies dressed in costume models colloquially known as booth babes 0:58:50.800 --> 0:58:55.760 to promote their games, and they had their Sin to 0:58:55.960 --> 0:59:00.960 Win campaign, which was a contest that encouraged people to 0:59:01.280 --> 0:59:06.720 quote commit acts of lust unquote with costumed reps at 0:59:06.800 --> 0:59:10.320 e A's booth. Later on, the team clarified this as 0:59:10.360 --> 0:59:14.120 saying that they were just trying to tell people to 0:59:14.600 --> 0:59:18.720 take photos with these reps and then tweet and share 0:59:18.760 --> 0:59:22.840 them in various ways. But no, that doesn't sound like 0:59:22.960 --> 0:59:28.920 that thing like, yeah, I'm I I remember I had 0:59:28.960 --> 0:59:32.320 completely blocked that from my memory, but I remember exactly 0:59:32.400 --> 0:59:38.000 how offended I was by that, because it was really offended. Actually, yeah, yeah, 0:59:38.080 --> 0:59:40.240 not a great move. Okay, So here's another one. This one, 0:59:41.040 --> 0:59:43.439 this one really makes me scratch my head. So there 0:59:43.600 --> 0:59:47.480 for a promotional campaign for the game Mercenaries to E 0:59:47.680 --> 0:59:51.360 a converted a London gas station to make it look 0:59:51.400 --> 0:59:54.400 like a military depot, so it was like a depot 0:59:54.440 --> 0:59:56.560 that you would see in the game Mercenaries to which 0:59:56.600 --> 0:59:59.000 is kind of cool. I mean, we've seen promotions like that, 0:59:59.200 --> 1:00:04.560 like the The Simpsons, Quickie mark type stuff. They had 1:00:04.760 --> 1:00:07.320 a bunch of a bunch of life size column dolls 1:00:07.440 --> 1:00:11.040 on London Underground for a while, that clever stuff. So 1:00:11.960 --> 1:00:14.240 what's the big deal about converting a gas station into 1:00:14.280 --> 1:00:18.360 a military depot. Well, they had this campaign where anyone 1:00:18.520 --> 1:00:22.400 stopping at the military depot slash gas station would get 1:00:22.520 --> 1:00:27.360 seventy dollars worth of gas for free. Keep in mind 1:00:27.480 --> 1:00:30.280 that the game doesn't cost that much, which meant that 1:00:30.400 --> 1:00:32.680 even if every single person who stopped at that gas 1:00:32.760 --> 1:00:36.000 station then went out and bought a copy of Mercenaries 1:00:36.000 --> 1:00:38.240 to still be losing money. You still are losing money. 1:00:38.400 --> 1:00:43.280 And they ended up screwing up traffic patterns so badly 1:00:43.320 --> 1:00:45.479 in London once people found out they could get free 1:00:45.560 --> 1:00:50.280 gas at this station that it caused a massive traffic 1:00:50.360 --> 1:00:54.600 snarl and even ended up with government censure of e A. 1:00:55.560 --> 1:00:58.320 Cost him about fifty dollars to convert the gas station 1:00:58.400 --> 1:01:02.040 into a military depot. Seventy bucks of gas per person 1:01:02.080 --> 1:01:04.880 who stopped. Yeah, not the most effective use of your 1:01:04.920 --> 1:01:08.720 marketing dollars, you might argue. And here's the third one. 1:01:09.440 --> 1:01:13.800 So godfather to the game coming out and e A, 1:01:14.280 --> 1:01:18.920 like many companies, tries to court the gaming press by 1:01:18.960 --> 1:01:22.800 sending out publicity kits. They have various little gifts in them. Right, 1:01:23.040 --> 1:01:27.120 horses head No, no horses had, no fish, okay, no connoli. 1:01:28.080 --> 1:01:32.320 Brass knuckles. They send out brass, actual brass knuckles, actual 1:01:32.320 --> 1:01:36.880 bras knuckles, which, by the way, not legal and also 1:01:37.120 --> 1:01:40.920 illegal to send by may. So then they had to 1:01:41.000 --> 1:01:43.880 send a message to everyone they had sent a package 1:01:43.920 --> 1:01:46.640 to saying could you please send back those brass knuckles 1:01:47.000 --> 1:01:51.360 and please don't sue us. Three examples of marketing failures 1:01:51.400 --> 1:01:54.480 on e A's part. Now, there are plenty of other 1:01:54.560 --> 1:01:57.280 examples of e A coming out and apologizing or not 1:01:57.640 --> 1:02:01.240 apologizing for something, like when they won the America's Worst 1:02:01.280 --> 1:02:03.360 Company the second time. There was a blog post that 1:02:03.440 --> 1:02:06.120 essentially said we can do better, but a lot of 1:02:06.200 --> 1:02:10.560 people viewed it as kind of a backhanded slap at gamers, 1:02:10.800 --> 1:02:14.320 and not not like so much as owning up to problems, 1:02:14.400 --> 1:02:18.360 but rather saying, uh, you know, people perceive it as this, 1:02:18.480 --> 1:02:22.680 so we can change their perception. So uh and I'm 1:02:22.720 --> 1:02:26.240 paraphrasing obviously, sure, but but nonetheless it no, they they've 1:02:26.280 --> 1:02:28.680 they've not always had the best attitude about that sort 1:02:28.680 --> 1:02:31.000 of thing, or at least that seems to be the 1:02:31.080 --> 1:02:33.800 implication anyway, you know, because we're all reading this through 1:02:33.880 --> 1:02:36.240 our own lens, and perhaps the way they intended it 1:02:36.320 --> 1:02:39.640 and the way that we're interpreting it are just wildly different. Oh. Absolutely, 1:02:39.680 --> 1:02:44.000 And you know, and it's an understanding, understandably upsetting situation 1:02:44.120 --> 1:02:45.800 to be in um to to have to be the 1:02:45.800 --> 1:02:48.760 company's representative coming off of something like that. Yeah, there's 1:02:48.840 --> 1:02:51.200 there's ever you know, it's you know that that's the 1:02:51.280 --> 1:02:52.800 kind of thing that if if I had to write that, 1:02:52.960 --> 1:02:55.040 I would draft it like nine and a half times 1:02:55.080 --> 1:02:56.760 and get everyone in the office to read it and 1:02:56.840 --> 1:02:58.800 make sure there was absolutely no way that it could 1:02:58.800 --> 1:03:01.840 be perceived as being negative to the fans that I 1:03:01.920 --> 1:03:04.400 had piste off. So much to begin with. Yeah, that's fair, 1:03:05.000 --> 1:03:08.840 and that wraps up this classic episode of text Stuff. 1:03:09.280 --> 1:03:12.080 Almost forgot the name of my own show, The Electronic 1:03:12.280 --> 1:03:14.560 Arts Story Part two, As I said, I'll have to 1:03:14.640 --> 1:03:17.680 do another part. I might even just go and do 1:03:17.960 --> 1:03:21.240 a full redo of the story from beginning to end, 1:03:21.280 --> 1:03:23.560 because I do a much deeper dive these days than 1:03:23.640 --> 1:03:26.640 I did back in those days. So if you guys 1:03:26.680 --> 1:03:28.960 would like me to do that, If you have suggestions 1:03:29.000 --> 1:03:32.520 for other topics, maybe there's another company or technology or 1:03:32.560 --> 1:03:34.280 a trend or something you would love me to cover 1:03:34.440 --> 1:03:37.160 on tech Stuff, reach out to me. The handle both 1:03:37.200 --> 1:03:40.360 at Facebook and on Twitter is tech Stuff hs W 1:03:40.600 --> 1:03:49.200 and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff 1:03:49.320 --> 1:03:52.440 is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from 1:03:52.480 --> 1:03:56.240 my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 1:03:56.400 --> 1:04:00.360 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Three