Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. It is time for
Speaker 1: a tech Stuff Classic episode. This episode is the part
Speaker 1: two to last week's part one, The Electronic Arts Story
Speaker 1: Part two. It originally published on May two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because the previous one published on May,
Speaker 1: which means these published back to back. I must have
Speaker 1: missed a day or something. But I'm not gonna miss
Speaker 1: a beat because we're going to pick up where we
Speaker 1: left off and continue the Electronic Arts Story. Let's listen in.
Speaker 1: One thing I didn't mention at the end of the
Speaker 1: last podcast was that was the year e A purchased
Speaker 1: Origin Systems, and that's the game company that was founded
Speaker 1: by Rich Garriott, the guy who created the Ultimate series,
Speaker 1: and they also had another series. They had James Combat
Speaker 1: simulate simulators. They also had the Wing Commander series, and
Speaker 1: so that was a big move on their part. But
Speaker 1: then we move on into and that's when the three
Speaker 1: D O console actually hit the market. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: e A also released the first Need for speed for
Speaker 1: the three D O because e A was actually a
Speaker 1: partner in that three D O console experiment. They were
Speaker 1: not the whole owners of that, which I guess in retrospect,
Speaker 1: I'm sure the company thinks is a good thing. But
Speaker 1: they were partners, so it wasn't like Hawkins had severed
Speaker 1: all ties once he left e A. Uh. Now again,
Speaker 1: we're not going to mention every single release that Electronics
Speaker 1: Arts had um Electronic Arts I should say had throughout
Speaker 1: their history. That it would be ridiculous, and you'd also
Speaker 1: get tired of hearing A say FIFA. Uh like thirty
Speaker 1: or forty time we say FIFA. He's just that word.
Speaker 1: First of all, I didn't if you're in the United States,
Speaker 1: you're probably thinking, I don't know what that means. And
Speaker 1: even if you're not, after you've heard it that many times,
Speaker 1: it starts to lose all meeting and become something of
Speaker 1: a cone that we're just saying over and over to
Speaker 1: achieve enlightenment. But so I don't have anything for for
Speaker 1: ninety four, Lauren, do you? I don't want to skip
Speaker 1: over you you've got anything that was? That was actually
Speaker 1: the year that Hawkins resigned as chairman of the board
Speaker 1: for e A. Okay, so now he had actually not
Speaker 1: just left as the CEO, but also left the board
Speaker 1: of directors. Uh inve e A acquired a company called
Speaker 1: bull Frog, which was a game development studio in the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom, and they were known for a couple of
Speaker 1: different series, their theme park series and their series called Populus.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see Populous, Lauren? I did not see Populous.
Speaker 1: I did play some of the theme parks. Okay. Well,
Speaker 1: Populus was a game where it puts you in the
Speaker 1: role essentially as as like a god, and it was
Speaker 1: a job to try and shape landscape so that fild
Speaker 1: stuff and worship you. Right, yeah, this this is what
Speaker 1: m Yeah. Indeed, I was about to say that this
Speaker 1: is what I think black and White because that was
Speaker 1: the same studio later on Black and White definitely was
Speaker 1: was something that was inspired by the populist games. You
Speaker 1: could definitely tell that Populus was was not quite as
Speaker 1: sophisticated as that, and there were there were different ways
Speaker 1: of winning Populace. You had opponents that would also have
Speaker 1: their own worshippers, and you were trying to dominate the world.
Speaker 1: So if you wanted to go over to the your
Speaker 1: opponent's side when your opponent wasn't looking, and start digging
Speaker 1: down until all of the villages were submerged in water
Speaker 1: and all the little villagers drowned. And it was both
Speaker 1: entertaining and horrifying at the same time. All of these series,
Speaker 1: by the way, we're serious that he had published and
Speaker 1: so um so the acquisition of bull Frog was kind
Speaker 1: of a good following steps since they had done pretty well.
Speaker 1: Right yeah, now now he has decided that they want
Speaker 1: this as an actual part of their development team, not
Speaker 1: just a title that they published. Once Bullfrog joined the A,
Speaker 1: they the division began to develop the Dungeon Keepers series,
Speaker 1: which reached some acclaim I thought, I always thought it
Speaker 1: was a very entertaining series. And that same year, in
Speaker 1: ninety the Sega Saturn platform launches, and so does a
Speaker 1: platform that would become one of the most disruptive platforms
Speaker 1: in video game console history, because at this point Nintendo
Speaker 1: is pretty much the heavy hitter. I mean, Nintendo is
Speaker 1: owning video game consoles. Sega keeps coming out with consoles
Speaker 1: that from a specs perspective, might beat out whatever the
Speaker 1: Nintendo console is at that time. But but just but
Speaker 1: just that the games. The programming that was going on
Speaker 1: for Nintendo was incredible, right, Yeah, the Nintendo had all
Speaker 1: the momentum, so Sega, while it had its fans, just
Speaker 1: didn't have nearly as many as Nintendo did. Well. Was
Speaker 1: also when we saw Sony get into the game with
Speaker 1: the PlayStation console, and that really shook things up. You know,
Speaker 1: a CD based console that had far more graphic ability
Speaker 1: than the Nintendo consoles did. Uh. And that that gave
Speaker 1: e A a lot of opportunities as well to develop
Speaker 1: for yet another platform, because remember e A wants there
Speaker 1: to be as many platforms as possible because it means
Speaker 1: that no single platform has enough power to tell e
Speaker 1: A what to do. Um. And then e A also
Speaker 1: starts to port several three d O titles to the Saga, Saturn,
Speaker 1: and Sony PlayStation platforms in order to take advantage of
Speaker 1: the thirty two bit processing power. So in this sense,
Speaker 1: they didn't have to develop new titles. They just had
Speaker 1: to retool these titles for the three D OH so
Speaker 1: that they would work on these other systems. Now, I say,
Speaker 1: just that's still a pretty big thing to have to do,
Speaker 1: but it does. It's different from having to build a
Speaker 1: game from the ground batch. Yeah, you don't have to
Speaker 1: go through the whole conceptual phase at all. Uh. I
Speaker 1: don't have anything for ninety six, so we're gonna go
Speaker 1: right into nine seven. Sounds good. So e A in
Speaker 1: ninety seven acquires Maxis, And this is this is a
Speaker 1: big one, folks, because this is the company that was
Speaker 1: responsible for sim City. The first sim City game came
Speaker 1: out in ninete, so almost a decade earlier, right and
Speaker 1: h And since then, will write who is who's the
Speaker 1: designer for Maxis had had been making all kinds of
Speaker 1: all kinds of related titles as sim Earth, Sam Aunt. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was a big fantasy man. Yeah. Yeah. On the
Speaker 1: on the s n E S it was. It was
Speaker 1: great Aunt simulation. Man, I got it. Sounds so goofy
Speaker 1: and I had so much fun playing it. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to argue with the goofy part, but hey, I
Speaker 1: like lots of goofy stuff, so I am not one
Speaker 1: to talk. And once e A acquires Maxis, that's when
Speaker 1: will Wright starts to work on a game that would
Speaker 1: become an important part of e A's arsenal. In fact,
Speaker 1: you could argue it's the most important game that e
Speaker 1: A ever came out with, and that is the SIMS.
Speaker 1: So will Wright starts to work on the SIMS back
Speaker 1: in ninety seven. It would be a few years before
Speaker 1: that game would come out. Uh. E A also gets
Speaker 1: into the online gaming market. They launch Ultima Online, which
Speaker 1: was one of the earliest, at least one of the
Speaker 1: earliest successful massively multiplayer online role playing games in the
Speaker 1: Western Hemisphere. So Ultima Online goes live and starts to
Speaker 1: prove the model that online gaming could be a thing.
Speaker 1: Keeping in mind this is before broadband penetration had really
Speaker 1: spread out throughout the United States. Uh, there were people
Speaker 1: who are playing this on dial ups. Oh my goodness. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so it was you know, this was the earliest
Speaker 1: days of that, and it was before really in those days,
Speaker 1: it came down to Ultima Online or ever Quest. Those
Speaker 1: were the two big names. And it wouldn't be until
Speaker 1: the world of Warcraft that that dynamic gets really shaken up. Um,
Speaker 1: and you had people who were hardcore fans of one
Speaker 1: and hated the other anyway. That that same year, nine seven,
Speaker 1: bull Frog chief Peter Mullineux leaves e A to start
Speaker 1: a new studio and supposedly one of the reasons he
Speaker 1: left was that he felt that e A was getting
Speaker 1: two hands on in game development, that they were interfering
Speaker 1: too much in the actual development of games, and that
Speaker 1: he felt that the pressure was to establish a game
Speaker 1: and then just churn out sequels right right, And this
Speaker 1: is in U is in direct opposition to eas original
Speaker 1: mode of operation, wherein they were they were treating game
Speaker 1: developers with extreme respect and kind of letting them do
Speaker 1: whatever they wanted on the principle that whatever they wanted
Speaker 1: would be awesome. Yeah, and yeah, and but but since
Speaker 1: then had, as we discussed in our previous episode, decided
Speaker 1: that that, yeah, that that the real way to go
Speaker 1: is to create brands and and really um push the brandin,
Speaker 1: find a brand that resonates with an audience, and then
Speaker 1: all you have to do is keep on creating uh
Speaker 1: sequels to that and that, and people will buy it
Speaker 1: because you've established an audience for it. This is not
Speaker 1: an unusual idea. We see it all across video games.
Speaker 1: I mean you could think another media too, of course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can think of dozens of franchises that exist. Only
Speaker 1: you can look at entries to various franchises where you
Speaker 1: think this really didn't live up to what the original
Speaker 1: was or what later entries were. This was clearly something
Speaker 1: where a company was trying to cash in on a
Speaker 1: previously existing title. Um and and in some cases it's
Speaker 1: it can be the death of a franchise or or
Speaker 1: even an entire company. Well. Then moving on, in n
Speaker 1: Electronic Arts moves its headquarters from San Mateo to Redwood City,
Speaker 1: and e A also acquires yet another company, Westwood Studios,
Speaker 1: which was the company that developed the Command and Conquer series,
Speaker 1: which are real time strategy games. Um. I'm terrible at
Speaker 1: real time strategy games. I'm just I can't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have a brain from either. I can't. I
Speaker 1: can't manage. Yeah, I cannot manage the many assets. I
Speaker 1: can't keep track of everything. Obviously, if I were going
Speaker 1: up against Kirk and Spock, they would be able to
Speaker 1: defeat me because I can't think three dimensionally. Um Also,
Speaker 1: Electronic Arts formed a partnership with Square, being the Japanese
Speaker 1: game company that's that's most famous for for RPGs like
Speaker 1: say Final Fantasy. You might have heard of it. Um
Speaker 1: and Uh, Square and and e A worked out this deal.
Speaker 1: They formed a Square E A here in the States
Speaker 1: and E A square over in Japan. Uh. The idea
Speaker 1: of being to transfer titles that were happening in each
Speaker 1: place to the other and and see see how they did,
Speaker 1: you know, try to try to bring stuff that wasn't
Speaker 1: being seen in each country over to the other, because
Speaker 1: there were I think, especially in the Final Fantasy series,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, there were a couple of entries
Speaker 1: in the Final Fantasy Series that happened in Japan that
Speaker 1: at that point had never been seen in the United States. Correct,
Speaker 1: and uh, and and people were you know, RPGs had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a following over here, but but
Speaker 1: none of the really big cool titles were coming over
Speaker 1: and so and so. So I meant that you had
Speaker 1: to have like a Japanese game console, and then you
Speaker 1: had to import the titles because of course, the the
Speaker 1: media for the Japanese consoles would not work on the
Speaker 1: United States. It literally would not play correct. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, aside from the fact that you would have
Speaker 1: to learn Japanese in order to play them very effectively,
Speaker 1: which is a whole other issue. But um, but yeah, so,
Speaker 1: so each square E A and A square each had
Speaker 1: a stake in the other um which which which is
Speaker 1: an interesting fun business model. And uh in that same year,
Speaker 1: they brought um Bashida Blade to Parasite Eve and Zeno
Speaker 1: Gears all to the American market for the PlayStation. Huh wow,
Speaker 1: so another big move on e A's part. Also kind
Speaker 1: of interesting to see a an alliance in the video
Speaker 1: game world. Uh. Some people would call that, uh frightening
Speaker 1: because you know, when you're talking about being such a
Speaker 1: big power player and you already have a reputation for
Speaker 1: scooping up smaller companies and then to make an alliance
Speaker 1: with another big company, just that starts to make other
Speaker 1: people feel really nervous, kind of nervous. Yeah. Seven years
Speaker 1: after e A had acquired Origin Systems, Richard Garriott, who
Speaker 1: was the founder of Origin, leaves e A. He had
Speaker 1: finished work on Ultimate nine, which was the final uh
Speaker 1: entry into the Ultimate series besides the online stuff. And uh.
Speaker 1: He also seems to feel very similar to the way
Speaker 1: other people who departed e A felt that that it
Speaker 1: was just it was not the most ideal creative environment, right.
Speaker 1: Apparently a bunch of his former team members, of former
Speaker 1: Ultimate team members felt very much the same way because
Speaker 1: after e A canceled Ultimate Online to UM at the time,
Speaker 1: a bunch of a bunch of them jumped ship to
Speaker 1: go join Garriott at the new company that he had formed,
Speaker 1: Destination Games. UH. Garriott would not see very much success
Speaker 1: here in the United States over the next several years,
Speaker 1: but recently interesting thing is that he had a kick
Speaker 1: started campaign for a new game that is inspired by
Speaker 1: his old Ultimate series, and the kickstarter funded in like
Speaker 1: two days, it was, and then went on to meet
Speaker 1: lots and lots of stretch goals. Anyway, back to e
Speaker 1: a h. Still in they published their first Medal of
Speaker 1: Honor game, which is again another one of those big
Speaker 1: franchises that UH that they're very well known for, and
Speaker 1: that debuted on the PlayStation platform. UH. And that same year,
Speaker 1: Sega debuts a new video game console called the Dreamcastcast.
Speaker 1: I own a Dreamcast. I like it a lot. I
Speaker 1: actually got my Dreamcast after the Dreamcast had already run
Speaker 1: its course and was no longer in production. UH. And
Speaker 1: I inherited a lot of games from a friend of
Speaker 1: mine who was not really playing them anymore. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think Dreamcast it's another one of those things where
Speaker 1: we've done an episode of about Sega. We did a
Speaker 1: full thing about Sega's um Uh successes and it's it's
Speaker 1: notable failures and it's interesting. Again. The Dreamcast was one
Speaker 1: of those consoles that was phenomenal. It performed really well
Speaker 1: potatoly if you stacked it up against its competitors, but
Speaker 1: it just, you know, it just never never really caught on.
Speaker 1: It never cut onto the to the extent that it
Speaker 1: needed to in order for a viable platform. I think
Speaker 1: it was a little bit niche for for the for
Speaker 1: the mainstream American market real time especially um Also that
Speaker 1: year was when Square e A put out the Final
Speaker 1: Fantasy Anthology, which brought some of those games that had
Speaker 1: not been published yet in America over here. So in
Speaker 1: two thousand, that's when the SIMS debuts, and it is
Speaker 1: a huge success, and it really gave e A a
Speaker 1: access to a brand new audience, which we usually refer
Speaker 1: to as women. It turned out, it turned out that
Speaker 1: they didn't know at the time when they were producing
Speaker 1: the SIMS. They had no idea that was going to
Speaker 1: resonate with a female audience. And in fact, when they
Speaker 1: were first building the SIMS, it was just going to
Speaker 1: be a a way of building homes, and then they
Speaker 1: created these little virtual characters to inhabit the homes and
Speaker 1: realized that it was way more interesting to see what
Speaker 1: the virtual characters were up to than to build out
Speaker 1: the houses. So that's when the SIMS focus shifted to
Speaker 1: these virtual people, and your job was to give them
Speaker 1: as much of a life as you possibly could, which
Speaker 1: became increasingly difficult than the game, where you're thinking, I
Speaker 1: don't have enough time. That's just like real life. I
Speaker 1: don't have enough hours to give this person a good
Speaker 1: job and a and a satisfying social life. Still have
Speaker 1: them go to the bathroom without having a terrible accident
Speaker 1: in the middle of the living room. But uh, Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was a huge performer, and they immediately started to
Speaker 1: to develop expansion packs for the SIMS and also go
Speaker 1: into development for the sequels to the SIMS because it
Speaker 1: was clear they had touched the nerve and that It's
Speaker 1: also the year and two thousand, that's when Sony launched
Speaker 1: the PlayStation two. Yeah. Um. Meanwhile, back on the PlayStation one,
Speaker 1: Square e A put out Crymno Cross that year, which
Speaker 1: is my the only RPG that I've ever played all
Speaker 1: the way through. I'm not really an RPG person. I
Speaker 1: love that game with a burning and fiery passion. It
Speaker 1: is it is the best. Um. But but I think
Speaker 1: that it's interesting that, uh. I mean, although it had
Speaker 1: been out already in Japan, I think it. You know,
Speaker 1: they were like, no, that's PlayStation two. Whatever, this one's
Speaker 1: fine on the PS It'll still sell really well. And
Speaker 1: Sony was very good about supporting their old consoles even
Speaker 1: when they're introducing a new one. PlayStation two games were
Speaker 1: developed for the PlayStation two well after PlayStation three debuts.
Speaker 1: So um, they have a very different strategy compared to
Speaker 1: say Microsoft. And speaking of Microsoft, in two thousand one,
Speaker 1: that's when Microsoft launched the Xbox. So now we have
Speaker 1: even more competition in the video game console world. At
Speaker 1: this point, e as just having kittens. Nintendo launched the GameCube,
Speaker 1: and e starts developed games for all the three major
Speaker 1: console platforms, which of course does not include Sad Trombone.
Speaker 1: So Xbox, PlayStation two, and GameCube are all great platforms
Speaker 1: for e A to develop for. They just they see
Speaker 1: that as endless opportunity. So uh. They then that same
Speaker 1: year closed the Bullfrog division of e A. Now this
Speaker 1: this kind of brings us to another thing that people
Speaker 1: have criticized EA for, not just the fact that they
Speaker 1: bought up companies, but that they would later go on
Speaker 1: to close them when they realized that they weren't performing
Speaker 1: quite as well as they wanted. Yeah, they just the
Speaker 1: things weren't working out. And a lot of the people
Speaker 1: who worked for these divisions came out and said, well,
Speaker 1: the reason things didn't work out is because they were
Speaker 1: so adamant on us producing a brand and just concentrating
Speaker 1: on that brand as opposed to letting us develop do
Speaker 1: what we do, which is developed games. And so you
Speaker 1: have this series of stories of all these different divisions
Speaker 1: being or different companies rather being bought up and turned
Speaker 1: into divisions for e A later getting closed. Um that
Speaker 1: you know, some would say that all e A was
Speaker 1: really doing was buying up competition and shutting it down.
Speaker 1: You know that that ultimately that's what turned out to
Speaker 1: be the case. Uh oh yeah. Whether or not it
Speaker 1: was intentional is absolutely you know, that's that's that's completely
Speaker 1: beside the point. It didn't matter if it was intentional
Speaker 1: or not. That was the effect, right, So, uh, it
Speaker 1: was it was kind of rough and around that same time,
Speaker 1: e starts to make licensing agreements to make games based
Speaker 1: on films and other properties. Uh. These included big name
Speaker 1: properties like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Godfather,
Speaker 1: and James Bond. I think that that fits in really
Speaker 1: well with their strategy of of latching onto brands and
Speaker 1: not necessarily producing the best games, because a lot of
Speaker 1: those titles, especially in those early days, were not not playable.
Speaker 1: I mean, and and that's that that goes back all
Speaker 1: the way, you know, and any film title games kind
Speaker 1: of spotty. There are a lot of times where I
Speaker 1: feel like like companies rely very heavily on the name
Speaker 1: of the franchise to sell copies, and so therefore the
Speaker 1: amount of time and effort you need to go in
Speaker 1: and build a very compelling game sometimes slips through the cracks.
Speaker 1: So um, you know, in that case, you end up
Speaker 1: getting these games that are based on these beloved franchises,
Speaker 1: but they failed to really live up to gamer expectations.
Speaker 1: This happens. I mean, you can spend hours naming all
Speaker 1: the superhero games that just didn't live up to expectations.
Speaker 1: Not you know, there are a few that have been phenomenal,
Speaker 1: but they are way more that weren't so not a
Speaker 1: problem that only e A possesses. Certainly, certainly not. Also
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, I should put in that
Speaker 1: UM Square A put out Final Fantasy ten, So that
Speaker 1: was that was one of those I remember seeing the
Speaker 1: previews for Final Fantasy ten when that was coming out
Speaker 1: and thinking that that looked like a put particularly beautiful
Speaker 1: game at that time. But things have changed. It doesn't
Speaker 1: Things that were once the most gorgeous thing you could
Speaker 1: imagine have not necessarily aged. Well, do you have anything
Speaker 1: for two thousand two, I do not excellent. Two thousand three,
Speaker 1: e A shuts down Westwood Studios and moves all the
Speaker 1: remaining stuff to EA's Los Angeles studio. The Westwood was
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, and so they shut that one down.
Speaker 1: So there's another example. They did not keep everybody. They
Speaker 1: laid off quite a few people, but the people who
Speaker 1: did remain were then moved to Los Angeles. UH And
Speaker 1: then two thousand four, wait, Lauren, I didn't see your
Speaker 1: high sign. My bad. We have we have an intricate
Speaker 1: system of hand signals going on in the background here.
Speaker 1: I know. Two thousand three, UH Square decided UM their
Speaker 1: their relationship with e A had been slightly degraded, and
Speaker 1: also they had been UM flirting a little bit with
Speaker 1: with Enix stud Deos over in Japan and UH and
Speaker 1: so Square dissolved their relationship with e A, UM bought
Speaker 1: back all of their shares and formed Square Enix, which
Speaker 1: would continue to produce the rest of the series that
Speaker 1: people that they were known for excellent, well, excellent for them,
Speaker 1: not so great for e A necessarily. In two thousand four,
Speaker 1: e A went ahead and dissolved the Origin Systems division,
Speaker 1: so that was the ultimately the division that produced the
Speaker 1: Ultimate Games. That one was formally no more as of
Speaker 1: two thousand four. E A also acquired Criterion, which was
Speaker 1: that was the company that had developed the Burnout games.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's familiar with those the driving games that get
Speaker 1: really super crazy, Yeah, I really love those games. I'm
Speaker 1: not a big driving game kind of guy, but those
Speaker 1: particularly are very arcady. Yeah, yeah, they're They're a little
Speaker 1: bit less focused on the physicalities of driving, and so
Speaker 1: if you're not a huge car buff, the Burnout series
Speaker 1: is pretty fun because all the crashing parts some other
Speaker 1: games don't let you do. The crashing parts are pretty
Speaker 1: pretty spectacular and play a large part in most of
Speaker 1: those games. Uh. And then there that was the same
Speaker 1: year that someone on live journal who had the handle
Speaker 1: e A Spouse posted a rather uh critical post about
Speaker 1: e A saying that they had some draconian practices as
Speaker 1: far as employment goes, that people were being forced to
Speaker 1: work super long hours six days out of the week,
Speaker 1: they weren't getting compensated for overtime. Um. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of pretty ugly accusations, and eventually some uh, some
Speaker 1: spouses and some employees of e A got together and
Speaker 1: they filed a class action lawsuit, in fact, a few
Speaker 1: class action lawsuits against e A, and that ended up
Speaker 1: leading to massive changes in the A and in the
Speaker 1: industry in general, because other companies saw what was happening
Speaker 1: and they thought, we better fixed this before it happens
Speaker 1: to so uh. In two thousand six, e A settled
Speaker 1: a lawsuit that was brought against it by a bunch
Speaker 1: of graphic artists and awarded the graphic artists fifteen point
Speaker 1: six million dollars in unpaid overtime. And in two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: the court awarded plaintiffs of a class action lawsuit fourteen
Speaker 1: point nine million dollars and unpaid overtime. So this this
Speaker 1: is a different group. It's not the same one twice.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was a big deal. And obviously e
Speaker 1: A did not want to court any more problems down
Speaker 1: the line, and so they started to really take a look.
Speaker 1: Uh and in two thousand five, e A purchased jam
Speaker 1: Debt Mobile. So two thousand five, this is before the
Speaker 1: iPhone comes out. EA makes its first move into the
Speaker 1: mobile gaming world for for phones, not not mobile devices
Speaker 1: like game Boy or whatever. You know. It had been
Speaker 1: developing games for platforms like that for a while, but
Speaker 1: this was the first time it started to really look
Speaker 1: into using um cell phones, not even smartphones yet as
Speaker 1: a potential gaming platform. And uh, and that was a
Speaker 1: smart move. I mean, we're seeing more and more that
Speaker 1: mobile devices are making a huge impact on the gaming industry,
Speaker 1: So that was a Whoever was the person who said
Speaker 1: we should do this was really they were really looking ahead.
Speaker 1: And that's also the year two thousand five would be
Speaker 1: the year when Microsoft launched the Xbox three sixty. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back with more on the electronic arts story,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. Al right. So
Speaker 1: let's see, I think, according to my notes, we left
Speaker 1: off in two thousand five, So two thousand six, e
Speaker 1: A acquires Mythic Entertainment. Mythic Entertainment was responsible for the RPG,
Speaker 1: the m m O RPG Dark Age of Camelot that
Speaker 1: they viewed back into thousand one, So now e A
Speaker 1: has decided to acquire another m m O RPG. They
Speaker 1: saw that as a way of of maintaining a steady
Speaker 1: stream of revenue. You've got all these people who are subscribing,
Speaker 1: so that was the strategy there, And that was the
Speaker 1: year the e A also acquired Digital Illusions CE better
Speaker 1: known as Dice and Dice is the company that made
Speaker 1: Battlefield nineteen two. So two thousand six is also the
Speaker 1: year that Sony launched the PlayStation three and and Nintendo
Speaker 1: launched the week exactly, both of them one year behind
Speaker 1: the Xbox three six, which had had a head start,
Speaker 1: uh and uh, well not a full year, but several
Speaker 1: months behind anyway. But also what I thought was interesting
Speaker 1: was I found a statistic here from Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: that said it was an article that was published in
Speaker 1: two thousand six. So that's why I put it here,
Speaker 1: because we're talking about two thousand and six here. They
Speaker 1: said that from nine until present day, which at that
Speaker 1: time was two thousand six, e A averaged about one
Speaker 1: point two acquisitions per year. It was buying up more
Speaker 1: than a company per year if you average it out
Speaker 1: over those years, and that one third of the companies
Speaker 1: that had purchased in it eventually shut down. So that's
Speaker 1: again showing that that kind of trend that I talked
Speaker 1: about earlier, the criticism that people have laid against it, saying,
Speaker 1: you're buying up these companies and when you are, uh,
Speaker 1: and you stripped the industry of the talent these people have,
Speaker 1: and then you end up closing it down when it
Speaker 1: doesn't meet whatever your performance measurements are. Certainly not to
Speaker 1: say that those people didn't go on to do other things,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, yeah, but and it's not necessarily it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily the good business model for anyone in the industry, right,
Speaker 1: anyone else. And the big criticism would be those those
Speaker 1: guys and those men and women could have been developing
Speaker 1: games during that time that would have potentially changed the industry,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't because they were under contract or part
Speaker 1: part of this larger organization where they had nowhere else
Speaker 1: to go At that point. Um, yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: from from e A's perspective. It's doing all the smart
Speaker 1: business moves. So they're from a gamer's perspective or an
Speaker 1: industry analysts perspective. They might say this is not good
Speaker 1: for the industry, or the gamer might say this isn't
Speaker 1: good for me because I'm not getting great games out
Speaker 1: of it. E A's point of view is that this
Speaker 1: is I'm making money. Yeah, it's solidifying my position. Money.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Money is the a when you're a business
Speaker 1: turns out. Yeah yeah. And I know this isn't financial stuff.
Speaker 1: So I didn't mean to blow your mind's there about
Speaker 1: how money is. Okay. So two thousand seven, e A
Speaker 1: acquires BioWare. BioWare made some of my favorite games of
Speaker 1: all times. Still does uh ballers Gate. I love the
Speaker 1: Baller's Gate games, but the Kicking Phone just this, Um,
Speaker 1: there's a fantastic character who has a little hamster and
Speaker 1: he shouts out random things when you go into battle
Speaker 1: with him, and it's endlessly entertaining. They also made Planescape Torment.
Speaker 1: They made the Star Wars Nights the Old Republic Games
Speaker 1: Co Tour, which, again I was a huge fan of
Speaker 1: the Cotour Games. They made Mass Effect, which I've played
Speaker 1: a little bit of. I never played it all the
Speaker 1: way through, and Matt Frederick would probably hit me if
Speaker 1: he were in the room, because it's actually his copy
Speaker 1: of the game that I have and I haven't returned
Speaker 1: it yet. Um. That year they also acquired Pandemic Studios,
Speaker 1: which was the company that brought us Star Wars battle
Speaker 1: Front and also the game Destroy All Humans, as well
Speaker 1: as some other titles. And that was the year that
Speaker 1: that Probst steps down as CEO. He had been CEO
Speaker 1: since Hawkins had left the company. It was supposed to
Speaker 1: be more temporary than that, wasn't it. I think I
Speaker 1: believe so. But he had led the company throughout those years,
Speaker 1: uh so from two thousand and seven and he's still
Speaker 1: on the board, but he ends up stepping down and
Speaker 1: John Richard Tello a Tillo I guess it should say
Speaker 1: Richie Tello becomes the new CEO, and he says the
Speaker 1: company is going to undergo a reorganization to address the
Speaker 1: problems they've had where they've been acquiring and trying to
Speaker 1: assimilate and then shutting down all these different companies that
Speaker 1: they've been going after over the years. So, I mean
Speaker 1: this is this is an issue that all big companies have.
Speaker 1: If you acquire a company, there's always a culture shock
Speaker 1: era that allows it because unless the two companies are
Speaker 1: practically ideally well aligned, yeah, there's gonna be culture shock.
Speaker 1: So sometimes a company does this so quickly that they
Speaker 1: there's never that period that you need to adjust and
Speaker 1: have things work out. So he was saying, let's take
Speaker 1: the time to really look at how our company is
Speaker 1: structured and make sure that it makes sense. That was
Speaker 1: his That was his statement from the the get go
Speaker 1: when he started right. Also unrelated to that, but in
Speaker 1: addition to the other games that they published that year,
Speaker 1: that was the year that they published harm Nix's Rock
Speaker 1: Band along with MTV Huge huge title. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Guitar Hero had been in the years before already kind
Speaker 1: of uh had revolutionized the idea of rhythm games on consoles,
Speaker 1: and Rock Band ended up taking that and dialing it
Speaker 1: up to eleven. As spinel Tap would love to say,
Speaker 1: and uh, I mean, I've had a blast playing Rock Band.
Speaker 1: Even though I adore, I adore the series. It's terrific.
Speaker 1: My musical talent is is pretty negligible, but I still,
Speaker 1: you know, any game that makes you feel like a
Speaker 1: rock star is pretty pretty cool. It is, it is,
Speaker 1: And also karaoke in your own home is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And also a little cheat boxes that allow you to
Speaker 1: hook up real electronic drum sets to the game and
Speaker 1: actually rock out. It's pretty neat, pretty neat. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: we then move on into two thousand eight, where e
Speaker 1: A has a an attempt to acquire another big name,
Speaker 1: Take two Interactive, which you know gamers will recognize that
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty famous studio. So e A made a
Speaker 1: move to acquire take to Take two turned down the
Speaker 1: initial offer that e A made, and then, uh, the
Speaker 1: negotiations kind of got a little quiet. But everyone kept
Speaker 1: an eye on this because they were really wondering if
Speaker 1: e A was in fact going to acquire yet another company,
Speaker 1: and some people were really worried about what the fate
Speaker 1: of Take two would be. Yeah. I think that part
Speaker 1: of the reason that it fell through was also that
Speaker 1: the the economic crisis that year, yeah hit them really hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So e A's attempt to acquire Take two fails, and
Speaker 1: that year the entire world entered into an economic crisis,
Speaker 1: and it affected lots of industries, you know, Realist eight
Speaker 1: being the big famous one in the United States banking
Speaker 1: as well, but it also hit companies like e A
Speaker 1: and uh e A end up announcing that was going
Speaker 1: to cut more than a thousand positions across all of
Speaker 1: its divisions, which ended up being around ten to eleven
Speaker 1: of its workforce, and that the company lost over six
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars in the last quarter of two thousand
Speaker 1: eight due to accommodation of the economic crisis and just
Speaker 1: the fact that it's game releases had not performed very
Speaker 1: well in the market at all um and there their
Speaker 1: stock took a big tumble. So in August fifte of
Speaker 1: of two thousand eight, their stock was valued at forty
Speaker 1: eight dollars and twenty four cents per share. By December
Speaker 1: twenty six of two thousand eight, it had fallen to
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars and thirty two cents per share, So, uh,
Speaker 1: not not quite losing half its value, just under at drop,
Speaker 1: but it's but a whole bunch, that's that's terrible, and
Speaker 1: it really what it signaled was that investors had lost
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence in the company. Now, keep in
Speaker 1: mind the value of your company is based upon how
Speaker 1: many stocks are out there. If you're a publicly traded company,
Speaker 1: the value of your company, in part at least, is
Speaker 1: determined by how many stocks you have, and how how
Speaker 1: many stocks are out there in the market, and what
Speaker 1: they're the actual value of each stock is. So you
Speaker 1: kind of multiply those two numbers together and you get
Speaker 1: a rough estimate of what the value of the company is. Well,
Speaker 1: when you lose fifty percent of your stock price, that
Speaker 1: means that your company is losing fifty of its value.
Speaker 1: More or less oversimplifying, but that more or less is
Speaker 1: what it means. Well, two thousand and eight wasn't all bad.
Speaker 1: They did come out with a game that ended up
Speaker 1: getting a lot of critical acclaim and a lot of fans,
Speaker 1: which was Dead Space. I was never a big Dead
Speaker 1: Space player, but I know some people who can recite
Speaker 1: everything about that game, including all the little hidden stuff
Speaker 1: that you had to find to get the backstory right right.
Speaker 1: Also in the negative column that was two eight was
Speaker 1: a year that they were hit with a class action
Speaker 1: lawsuit over the undisclosed edition of Secure Rom DRM software,
Speaker 1: along with games like Spore for the PC and and
Speaker 1: the lawsuit was about the fact that they had included
Speaker 1: this this this uh digital rights management software without telling
Speaker 1: anyone about it, that it was separate from the game software,
Speaker 1: and that it was basically impossible to uninstall, even after
Speaker 1: you would uninstalled the video game. Yeah, so e A
Speaker 1: was falling under the same trap that Sony did, where
Speaker 1: in an effort to try and keep its intellectual property safe,
Speaker 1: it had kind of over well, not kind of it overstepped. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. The point was to prevent people from from
Speaker 1: installing it more than I think it was eight times,
Speaker 1: three times, six times a number of times, right, right, Well,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where, you know, someone who
Speaker 1: buys the game, their argument is I should be able
Speaker 1: to install this as many times as I want, because
Speaker 1: you know, if I buy a new compute, it or
Speaker 1: I want to be able to transfer the stuff I
Speaker 1: own onto that computer. It's not that I'm you know,
Speaker 1: installing it on all my friends machines. I just want
Speaker 1: to be able to play my game. And the other
Speaker 1: argument against that is that we don't want you to
Speaker 1: install this on or your friends machines. Right uh. In
Speaker 1: In other DRM news, that year, that was the year
Speaker 1: that UM the e A announced plans to require PC
Speaker 1: owners of things like Mass Effect and Sport to authenticate
Speaker 1: their copies every ten days, even if they were playing
Speaker 1: the game offline. Yeah. Um, and this this is this
Speaker 1: becomes a common thread in e A as well, this
Speaker 1: idea of having either a persistent Internet connection or at
Speaker 1: least using the Internet every now and then to again
Speaker 1: verify that you have a legitimate copy of the game.
Speaker 1: So not only would you have to retain whatever the
Speaker 1: disc was, you would have to have that in your machine.
Speaker 1: You would have to then make a connection to the Internet,
Speaker 1: and then the Internet would make sure that that, in
Speaker 1: fact was your registered copy so that you could play
Speaker 1: the game you wanted. Even if you were able to
Speaker 1: just move everything on the game into your computer and
Speaker 1: it's a single player game, you still had to do that.
Speaker 1: And a lot of players objected. Yeah, yeah, especially you
Speaker 1: know two thousand eight. You know, most people had had
Speaker 1: pretty good Internet connections at that point. It was getting better,
Speaker 1: but not everyone wanted to be connected to the Internet
Speaker 1: all the time. And you know, the people who bought
Speaker 1: the game pointed out that this was really a hassle
Speaker 1: for the legitimate game player and people who were pirate
Speaker 1: into the game, were breaking this encryption, They were using
Speaker 1: keys that would allow them to right so that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't they didn't have to authentic kate. They were playing
Speaker 1: pirated copies that they got for free that didn't have
Speaker 1: this DRM in it. And so the players, the legitimate
Speaker 1: players who had bought the game say it, said, look,
Speaker 1: you're only punshed us. You're not you're not stopping piracy,
Speaker 1: and you're making the game a miserable experience for the
Speaker 1: people who actually paid to play it. Yeah. This this
Speaker 1: never did go into effect, this particular bit of of
Speaker 1: d r M. On the A side, they relented pretty
Speaker 1: quickly after community feedback, which was highly highly negative as
Speaker 1: you can imagine. They however, did not learn their lesson
Speaker 1: from it, because they would not they would incorporate it
Speaker 1: again in the future. Two thousand nine, e A acquires
Speaker 1: a play Fish, which was a developer of casual games.
Speaker 1: They had seen how Louis was doing and they thought
Speaker 1: let's get in on that as well. Um they also
Speaker 1: went ahead and cut another fiftred employees, which was about
Speaker 1: sevent of its workforce, and they shut down Pandemic Studios
Speaker 1: that year. So get another example of them acquiring and
Speaker 1: then shutting down a company. Uh, and next I don't
Speaker 1: have anything for me neither. But inn in the summer
Speaker 1: they acquired pop Cap Wow. Yeah, another casual games developer.
Speaker 1: So lots of lots of mobile content all that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're ones who owned like The Jeweled and stuff like that. Right.
Speaker 1: They also released Star Wars the Old Republic Blake, which
Speaker 1: was a Star Wars based m m O RPG. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: we had one person asked us if we could talk
Speaker 1: more about Star Wars the Old Republic and why did
Speaker 1: it move from a subscription based service too free to
Speaker 1: play with micro transactions and and how you know, what's
Speaker 1: the story of its failure if you want to look
Speaker 1: at it in that way? All right, As so I
Speaker 1: actually played Star Wars the Old Republic. I I subscribed.
Speaker 1: I was one of the subscribers. I was one of
Speaker 1: the people who got who rolled his eyes when I
Speaker 1: heard that was going to free to play because I
Speaker 1: had actually bought a I think I was like a
Speaker 1: twelve month subscription in advance. But so Star Wars the
Speaker 1: Old Republic takes place thousands of years before the events
Speaker 1: of the Star Wars movie series, but it puts you
Speaker 1: in either a a Sith role or a Republic role,
Speaker 1: and you have different storylines that we play out based
Speaker 1: upon the type of character you were playing. I think
Speaker 1: part of the problem was that it, even though it
Speaker 1: was an M M O RPG, more frequently than not
Speaker 1: it felt to me like a single player game. It
Speaker 1: felt like another sequel to Cotur, which isn't a bad thing.
Speaker 1: The Coach War games were great. I very much enjoyed them,
Speaker 1: even though the second co Tour game obviously had an
Speaker 1: entire section that was left unfinished because you could see
Speaker 1: it on your map, but you couldn't get to it
Speaker 1: in uh in the actual game. Anyway, the Old Republic
Speaker 1: felt like another sequel to that. It didn't feel as
Speaker 1: much like an M M O RPG. You didn't have
Speaker 1: as many people partying up together and the kind of
Speaker 1: interactions that you would normally expect from and not after
Speaker 1: the initial launched like there was a lot of interest
Speaker 1: in it very early on, but that kind of dropped
Speaker 1: off quickly, and part of the problem was that people
Speaker 1: were completing the storylines for the characters very very quickly,
Speaker 1: and once you did that, you didn't really have any
Speaker 1: incentive to keep playing so it was just like if
Speaker 1: you had played a single player game all the way
Speaker 1: through and then you're thinking, all right, well that was fun,
Speaker 1: but now I want to sell this game and get
Speaker 1: some money back, and then I'm going to buy another
Speaker 1: new game. That's kind of what people were thinking. Well,
Speaker 1: subscribers started to drop off from this game, and e
Speaker 1: A's response was that, well, you know, we could either
Speaker 1: pull the plug on it entirely, or we could try
Speaker 1: and switch our strategy and get more people interested in
Speaker 1: this game. But obviously the subscription models not really working.
Speaker 1: So what if we dropped the subscription and go to
Speaker 1: free to play, and instead of making money through people subscribing,
Speaker 1: we make money by selling items in the game for
Speaker 1: real money, small amounts of money micro transactions. But um,
Speaker 1: and you could still play it for free without buying anything,
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't have access to the entire game. There'll
Speaker 1: be sections of the game you could not get to
Speaker 1: because you would have to purchase them in order to
Speaker 1: have access. And all of the micro transaction items were
Speaker 1: the super powerful cool things with rainbows and unicorns or
Speaker 1: whatever the you know, Star Wars equivalent of rainbows in
Speaker 1: the cub lights. So I realize you're not familiar with
Speaker 1: the venerable franchise known as Star Wars. Yeah no, never
Speaker 1: never seen any of those scruffy looking at um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the that was the whole response there was to switch
Speaker 1: order free to play and do micro transactions. Now, this
Speaker 1: is another thing that e A has received a lot
Speaker 1: of criticism for as the whole micro transaction approach. I
Speaker 1: can't say the word criticism either, obviously, but the micro
Speaker 1: transactions are that's another way to try and generate revenue,
Speaker 1: and if you make your game free to play, it
Speaker 1: may be the only way unless you incorporate lots of advertising,
Speaker 1: and either way most players kind of react in a
Speaker 1: negative way. Yeah, that has also been something that e
Speaker 1: A has gotten a lot of flak for, is the
Speaker 1: the inclusion of kind of kind of annoying out there
Speaker 1: advertising in the middle of their games. Right. Well, the
Speaker 1: disappointing performance of Star Wars may have also contributed to
Speaker 1: another dip in e AS stock prices in twelve of although,
Speaker 1: but before we move on, just thank you Chaz our
Speaker 1: listener from Twitter for for writing in about that. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, yea, And we have a few
Speaker 1: more questions. We will address at the end of this
Speaker 1: episode as well. Also in twenty eleven, something else big
Speaker 1: happened to e A. E A had the honor is
Speaker 1: the wrong word for it had had the unfortunate um
Speaker 1: role as Lull's SEC final target. Lulls SEC being Laugh
Speaker 1: Out Loud Security was kind of a an offshoot of Anonymous.
Speaker 1: It was not necessarily related directly to Anonymous, but it
Speaker 1: was a group of of hackers who decided that they
Speaker 1: were going to cause as much trouble as possible really
Speaker 1: for the main reason they wanted to do it was
Speaker 1: to show that they could. And uh, boy, I bet
Speaker 1: they're regretting that decision right now because as of the
Speaker 1: recording of this podcast, Uh, four of them have been
Speaker 1: sentenced to between a year and two years in very
Speaker 1: US uh jails or juvenile facilities. Well, so, yikes, I
Speaker 1: guess they weren't quite as Anonymous as they thought. Uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they hit EA as their final target before disbanding, and
Speaker 1: uh they ended up releasing the log in information of
Speaker 1: thousands of people who were playing Battlefield Heroes. So uh
Speaker 1: that was a big black eye. A had to reset
Speaker 1: all that and send emails out to everybody saying you know,
Speaker 1: it was compromised and you need to change passwords and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Uh. In twelve he wins
Speaker 1: another awful uh distinguishing feature. Here they were called they
Speaker 1: they were named the worst company in America by the
Speaker 1: Consumerist And this is a this is a thing that
Speaker 1: that the consumers does every year. They've been doing it
Speaker 1: for a while. They gave a Golden poo award. Yes
Speaker 1: they do. It's a very distinguished Uh. Yeah. The way
Speaker 1: it works is that they set it up like a
Speaker 1: tournament bracket and they let people vote on which company
Speaker 1: they think should progress in the bracket. And that year
Speaker 1: e A took home the Golden Pooh. It's final opponent
Speaker 1: was the Bank of America. Now keep in mind this
Speaker 1: is all from reader votes, it's not I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I think the consumers is the one that ultimately
Speaker 1: decides which ones are in the brackets, but the readers
Speaker 1: are the ones who determine which companies progress. Right, And
Speaker 1: this is the Internet, and there are some gamers on
Speaker 1: the Internet, so so I'm sure that that is part
Speaker 1: of why e A made it that far. But but also,
Speaker 1: I mean, was when occupy was happening, So so think
Speaker 1: I mean there were thousands of people on the streets
Speaker 1: protesting the actions of corporations like Bank of America, and
Speaker 1: e A still still beat them out. Yeah, by I
Speaker 1: think it was like close to to you know, twenty
Speaker 1: six or something like that. It's really like that. So
Speaker 1: it was it wasn't even close. It's a runaway. But again,
Speaker 1: you know the platforms the internet. Gamers like the Internet,
Speaker 1: so you know, keep that all in mind. It's kind
Speaker 1: of it was kind of skewed to e A, is
Speaker 1: what we're saying. We've got a bit more to say
Speaker 1: about e A, and then I'll have a lot more
Speaker 1: to say about e A in a follow up episode
Speaker 1: right after this break. So why did it win Worst Company? Well,
Speaker 1: some of the the suggestions were because it had stripped
Speaker 1: the video game industry of talent through all those acquisitions
Speaker 1: and then shutting down competitions. Are shutting down competing studios,
Speaker 1: I should say. So they not only bought up competing
Speaker 1: studios but then shut them down, which then meant that
Speaker 1: that talent and those games would often become inaccessible. There'd
Speaker 1: never be another one because e A would own the
Speaker 1: intellectual property but not have anyone to actually develop the
Speaker 1: games anymore, at least the people who had developed it
Speaker 1: were gone, so it would be a completely different experience. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then there was also sighting of the use of micro transactions,
Speaker 1: just like I said, Uh, especially for any games where
Speaker 1: you already had to buy a game and then on
Speaker 1: top of it, have micro transactions within the things that
Speaker 1: we're not free to begin with. Yeah, So the idea
Speaker 1: of buying like a sixty dollar game and then having
Speaker 1: to spend more money within the game in order for
Speaker 1: it to be a satisfying experience that did not sit
Speaker 1: well with a lot of people who voted in this. Also,
Speaker 1: the one of the things they cited were the exclusivity
Speaker 1: deals that e A had made with organizations like the NFL.
Speaker 1: Now that's a big deal now for e A, and
Speaker 1: made perfect sense. That meant that they had tied up
Speaker 1: the NFL license that they were the only company that
Speaker 1: could put out an official NFL affiliated football game, and
Speaker 1: the same thing is true for other sports as well.
Speaker 1: They made exclusivity agreements with other sports agencies, but NFL
Speaker 1: is an easy example. So e A then shuts down
Speaker 1: competition because no other game company can make an official
Speaker 1: NFL licensed game. They can't use the actual team player
Speaker 1: names or anything. And I'll you know, another football strategy
Speaker 1: game could certainly be enjoyable. When you don't have that
Speaker 1: brand recognition behind it, it becomes a lot harder to market, right.
Speaker 1: I mean why if if you're a fan of football
Speaker 1: and you want to play as your favorite football team
Speaker 1: with you, with the actual players who are on that
Speaker 1: team as your as your players, then you had to
Speaker 1: go with the A because no one else had the
Speaker 1: licensing agreement that would allow them to do that. And
Speaker 1: so that, you know, people said, like, you're essentially saying
Speaker 1: we're the only game in town. Yeah, you're you're further
Speaker 1: further shutting down the opportunities of other studios. Right, So
Speaker 1: that was another reason why they got a lot of votes.
Speaker 1: Uh So the tournaments came out pretty badly for e A. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's showed that that he had a real problem with
Speaker 1: public perception of the company. UM and e A tried
Speaker 1: to kind of uh respond to that, and and a
Speaker 1: lot of people thought that their response was lackluster. This
Speaker 1: would happen again, but we'll get to it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't want to spoil it, but yeah, year also was
Speaker 1: when e A released Mass Effect three, which may also
Speaker 1: have affected its standings as Worst Company in America because,
Speaker 1: as I recall, there were a lot of people who
Speaker 1: were not happy with the way that game ended. Yeah,
Speaker 1: didn't they didn't they wasn't that the one that they
Speaker 1: released a different ending to that you could you could download.
Speaker 1: There were, as I recall, there were there may have been,
Speaker 1: I think there might have been, but I know there
Speaker 1: were at least three different endings that were already in
Speaker 1: the game. But some people argued that the three different
Speaker 1: endings were not distinct enough that you know, you would
Speaker 1: have small details that were different, but that in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme it felt like what you had done in
Speaker 1: the series of games did Yeah, it defeats the entire
Speaker 1: purpose of the Mass Effect series exactly. It felt like like, well,
Speaker 1: while the whole game makes it feel like you're going
Speaker 1: to have this huge impact, ultimately, if the differences aren't
Speaker 1: that great, then it means that you know, what you
Speaker 1: did didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 1: which from an existential point of view is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: But from a gamer player, uh, you know, experience, maybe
Speaker 1: not so much far right right, it's not called nic
Speaker 1: The game so therefore, so so people said that they
Speaker 1: felt that the game had the end game in particular,
Speaker 1: had been rushed, and that it just wasn't a fitting
Speaker 1: capper to it. Uh and Penny Arcades been Kuchera, and
Speaker 1: I apologize if I'm miss uh mispronouncing his name. He
Speaker 1: criticized the company for concentrating on free to play games
Speaker 1: and micro transactions, and he also said that the company
Speaker 1: was failing to create compelling retail games. So you're saying
Speaker 1: that the games that you are selling for sixty dollars
Speaker 1: aren't really good good and the ones that are free
Speaker 1: to play with micro transactions are irritating. Right. So penny Arcade,
Speaker 1: by the way, has nine hundred and twenty two comics
Speaker 1: that are tagged e A in their system, which as
Speaker 1: of the recording of this podcast, yes as well, Yeah,
Speaker 1: as of as of Tuesday, I think actually Tuesday or
Speaker 1: Wednesday of this week, so they're there. There might have
Speaker 1: been more uh since since then, but it just which
Speaker 1: just goes to show that the gaming community has had
Speaker 1: a lot to say and a lot of criticism to
Speaker 1: lob against the company over the years. And UH and
Speaker 1: in John Richard tell O stepped down as CEO and
Speaker 1: as a member of the board. Uh. Here's a direct
Speaker 1: quote from one of the blog posts that was written
Speaker 1: that he wrote about this. He said, I am writing
Speaker 1: with some tough news. I have resigned my position as
Speaker 1: e AS CEO. I will be around for a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks and I hope to have it at the
Speaker 1: chance to say goodbye to many of you. Larry Probest
Speaker 1: will be stepping in as executive chairman to help smooth
Speaker 1: the transition. Uh. E A also continued to lay off
Speaker 1: employees in part as a streamlining effort at this time.
Speaker 1: And so Probest comes back in. You know, he had
Speaker 1: stepped down and now he was interim CEO. Uh and
Speaker 1: uh that's as of the recording of this podcast, that's
Speaker 1: still the case. They hadn't found a permanent replacement yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they Yeah, that was That was another ten percent
Speaker 1: of global staff that was laid off as of May
Speaker 1: of this year. So tough times over at e A.
Speaker 1: They also said that they planned to open a Dice
Speaker 1: l A office uh where they would be developing games,
Speaker 1: including Star Wars games, because they made a deal with Disney,
Speaker 1: which of course acquired the rights to the Lucas Arts
Speaker 1: stuff earlier, and they won the Worst Company in America
Speaker 1: for the second year in a row. And most of
Speaker 1: the reasons this is the first time that any company
Speaker 1: has ever done this, by the way, done a tow
Speaker 1: for and they they the reasons are pretty much the
Speaker 1: same as But also there was another controversy that happened
Speaker 1: between those two times that ended up costing the company
Speaker 1: big time, which was the launch of sim City five,
Speaker 1: one of the most anticipated games in a long time.
Speaker 1: I mean, like there's certain titles that when you hear
Speaker 1: about them coming out, people old school gamers get really excited.
Speaker 1: Diablo three is a great example of a game that
Speaker 1: got a lot of people talking months before it amount.
Speaker 1: Sim City five is another one of those where people
Speaker 1: who are fans of the sim City franchise were really
Speaker 1: excited by this game. But the big issue was that
Speaker 1: sim City five was a game that requires you to
Speaker 1: have a persistent connection to the Internet in order to
Speaker 1: play it. Even if you're just playing single player offline,
Speaker 1: it's just you and your computer, but you still have
Speaker 1: to have a persistent Internet connection, and they had some
Speaker 1: server issues when the game launched, which meant that people
Speaker 1: couldn't play the game they had just bought, they had
Speaker 1: spent the money, the game was in their hands, they
Speaker 1: wanted to play a single player game, and they couldn't
Speaker 1: do it because the servers weren't working. Now, that tells
Speaker 1: you that this is a huge problem. That that's another
Speaker 1: example of why the persistent internet connection thing is an
Speaker 1: argument that people say makes for bad gaming experience, because
Speaker 1: when you have a technical issue on the game providers end,
Speaker 1: then it's adding a completely unnecessary extra step that a
Speaker 1: lot of things can go wrong with, right, And if
Speaker 1: it's an online game, than that's just the way that works, right.
Speaker 1: But when it's a single player game, then people have
Speaker 1: a real hard time feeling it's infuriating and uh, you
Speaker 1: know again, a lot of people say that the whole
Speaker 1: reason for this was just so that e A could
Speaker 1: have another kind of DRM there that you know, that's
Speaker 1: not e A has denied that. They said that's not
Speaker 1: the reason, but that's the reason everyone says, says is
Speaker 1: a lot of people suggest that's the real reason. Let
Speaker 1: me put it that way. Sure. They also made headlines
Speaker 1: in February and March when UM the CFO Blake Jorgensen
Speaker 1: announced that all future titles would involve micro transactions. Uh.
Speaker 1: He backpedaled really hard a week later. Um let it.
Speaker 1: That did not get a great reaction, and again that's
Speaker 1: probably what contributed to it winning the Worst company in
Speaker 1: America again. Yeah, despite all of this, their their stock
Speaker 1: has been rising dramatically over the course of so far.
Speaker 1: Um and uh really really interestingly, as of as of
Speaker 1: this week, the a couple of the really high level
Speaker 1: people have been selling off a lot of their shares
Speaker 1: in their own company's stock, like fifty seven thousand of
Speaker 1: their shares. Wow. That is Uh. I'm actually looking it
Speaker 1: up right now because it's actually a little lower than
Speaker 1: it was when I wrote it down. Because originally we
Speaker 1: were going to record this episode the day before. We're
Speaker 1: actually recording it right We're gonna record it yesterday. This
Speaker 1: doesn't mean but on May fifteenth, fifteenth, the stock price
Speaker 1: was at twenty two dollars and fifty cents when I
Speaker 1: looked at originally right now on May sixteenth, at four
Speaker 1: forty four pm Eastern time, more information than you need
Speaker 1: to know, it's at two and two cents. So it's
Speaker 1: dropped almost fifty cents, right around fifty cents since I
Speaker 1: checked it yesterday. So it's still and it's obviously not
Speaker 1: at that pre August two eight high when it was
Speaker 1: in the high forties and lower fifties, but it's but
Speaker 1: it's dropped a great deal since then. Um I think
Speaker 1: I think that that well, as of as of Wednesday,
Speaker 1: as of the May fifteenth, anyway, shares where shares were
Speaker 1: up very nearly for the course. Yeah, so it's it's
Speaker 1: I think volatile is a safe word to use. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: that that's There's a lot of very very important financial
Speaker 1: publications that are talking about e A right now, which
Speaker 1: I which I always find fascinating, and and all of
Speaker 1: them are going like, be cautious, don't actually invest, we
Speaker 1: don't know about this thing. Yeah, there does seem to
Speaker 1: be a real problem with consumer confidence in an investor
Speaker 1: confidence in a e A. And again that can really
Speaker 1: affect that. You know, e A is a multibillion dollar
Speaker 1: industry company right now. It's you know, it's revenues can
Speaker 1: be over a billion dollars, can be over three billion
Speaker 1: dollars in a good year, and so when you're talking
Speaker 1: about that, it's kind of weird to think that it's
Speaker 1: it's value as a company is in question. That suggests
Speaker 1: that there's been some pretty serious missteps or that something's
Speaker 1: really funky with the industry in general, right right, well,
Speaker 1: you know it's I think it's just basically that thing
Speaker 1: where they're not really they're not really heating all of
Speaker 1: all of this this feedback that they're getting from from
Speaker 1: all of their their from their fans, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: like and they also just renew their license with with
Speaker 1: them the Football Association with a FIFA FIFA and the
Speaker 1: soccer soccer So yeah, sure, football whatever go back to
Speaker 1: France until um so and and FIVA is one of
Speaker 1: those titles that consistently does really well for e A. Sure,
Speaker 1: and and you know again like it's it's understandable why
Speaker 1: would they would want that exclusivity? Now, we asked our
Speaker 1: listeners if they had any specific questions they would like
Speaker 1: us to address, and uh, we We've talked about some
Speaker 1: of them already, so I'm not going to go over
Speaker 1: all of them, but I've got two left that we
Speaker 1: can chat about really quickly. Peter from Facebook said, what
Speaker 1: was the most popular e A game? And if you
Speaker 1: go from the debut of e A till present day
Speaker 1: and you look at all the units sold. The SIMS
Speaker 1: comes out on top with a level eleven point twenty
Speaker 1: three million units sold globally according to VG Charts, and
Speaker 1: second place would go to Need for Speed Underground. Now
Speaker 1: that that doesn't surprise me, because the SIMS is one
Speaker 1: of those games that had a very wide appeal. I
Speaker 1: mean I loved it when it came out. I thought
Speaker 1: this was such a cool innovative game. Also, I thought
Speaker 1: it was funny to lock people out of the bathroom. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did some pretty cruel things. A good good thing
Speaker 1: to know about you, Jonathan, That's great, that's why. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Ian he asked also on Facebook if I
Speaker 1: could give a rundown of some of the PR meltdowns
Speaker 1: the e A has had. I could, but that's a
Speaker 1: full episode. So I'm going to give you, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you three examples of PR attempts that e
Speaker 1: A maybe did not handle very well. This isn't just
Speaker 1: like coming out and saying, uh, we didn't do this right,
Speaker 1: We're going to do better. This is this is, this
Speaker 1: goes beyond this. This comes into marketing mistakes. Okay, three
Speaker 1: big marketing mistakes. Keep in mind that this might not
Speaker 1: be entirely EA's fault. They could have partnered with a
Speaker 1: marketing firm that came up with a terrible idea and
Speaker 1: he just ran with it. Um One of them was
Speaker 1: when e A was marketing the game Dante's Inferno, right,
Speaker 1: remember that, yeah, which had all these different characters that
Speaker 1: were based off the Seven Deadly Sins. So the promotion
Speaker 1: for the Sin of Lust came around and right around
Speaker 1: the same time as Comic Con An e A had
Speaker 1: a booth at Comic Con where they had some young
Speaker 1: ladies dressed in costume models colloquially known as booth babes
Speaker 1: to promote their games, and they had their Sin to
Speaker 1: Win campaign, which was a contest that encouraged people to
Speaker 1: quote commit acts of lust unquote with costumed reps at
Speaker 1: e A's booth. Later on, the team clarified this as
Speaker 1: saying that they were just trying to tell people to
Speaker 1: take photos with these reps and then tweet and share
Speaker 1: them in various ways. But no, that doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: that thing like, yeah, I'm I I remember I had
Speaker 1: completely blocked that from my memory, but I remember exactly
Speaker 1: how offended I was by that, because it was really offended. Actually, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: not a great move. Okay, So here's another one. This one,
Speaker 1: this one really makes me scratch my head. So there
Speaker 1: for a promotional campaign for the game Mercenaries to E
Speaker 1: a converted a London gas station to make it look
Speaker 1: like a military depot, so it was like a depot
Speaker 1: that you would see in the game Mercenaries to which
Speaker 1: is kind of cool. I mean, we've seen promotions like that,
Speaker 1: like the The Simpsons, Quickie mark type stuff. They had
Speaker 1: a bunch of a bunch of life size column dolls
Speaker 1: on London Underground for a while, that clever stuff. So
Speaker 1: what's the big deal about converting a gas station into
Speaker 1: a military depot. Well, they had this campaign where anyone
Speaker 1: stopping at the military depot slash gas station would get
Speaker 1: seventy dollars worth of gas for free. Keep in mind
Speaker 1: that the game doesn't cost that much, which meant that
Speaker 1: even if every single person who stopped at that gas
Speaker 1: station then went out and bought a copy of Mercenaries
Speaker 1: to still be losing money. You still are losing money.
Speaker 1: And they ended up screwing up traffic patterns so badly
Speaker 1: in London once people found out they could get free
Speaker 1: gas at this station that it caused a massive traffic
Speaker 1: snarl and even ended up with government censure of e A.
Speaker 1: Cost him about fifty dollars to convert the gas station
Speaker 1: into a military depot. Seventy bucks of gas per person
Speaker 1: who stopped. Yeah, not the most effective use of your
Speaker 1: marketing dollars, you might argue. And here's the third one.
Speaker 1: So godfather to the game coming out and e A,
Speaker 1: like many companies, tries to court the gaming press by
Speaker 1: sending out publicity kits. They have various little gifts in them. Right,
Speaker 1: horses head No, no horses had, no fish, okay, no connoli.
Speaker 1: Brass knuckles. They send out brass, actual brass knuckles, actual
Speaker 1: bras knuckles, which, by the way, not legal and also
Speaker 1: illegal to send by may. So then they had to
Speaker 1: send a message to everyone they had sent a package
Speaker 1: to saying could you please send back those brass knuckles
Speaker 1: and please don't sue us. Three examples of marketing failures
Speaker 1: on e A's part. Now, there are plenty of other
Speaker 1: examples of e A coming out and apologizing or not
Speaker 1: apologizing for something, like when they won the America's Worst
Speaker 1: Company the second time. There was a blog post that
Speaker 1: essentially said we can do better, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people viewed it as kind of a backhanded slap at gamers,
Speaker 1: and not not like so much as owning up to problems,
Speaker 1: but rather saying, uh, you know, people perceive it as this,
Speaker 1: so we can change their perception. So uh and I'm
Speaker 1: paraphrasing obviously, sure, but but nonetheless it no, they they've
Speaker 1: they've not always had the best attitude about that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, or at least that seems to be the
Speaker 1: implication anyway, you know, because we're all reading this through
Speaker 1: our own lens, and perhaps the way they intended it
Speaker 1: and the way that we're interpreting it are just wildly different. Oh. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you know, and it's an understanding, understandably upsetting situation
Speaker 1: to be in um to to have to be the
Speaker 1: company's representative coming off of something like that. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's ever you know, it's you know that that's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that if if I had to write that,
Speaker 1: I would draft it like nine and a half times
Speaker 1: and get everyone in the office to read it and
Speaker 1: make sure there was absolutely no way that it could
Speaker 1: be perceived as being negative to the fans that I
Speaker 1: had piste off. So much to begin with. Yeah, that's fair,
Speaker 1: and that wraps up this classic episode of text Stuff.
Speaker 1: Almost forgot the name of my own show, The Electronic
Speaker 1: Arts Story Part two, As I said, I'll have to
Speaker 1: do another part. I might even just go and do
Speaker 1: a full redo of the story from beginning to end,
Speaker 1: because I do a much deeper dive these days than
Speaker 1: I did back in those days. So if you guys
Speaker 1: would like me to do that, If you have suggestions
Speaker 1: for other topics, maybe there's another company or technology or
Speaker 1: a trend or something you would love me to cover
Speaker 1: on tech Stuff, reach out to me. The handle both
Speaker 1: at Facebook and on Twitter is tech Stuff hs W
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Three