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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Looks Dot coming every Hey there, everyone, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren and we

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Speaker 1: want to get into the second part on our look

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Speaker 1: at e A Electronic Arts. Now, as I recall, we

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Speaker 1: left off in nineteen in our last episode, that is correct,

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Speaker 1: and Trip Hawkins the third had just departed the company

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Speaker 1: that he had founded to go and work on three

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Speaker 1: D O a and ultimately failed game console that was

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Speaker 1: perhaps ahead of its time. He later described the decision

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Speaker 1: as as having two children, one a teenager and one

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Speaker 1: an infant needing open heart surgery. That yeah, that's the

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Speaker 1: thing that he said, so subtle, Mr Hawkins, Um, well,

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Speaker 1: and you know it was again the three D. Oh.

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Speaker 1: I think the problem was again it was ahead of

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Speaker 1: its time. It was it was a very expensive console,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately people could argue that that the lack of

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Speaker 1: compelling games also really hurt it in those early days. Ably,

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Speaker 1: But it debuted like four D N dollars, which at

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Speaker 1: the time, yeah, well, I mean you know, yeah, yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean you look at it in today's dollars, it

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Speaker 1: would be a bunch more right, right, right, yes, but

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Speaker 1: a console today coming out of four not unusual at all,

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Speaker 1: although again inflation makes that different. But the point I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to make is that it was the sort of

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Speaker 1: console that we see today. It was the kind of

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Speaker 1: consulate was an entertainment center. Anyway, he had moved on

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Speaker 1: nine two. Also, one thing I didn't mention at the

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Speaker 1: end of the last podcast was that was the year

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Speaker 1: e A purchased Origin Systems, and that's the game company

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Speaker 1: that was founded by Richard Garriott, the guy who created

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Speaker 1: the Ultimate series, and they also had an other series.

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Speaker 1: They had Jame's Combat simulate simulators. They also had the

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Speaker 1: Wing Commander series, and so that was a big move

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Speaker 1: on their part. But then we move on into and

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Speaker 1: that's when the three D O console actually hit the market. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then e A also released the first Need for

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Speaker 1: Speed for the three D O. Because e A was

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Speaker 1: actually a partner in that three D O console experiment,

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Speaker 1: they were not the whole owners of that, which I

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Speaker 1: guess in retrospect, I'm sure the company thinks is a

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Speaker 1: good thing. But they were partners, so it wasn't like

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Speaker 1: Hawkins had severed all ties once he left e A. Uh. Now, again,

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Speaker 1: We're not going to mention every single release that Electronics

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Speaker 1: Arts had um Electronic Arts I should say had throughout

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Speaker 1: their history. It would be ridiculous. And you'd also get

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Speaker 1: tired of hearing a say FIFA, uh like or fourtieth

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Speaker 1: time we say FIFA. You just that word? First of all,

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Speaker 1: I didn't. If you're in the United States, you're probably thinking,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. And even if you're not,

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Speaker 1: after you've heard it that many times, it's starts to

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Speaker 1: lose all meeting and become something of a cone that

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Speaker 1: we were just saying over and over to achieve enlightenment.

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Speaker 1: But so I don't have anything for for ninety four, Lauren,

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Speaker 1: do you? I don't want to skip over you if

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Speaker 1: you've got anything that was That was actually the year

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Speaker 1: that Hawkins resigned as chairman of the board for e A. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so now he had actually not just left as the CEO,

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Speaker 1: but also left the board of directors. Uh inve e

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Speaker 1: A acquired a company called bull Frog, which was a

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Speaker 1: game development studio in the United Kingdom, and they were

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Speaker 1: known for a couple of different series, their theme park

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Speaker 1: series and their series called Populus. Did you ever see Populous, Lauren,

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Speaker 1: I did not see Populous. I did play some of

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Speaker 1: the theme parks. Okay, well, Populus was a game where

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Speaker 1: it puts you in the role essentially as as like

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Speaker 1: a god, and it was your job to try and

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Speaker 1: shape landscape so that people could film stuff and worship you. Right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this this is what Yeah, indeed, I was about to

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Speaker 1: say that this is what I think back and White,

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Speaker 1: because that was the same studio later on Black and White.

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Speaker 1: Definitely was was something that was inspired by the populist games.

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Speaker 1: You could definitely tell that Populus was was not quite

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Speaker 1: as sophisticated as that. And you know, there were, uh,

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Speaker 1: there were different ways of winning Populace. You had opponents

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Speaker 1: that would also have their own worshippers, and you were

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Speaker 1: trying to dominate the world. So if you wanted to

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Speaker 1: go over to the your opponent's side when your opponent

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Speaker 1: wasn't looking, and start digging down until all of the

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Speaker 1: villages were submerged in water and all the little villagers drowned,

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Speaker 1: and it was both entertaining and horrifying at the same time.

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Speaker 1: All of these series, by the way, we're serious that

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Speaker 1: he had published and so um so the acquisition of

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Speaker 1: bull Frog was kind of a good following steps since

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Speaker 1: they had done pretty well. Right yeah, now now he

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Speaker 1: has decided that they want this as an actual part

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Speaker 1: of their development team, not just a title that they published.

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Speaker 1: Once bull Frog joined the A, they the division began

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Speaker 1: to develop the Dungeon Keepers series, which reached some acclaim

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Speaker 1: I thought, I always thought it was a very entertaining series.

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Speaker 1: And that same year, in ninety the Sega Saturn platform launches,

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Speaker 1: and so does a platform that would become one of

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Speaker 1: the most disruptive platforms in video game console history because

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Speaker 1: at this point, Nintendo is pretty much the heavy hitter.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Nintendo is owning video game consoles. Sega keeps

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Speaker 1: coming out with consoles that from a specs perspective might

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Speaker 1: beat out whatever the Nintendo console is at that time.

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Speaker 1: But but just but just that the games, the programming

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Speaker 1: that was going on for Nintendo was incredible, right yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Nintendo had all the momentum, so Sega, while it

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Speaker 1: had its fans, just didn't have nearly as many as

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Speaker 1: Nintendo did. Well. Was also when we saw Sony get

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Speaker 1: into the game with the PlayStation console, and that really

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Speaker 1: shook things up, you know, a CD based console that

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Speaker 1: was had far more graphic ability than the Nintendo consoles

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Speaker 1: did uh, And that that gave e A a lot

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Speaker 1: of opportunities as well to develop for yet another platform,

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Speaker 1: because remember e A wants there to be as many

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Speaker 1: platforms as possible, because it means that no single platform

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Speaker 1: has enough power to tell e A what to do. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then e A also starts to port several three

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Speaker 1: d O titles to the Saga, Saturn, and Sony PlayStation

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Speaker 1: platforms in order to take advantage of the thirty two

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Speaker 1: bit processing power. So in this sense, they didn't have

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Speaker 1: to develop new titles. They just had to retool these

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Speaker 1: titles for the three D OH so that they would

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Speaker 1: work on these other systems. Now, I say, just that's

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Speaker 1: still a pretty big thing to have to do, but

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Speaker 1: it does. It's different from having to build a game

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Speaker 1: from the ground much. You don't have to go through

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Speaker 1: the whole conceptual phase at all. Uh, I don't have

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Speaker 1: anything for ninety six, so we're gonna go right into

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Speaker 1: ninety seven. Sounds good. So e A and n acquires

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Speaker 1: Maxis And this is this is a big one, folks,

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Speaker 1: because this is the company that was responsible for sim City.

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Speaker 1: The first sim City game came out in mind, so

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Speaker 1: almost a decade earlier, right and uh and since then

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Speaker 1: will write who is who's the designer for Maxis had

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Speaker 1: had been making all kinds of all kinds of related

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Speaker 1: titles as sim Earth, Sam Aunt. Yeah. I was a

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Speaker 1: big fantasy man. Yeah yeah. On the on the s

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Speaker 1: N E S it was. It was great Aunt simulation. Man,

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Speaker 1: I got it. Sounds so goofy and I had so

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Speaker 1: much fun playing it. I'm not going to argue with

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Speaker 1: the goofy part, but hey, I like lots of goofy stuff,

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Speaker 1: so I am not one to talk. And once e

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Speaker 1: A acquires Maxis, that's when will Wright starts to work

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Speaker 1: on a game that would become an important part of

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Speaker 1: e A's arsenal. In fact, you could argue it's the

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Speaker 1: most important game that e A ever came out with,

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Speaker 1: and that is the SIMS. So will Wright starts to

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Speaker 1: work on the SIMS back in ninety seven. It would

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Speaker 1: be a few years before that game would come out.

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Speaker 1: E A also gets into the online gaming market. They

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Speaker 1: launch Ultima Online, which was one of the earliest, at

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Speaker 1: least one of the earliest successful massively multi player online

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Speaker 1: role playing games in the Western Hemisphere. So Ultimate Online

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Speaker 1: goes live and starts to prove the model that online

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Speaker 1: gaming could be a thing. Keeping in mind this is

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Speaker 1: before broadband penetration had really spread out throughout the United States. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there were people who are playing this on dial ups.

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Uh. And so it was, you know,

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Speaker 1: this was the earliest days of that, and it was

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Speaker 1: before really in those days it came down to Ultimate

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Speaker 1: Online or ever Quest. Those were the two big names,

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Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be until the world of Warcraft that

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Speaker 1: that dynamic gets really shaken up UM, and you had

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Speaker 1: people who were hardcore fans of one and hated the

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Speaker 1: other anyway. That same year, nine seven, bull Frog chief

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Speaker 1: Peter Mullineaux leaves e A to start a new studio,

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Speaker 1: and supposedly one of the reasons he left was that

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Speaker 1: he felt that e A was getting two hands on

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Speaker 1: on in game development, that they were interfering too much

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Speaker 1: in the actual development of games, and that he felt

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Speaker 1: that the pressure was to establish a game and then

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Speaker 1: just churn out sequels, right right, And this is a

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Speaker 1: UM is in direct opposition to ease original mode of operation,

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Speaker 1: wherein they were they were treating game developers with extreme

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Speaker 1: respect and kind of letting them do whatever they wanted

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Speaker 1: on the principle that whatever they wanted would be awesome. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: But but since then had, as we discussed in our

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Speaker 1: previous episode, decided that um that, yeah, the that the

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Speaker 1: real way to go is to create brands and and

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Speaker 1: really am push the brand, find a brand that resonates

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Speaker 1: with an audience, and then all you have to do

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Speaker 1: is keep on creating uh sequels to that and that,

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Speaker 1: and people will buy it because you've established an audience

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Speaker 1: for it. This is not an unusual idea. We see

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Speaker 1: it all across video games. I mean you could think

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Speaker 1: another media too, of course. Yeah, you can think of

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Speaker 1: dozens of franchises that exists only and you can look

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Speaker 1: at entries to various franchises where you think this really

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Speaker 1: didn't live up to what the original was or what

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Speaker 1: later entries were. This was clearly something where a company

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Speaker 1: was trying to cash in on a previously existing title.

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Speaker 1: Um and in some cases it's it can be the

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Speaker 1: death of a franchise or or even an entire company.

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Speaker 1: Well then moving on, in n Electronic Arts moves its

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Speaker 1: headquarters from San Mateo to Redwood City, and e A

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Speaker 1: also acquires yet another company, Westwood Studios, which was the

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Speaker 1: company that developed the Command and Conqueror series, which are

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Speaker 1: real time strategy games. UM. I'm terrible at real time

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Speaker 1: strategy games. I'm just I can't. I don't. I don't

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Speaker 1: have a brain from either. I can't. I can't manage. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I cannot manage that many assets. I can't keep track

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Speaker 1: of everything. Obviously, if I were going up against Kirk

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Speaker 1: and Spock, they would be able to defeat me because

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Speaker 1: I can't think three dimensionally. UM. Also, UM Electronic Arts

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Speaker 1: formed a partnership with Square, being the Japanese game company

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Speaker 1: that's that's most famous for for RPGs like say Final Fantasy.

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Speaker 1: You might have heard of it. UM and UH, Square

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Speaker 1: and and e A worked out the steal. They formed

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Speaker 1: a Square e A here in the States and e

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Speaker 1: A Square over in Japan. UH. The idea being to

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Speaker 1: transfer titles that were happening in each place to the

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Speaker 1: other and and see see how they did. You know,

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Speaker 1: try to try to bring stuff that wasn't being seen

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Speaker 1: in each country over to the other, as there were

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Speaker 1: I think, especially in the Final Fantasy series, if I'm

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Speaker 1: not mistaken. There were a couple of entries in the

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Speaker 1: Final Fantasy series that happened in Japan that at that

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Speaker 1: point had never been seen in the United States. Correct

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Speaker 1: and uh and and people were you know, urpgs had

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a cult following over here. But

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Speaker 1: but none of the really big cool titles were coming

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Speaker 1: over and so and so. So I meant that you

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Speaker 1: you had to import the titles because of course, the

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Speaker 1: the media for the Japanese consoles would not work on

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Speaker 1: the United States. It literally would not play correct. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, aside from the fact that you would have

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Speaker 1: to learn Japanese in order to play them very effectively,

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Speaker 1: which is a whole other issue. But um but yeah,

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Speaker 1: so so each square e A and A Square each

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Speaker 1: had a stake in the other um which which which

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Speaker 1: is an interesting fun business model. And uh. In that

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Speaker 1: same year, they brought um Bashida Blade to Parasite Eve

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Speaker 1: and Zeno Gears all to the American market for the PlayStation.

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Speaker 1: Huh wow. So another big move on e A's part.

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Speaker 1: Also kind of interesting to see a an alliance in

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Speaker 1: the video game world. Uh. Some people would call that,

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Speaker 1: UH frightening, because you know, when you're talking about being

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Speaker 1: such a big power player and you already have a

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Speaker 1: reputation for scooping up smaller companies and then to make

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Speaker 1: an alliance with another big company, just that starts to

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Speaker 1: make other people feel really nervous. Kind of nervous. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In seven years, after e A had acquired Origin Systems,

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Speaker 1: Richard Garriott, who was the founder of Origin, leaves e A.

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Speaker 1: He had finished work on Ultimate nine, which was the

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Speaker 1: final UH entry into the Ultimate series. Besides the online

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Speaker 1: stuff and UH, he also seems to feel very similar

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Speaker 1: to the way other people who departed e A felt

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Speaker 1: that that it was just it was not the most

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Speaker 1: ideal creative environment, right. Apparently a bunch of his former

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Speaker 1: team members, of former Ultimate team members felt very much

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Speaker 1: the same way, because after e A canceled Ultimate Online

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Speaker 1: to UM at the time, a bunch of a bunch

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Speaker 1: of them jumped ship to go join Garriott at the

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Speaker 1: new company that he had formed, Destination Games. UH. Garriott

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Speaker 1: would not see very much success here in the United

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Speaker 1: States over the next several years, but recently interesting thing

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Speaker 1: new game that is inspired by his old Ultimate series

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Speaker 1: and then went on to meet lots and lots of

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Speaker 1: stretch goals. Anyway back to E A. H. Still in

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Speaker 1: they published their first Medal of Honor game, which is

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Speaker 1: again another one of those big franchises that UM that

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Speaker 1: they're very well known for, and that debuted on the

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Speaker 1: PlayStation platform. UH. And that same year, Sega debuts a

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Speaker 1: new video game console called the Dreamcastcast. I own a Dreamcast.

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Speaker 1: I like it a lot. I actually got my Dreamcast

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Speaker 1: after the Dreamcast had already run its course and was

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Speaker 1: no longer in production. UH. And I inherited a lot

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Speaker 1: of games from a friend of mine who was not

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Speaker 1: really playing them anymore. And you know, I think Dreamcast

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Speaker 1: it's another one of those things where we've done an

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Speaker 1: episode of about Sega. We did a full thing about

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Speaker 1: Sega's uh successes, and it's it's notable failures and it's interesting. Again,

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Speaker 1: the Dreamcast was one of those consoles that was phenomenal.

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Speaker 1: It performed really well, particularly if you stacked it up

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Speaker 1: against its competitors, but it just, you know, it just

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Speaker 1: never never, It never cut onto the to the extent

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Speaker 1: that it needed to in order for viable platform. I

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Speaker 1: think it was a little bit niche for for the

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Speaker 1: for the mainstream American market real time especially um. Also

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Speaker 1: that year was when Square e A put out the

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Speaker 1: Final Fantasy Anthology, which brought some of those games that

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Speaker 1: had not been published yet in America over here. So

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Speaker 1: in in two thousand, that's when the SIMS debuts, and

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Speaker 1: it is a huge success, and it really gave U

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Speaker 1: e A a access to a brand new audience, which

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Speaker 1: we usually referred to as women. It turned out, it

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Speaker 1: turned out that they didn't know at the time when

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Speaker 1: they were producing the SIMS. They had no idea that

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Speaker 1: was going to resonate with a female audience. And in fact,

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Speaker 1: when they were first building the SIMS, it was just

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Speaker 1: going to be a a way of building homes. And

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Speaker 1: then they created these little virtual characters to inhabit the

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Speaker 1: homes and realized that it was way more interesting to

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Speaker 1: see what the virtual characters were up to than to

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Speaker 1: build out the houses. So that's when the SIMS focus

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Speaker 1: shifted to these virtual people, and your job was to

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Speaker 1: give them as much of a life as you possibly could,

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Speaker 1: which became increasingly difficult than the game where you're thinking,

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Speaker 1: I don't have enough time. That's just like real life.

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Speaker 1: I don't have enough hours to give this person a

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Speaker 1: good job and a and a satisfying social life, still

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Speaker 1: have them go to the bathroom without having a terrible

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Speaker 1: accident in the middle of the living room. But uh, Anyway,

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Speaker 1: it was a huge performer, and they immediately started to

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Speaker 1: to develop expansion packs for the SIMS and also go

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Speaker 1: into development for the sequels to the SIMS, because, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was clear they had touched the nerve. And that's

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Speaker 1: also the year in two thousand, that's when Sony launched

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Speaker 1: the PlayStation two. Yeah. Um. Meanwhile, back on the PlayStation one,

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Speaker 1: Square e A put out Crymo Cross that year, which

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Speaker 1: is my the only RPG that I've ever played all

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Speaker 1: the way through. I'm not really an RPG person. I

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Speaker 1: love that game with a burning and fiery passion. It is.

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Speaker 1: It is the best. Um. But but I think that

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Speaker 1: it's interesting that, uh. I mean, although it had been

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Speaker 1: out already in Japan, I think it. You know, they

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Speaker 1: were like, no, that's PlayStation two, whatever, this one's fine

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Speaker 1: on the PS. It'll still sell really well. And Sony

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Speaker 1: was very good about supporting their old consoles even when

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Speaker 1: they're introducing a new one. PlayStation two games were developed

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Speaker 1: for the PlayStation two well after PlayStation three debuts, so um,

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Speaker 1: they have a very different strategy compared to say Microsoft.

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Speaker 1: And speaking of Microsoft, in two thousand one, that's when

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Speaker 1: Microsoft launched the Xbox, So now we have even more

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Speaker 1: competition in the video game console world. At this point,

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Speaker 1: e is just having kittens. Nintendo launched the game Cube,

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Speaker 1: and EA starts developed games for all the three major

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Speaker 1: console platforms, which of course does not include Sad Trombone.

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Speaker 1: So Xbox, PlayStation two, and GameCube are all great platforms

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Speaker 1: for e A to develop for. They just they see

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Speaker 1: there as endless opportunity. So uh. They then that same

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Speaker 1: year closed the Bullfrog division of e A. Now this

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Speaker 1: this kind of brings us to another thing that people

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Speaker 1: have criticized e A for, not just the fact that

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Speaker 1: they bought up companies, but that they would later go

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Speaker 1: on to close them when they realized that they weren't

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Speaker 1: performing quite as well as they want to. Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: just the things weren't working out, And a lot of

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Speaker 1: the people who worked for these divisions came out and

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Speaker 1: said well, the reason things didn't work out is because

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Speaker 1: they were so adamant on us producing a brand and

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Speaker 1: just concentrating on that brand as opposed to letting us

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Speaker 1: develop do what we do, which is developed games. And

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Speaker 1: so you have this series of stories of all these

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Speaker 1: different divisions being or different companies rather being bought up

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Speaker 1: and turned into divisions for e A later getting closed.

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Speaker 1: Um that some would say that all e A was

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Speaker 1: really doing was buying up competition and shutting it down.

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Speaker 1: You know that that ultimately that's what turned out to

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Speaker 1: be the case. Uh oh yeah. Whether or not it

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Speaker 1: was intentional is absolutely you know. That's that's that's completely

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Speaker 1: beside the point. It didn't matter if it was intentional

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Speaker 1: or not. That was the effect, right, So, uh it was.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of rough. And around that same time,

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Speaker 1: e A starts to make licensing agreements to make games

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Speaker 1: based on films and other properties. Uh. These included big

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Speaker 1: name properties like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Godfather,

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Speaker 1: and James Bond. I think that that fits in really

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Speaker 1: well with their strategy of of latching onto brands and

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Speaker 1: not necessarily producing the best games because a lot of

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Speaker 1: those titles, especially in those early days were not not playable.

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Speaker 1: I mean, and and that's that that goes back all

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Speaker 1: the way, you know, and any film title game is

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Speaker 1: kind of spotty. There. There are a lot of times

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Speaker 1: where I feel like like companies rely very heavily on

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Speaker 1: the name of the franchise to sell copies, and so

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Speaker 1: they're for the amount of time and effort you need

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Speaker 1: to go in and build a very compelling game sometimes

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Speaker 1: slips through the cracks, so um, you know, in that case,

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Speaker 1: you end up getting these games that are based on

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Speaker 1: these beloved franchises, but they failed to really live up

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Speaker 1: to gamer expectations. This happens. I mean, you can spend

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Speaker 1: hours naming all the superhero games that just didn't live

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Speaker 1: up to expectations. Not you know, there are a few

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Speaker 1: that have been phenomenal, but they are way more that weren't.

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Speaker 1: So it's not not a problem that only e A possesses. Certainly,

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Speaker 1: certainly not. Also in two thousand and one, I should

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Speaker 1: put in that um square A put out Final Fantasy ten,

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Speaker 1: So that was that was one of those I remember

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Speaker 1: seeing the previous for Final Fantasy ten when that was

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Speaker 1: coming out and thinking that that looked like a particularly

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Speaker 1: beautiful game at that time. But things have changed. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't Things that were once the most gorgeous thing you

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Speaker 1: could imagine have not necessarily aged. Well, do you have

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Speaker 1: anything for two two? I do not excellent. Two thousand three,

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Speaker 1: e A shuts down Westwood Studios and moves all the

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Speaker 1: remaining stuff to e A's Los Angeles studio. The Westwood

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Speaker 1: was in Las Vegas, and so they shut that one down.

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Speaker 1: So there's another example. They did not keep everybody. They

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Speaker 1: laid off quite a few people, but the people who

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Speaker 1: did remain were then moved to Los Angeles. UH. And

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Speaker 1: then two thousand four, wait, Lauren, I didn't see your

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Speaker 1: high sign. My bad. We have we have an intricate

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00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 1: system of hand signals going on in the background here,

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Speaker 1: I know. Two thousand three, UH Square decided UM their

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Speaker 1: their relationship with EA had been slightly degraded, and also

394
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Speaker 1: they had been UM flirting a little bit with with

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Speaker 1: Enix Studios over in Japan and UH and so Square

396
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Speaker 1: dissolved their relationship with e A, UM bought back all

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Speaker 1: of their shares and formed Square Enix, which would continue

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Speaker 1: to produce the rest of the series that people known

399
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Speaker 1: for Excellent. Well excellent for them, not so great for

400
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Speaker 1: e A. Necessarily. In two thousand four, e A went

401
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Speaker 1: ahead and dissolved the Origin Systems division, so that was

402
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Speaker 1: the ultimately the division that produced the Ultimate Games. That

403
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:18,320
Speaker 1: one was formally no more as of two thousand four.

404
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Speaker 1: E A also acquired Criterion, which was that was the

405
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Speaker 1: company that had developed the Burnout games. Anyone who's familiar

406
00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 1: with those the driving games that get really super crazy, Yeah,

407
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Speaker 1: I really love those games. I'm not a big driving

408
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:38,400
Speaker 1: game kind of guy, but those particularly, they're very arcady. Yeah. Yeah,

409
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Speaker 1: they're they're a little bit less focused on the physicalities

410
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Speaker 1: of driving, and so if you're not a huge car

411
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Speaker 1: buff the Burnout series, it's pretty fun. All the crashing

412
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Speaker 1: parts other games don't let you do. Yeah, the crashing

413
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Speaker 1: parts are pretty pretty spectacular and play a large part

414
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Speaker 1: in most of those games. Uh and then there. That

415
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Speaker 1: was the same year that someone on live journal who

416
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Speaker 1: had the handle e A Spouse posted a rather uh

417
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Speaker 1: critical post about e A, saying that they had some

418
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Speaker 1: draconian practices as far as employment goes, that people were

419
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Speaker 1: being forced to work super long hours six days out

420
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Speaker 1: of the week, they weren't getting compensated for overtime. Um,

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of pretty ugly accusations and eventually

422
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Speaker 1: some uh, some spouses and some employees of e A

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Speaker 1: got together and they filed a class action lawsuit, in fact,

424
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Speaker 1: a few class action lawsuits against e A, and that

425
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Speaker 1: ended up leading to massive changes in the A and

426
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Speaker 1: in the industry in general, because other companies saw what

427
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: was happening and they thought, we better fixed this before

428
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 1: it happens to us. So uh. In two thousand and six,

429
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Speaker 1: e A settled a lawsuit that was brought against it

430
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Speaker 1: by a bunch of graphic artists and awarded the graphic

431
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 1: artists fifteen point six million dollars in unpaid overtime. And

432
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven, the court awarded plaintiffs of a

433
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit fourteen point nine million dollars and unpaid overtime.

434
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 1: So this this is a different group. It's not the

435
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:17,680
Speaker 1: same one twice. So yeah, that was a big deal.

436
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: And obviously e A did not want to court any

437
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 1: more problems down the line, and so they started to

438
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: really take a look for UH. And in two thousand five,

439
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 1: e A purchased jam Debt Mobile. So two thousand five,

440
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 1: this is before the iPhone comes out. EA makes its

441
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: first move into the mobile gaming world, uh, for for phones,

442
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 1: not not mobile devices like game Boy or whatever. You know.

443
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 1: It had been developing games for platforms like that for

444
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 1: a while, but this was the first time it started

445
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: to really look into using um cell phones, not even

446
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:57,119
Speaker 1: smartphones yet as a potential gaming platform. And uh, and

447
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 1: that was a smart move. I mean, we're seeing more

448
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 1: and more that mobile devices are making a huge impact

449
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 1: on the gaming industry. So that was a Whoever was

450
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: the person who said we should do this was really

451
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:14,360
Speaker 1: they were really looking ahead. And that's also the year

452
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:16,880
Speaker 1: two thousand five would be the year when Microsoft launched

453
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: the Xbox three sixty UM and so that that brings

454
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: us about to the halfway points. So before we dive

455
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: into the second half, I wanted to take a quick

456
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: break and thank our sponsor. Alright, so let's see. I

457
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: think according to my notes, we left off in two

458
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:38,719
Speaker 1: thousand five, So two thousand six, e A acquires Mythic Entertainment.

459
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: Mythic Entertainment was responsible for the RPG, the m m

460
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: O RPG Dark Age of Camelot that they viewed back

461
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: in two thousand one, So now e A has decided

462
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: to acquire another M M O RPG. They saw that

463
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 1: as a way of of maintaining a steady stream of revenue.

464
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 1: You've got all these people who are subscribing, So that

465
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: was the strategy there, and that was the year the

466
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:08,120
Speaker 1: e A also acquired Digital Illusions CE better known as

467
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: Dice and Dice is the company that made Battlefield nineteen two.

468
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,679
Speaker 1: So two thousand six is also the year that Sony

469
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:20,360
Speaker 1: launched the PlayStation three and and Nintendo launched the week exactly,

470
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: both of them one year behind the Xbox three six,

471
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:27,120
Speaker 1: which had had a head start uh and uh, well

472
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: not a full year, but several months behind anyway. But

473
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 1: also what I thought was interesting was I found a

474
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: statistic here from Bloomberg Business Week that said it was

475
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: an article that was published in two thousand six, So

476
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:43,360
Speaker 1: that's why I put it here because we're talking about

477
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: two thousand and six here. They said that from nine

478
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: until present day, which at that time was two thousand six,

479
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:53,880
Speaker 1: e A averaged about one point two acquisitions per year.

480
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: It was buying up more than a company per year

481
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: if you average it out over those years, and that

482
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: one third of the companies that had purchased in it

483
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: eventually shut down. So that's again showing that that kind

484
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: of trend that I talked about earlier, the criticism that

485
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 1: the people have laid against it, saying, you're buying up

486
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: these companies and when you are, uh, and you stripped

487
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: the industry of the talent these people have, and then

488
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: you end up closing it down when it doesn't meet

489
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: whatever your performance measurements are. It's certainly not to say

490
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 1: that those people didn't go on to do other things,

491
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 1: but but yeah, yeah, but and it's not necessarily it's

492
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: not necessarily the good business model for anyone in the industry,

493
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 1: anyone else. And the big criticism would be those those

494
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 1: guys and those men and women could have been developing

495
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,400
Speaker 1: games during that time that would have potentially changed the industry,

496
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: but they couldn't because they were under contract or part

497
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: part of this larger organization where they had nowhere else

498
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 1: to go at that point. Um, yeah, I mean it's

499
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,120
Speaker 1: from from e A's perspective, it's doing all the smart

500
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,399
Speaker 1: business moves, so they're from a gamer's perspective or an

501
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: industry analysts perspective, they might say this is not good

502
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 1: for the industry or the gamer might say this isn't

503
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: good for me because I'm not getting great games out

504
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 1: of it. E A's point of view is that this

505
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: is I'm making money, yeah, solidifying my position. Money. Yeah yeah.

506
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,640
Speaker 1: Money is thea when you were a business turns out?

507
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And I know this isn't financial stuff. So

508
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to blow your minds there about how

509
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: money is. Okay. So two thousand seven, e A acquires BioWare.

510
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:35,480
Speaker 1: BioWare made some of my favorite games of all times.

511
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: Still does uh Bolter's Gate. I love the Ball's Gate games,

512
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 1: but the kicking for just this um there's a fantastic

513
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 1: character who has a little hamster and he shouts out

514
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 1: random things when you go into battle with him, and

515
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: it's endlessly entertaining. They also made Planescape Torment. They made

516
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: the Star Wars Nights the Old Republic games Cotour, which

517
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: again I was a huge fan of the Cotour games.

518
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: They made Mass Effect, which I've played a little bit of.

519
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: I never played it all the way through, and that

520
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: Frederick would probably hit me if he were in the

521
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: room because it's actually his copy of the game that

522
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: I have and I haven't returned it. Yet um that

523
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: year they also acquired Pandemic Studios, which was the company

524
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: that brought us Star Wars battle Front and also the

525
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: game Destroy All Humans, as well as some other titles.

526
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: And that was the year that that Probst steps down

527
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: as CEO. He had been CEO since Hawkins had left

528
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: the company. It was supposed to be more temporary than that,

529
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: wasn't it. I think I believe so. But he he

530
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: had led the company throughout those years, uh so from

531
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,719
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, and he's still on the board,

532
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: but he ends up stepping down and John Richie Tello Tello,

533
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: I guess it should say Richie Tello becomes the new CEO,

534
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: and he says the company's going to undergo a reorganization

535
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 1: to address the problems they've had where they've been acquiring

536
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: and trying to assimilate and then shutting down all these

537
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: different companies that they've been going after over the years. So,

538
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is an issue that all

539
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: big companies have. If you acquire a company, there's always

540
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: a culture shock era that follow it because unless the

541
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: two companies are practically ideally well aligned, yeah, that's there's

542
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 1: going to be culture shock so sometimes a company does

543
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:33,959
Speaker 1: this so quickly that they the there's never that period

544
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: that you need to adjust and have things work out.

545
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,479
Speaker 1: So he was saying, let's take the time to really

546
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: look at how our company is structured and make sure

547
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: that it makes sense. That was his That was his

548
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 1: statement from the the get go when he started right.

549
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 1: Also unrelated to that, but in addition to the other

550
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: games that they published that year, that was the year

551
00:30:54,440 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: that they published harm Nix's Rock Band along with MTV Huge, huge,

552
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: huge title. I mean, you know, Guitar Hero had been

553
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: in the years before already kind of uh had revolutionized

554
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: the idea of rhythm games on consoles, and Rock Band

555
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: ended up taking that and dialing it up to eleven.

556
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: As spinel Tap would love to say, and uh, I mean,

557
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: I've had a blast playing Rock Band. Even though I adore,

558
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: I adore the series. It's terrific. My musical talent is

559
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: is pretty negligible, but I still, you know, any game

560
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:30,920
Speaker 1: that makes you feel like a rock star is pretty

561
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 1: pretty cool. It is it is, And also karaoke in

562
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: your own home is pretty cool. And also a little

563
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: cheat boxes that allow you to hook up real electronic

564
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: drum sets to the game and actually rock out. It's

565
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: pretty neat, pretty neat. Yeah. So we then move on

566
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: into two thousand eight where e A has a an

567
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: attempt to acquire another big name, Take two Interactive, which

568
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: you know gamers will wreck unize that it's it's pretty

569
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 1: famous studio. So e A made a move to acquire

570
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 1: take to Take two turned down the initial offer that

571
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: e A made, and then uh, the negotiations kind of

572
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:17,719
Speaker 1: got a little quiet, but everyone kept an eye on

573
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 1: this because they were really wondering if e A was

574
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: in fact going to acquire yet another company, and some

575
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 1: people were really worried about what the fate of Take

576
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: two would be. Yeah. I think that part of the

577
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: reason that it fell through was also that the the

578
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 1: economic crisis that year, yeah hit them really hard. Yeah,

579
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: So e A's attempt to acquire Take two fails, and

580
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: that year the entire world entered into an economic crisis

581
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: and it affected lots of industries, you know, real estate

582
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: being the big famous one in the United States, banking

583
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 1: as well, but it also hit companies like e A

584
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 1: and UH. E A end up announcing that was going

585
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: to cut more than a thousand positions across all of

586
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: its divisions, which ended up being around ten to eleven

587
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: of its workforce, and that the company lost over six

588
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars in the last quarter of two thousand

589
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: eight due to accommodation of the economic crisis and just

590
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: the fact that it's game releases had not performed very

591
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: well in the market at all um and there their

592
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: stock took a big tumble. So in August fifteen, of

593
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: of two thousand eight, their stock was valued at forty

594
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: eight dollars and twenty four cents per share. By December

595
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: twenty six, of two thousand eight, it had fallen to

596
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:40,239
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars and thirty two cents per share. So, uh,

597
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: not not quite losing half its value, just under at drop,

598
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: but it's a whole bunch. Yeah, that's that's terrible, and

599
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: it really what it signaled was that investors had lost

600
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence in the company. Now, keep in mind,

601
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: the value of your company is based upon how many

602
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: stocks are out there. If you're a publicly traded company,

603
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: the value of your company in part at least is

604
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: determined by how many stocks you have, and how how

605
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 1: many stocks are out there in the market and what

606
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,719
Speaker 1: they're the actual value of each stock is. So you

607
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 1: kind of multiply those two numbers together and you get

608
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:17,759
Speaker 1: a rough estimate of what the value of the company is. Well,

609
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: when you lose your stock price, that means that your

610
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: company is losing its value more or less oversimplifying, but

611
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: that more or less is what it means. Well, two

612
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: eight wasn't all bad. They did come out with a

613
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 1: game that ended up getting a lot of critical acclaim

614
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: and a lot of fans, which was Dead Space. I

615
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: was never a big Dead Space player, but I know

616
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: some people who can recite everything about that game, including

617
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:46,399
Speaker 1: all the little hidden stuff that you had to find

618
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: to get the backstory. Also in the negative column that

619
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 1: was two thousand eight was a year that they were

620
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 1: hit with a class action lawsuit over the undisclosed edition

621
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: of a secure ROM DRM software along with games like

622
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: Spore for the Piece, E and M. And the lawsuit

623
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: was about the fact that they had included this this

624
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: this UH digital rights management software without telling anyone about it,

625
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: that it was separate from the game software, and that

626
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: it was basically impossible to uninstall even after you had

627
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: uninstalled the video game. Ye so e A was falling

628
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,759
Speaker 1: under the same trap that Sony did, where, in an

629
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:25,759
Speaker 1: effort to try and keep its intellectual property safe, it

630
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 1: had kind of over not kind of it overstepped. Yeah. Yeah,

631
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,319
Speaker 1: you know. The point was to prevent people from from

632
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: installing it more than I think it was eight times,

633
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: three times, six times. It all depends number of times, right, right, Well,

634
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where you know, someone who

635
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,879
Speaker 1: buys the game, their argument is I should be able

636
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,240
Speaker 1: to install this as many times as I want, because

637
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: you know, if I buy a new computer, I want

638
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: to be able to transfer the stuff I own onto

639
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 1: that computer. It's not that I'm you know, installing it

640
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: on all my friends machines. I just want to be

641
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 1: able to play my game. And the other argument against

642
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: that is that we don't want you to install this

643
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: somehow your friends machines. Right uh. In In other DRM

644
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:07,279
Speaker 1: news that year, that was the year that UM the

645
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 1: e A announced plans to require PC owners of things

646
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: like Mass Effect and Sport to authenticate their copies every

647
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: ten days, even if they were playing the game offline. Yeah.

648
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 1: Um and this this is this becomes a common thread

649
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:25,239
Speaker 1: in e A as well. This idea of having either

650
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: a persistent Internet connection or at least using the Internet

651
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 1: every now and then to again verify that you have

652
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:34,879
Speaker 1: a legitimate copy of the game. So not only would

653
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: you have to retain whatever the disc was, you would

654
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: have to have that in your machine. You would have

655
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 1: to then make a connection to the internet, and then

656
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 1: the Internet would make sure that that, in fact was

657
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:46,719
Speaker 1: your registered copy so that you could play the game

658
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:49,800
Speaker 1: you wanted. Even if you were able to just move

659
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: everything on the game into your computer and it's a

660
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 1: single player game, you still had to do that. And

661
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: a lot of players objected. Yeah, yeah, especially you know

662
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. You know, most people had had pretty

663
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 1: good Internet connections at that point. It was getting better,

664
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 1: but not everyone wanted to be connected to the Internet

665
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:10,359
Speaker 1: all the time. And you know, the people who bought

666
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 1: the game pointed out that this was really a hassle

667
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,279
Speaker 1: for the legitimate game player, and people who were pirate

668
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: into the game were breaking this encryption. They were using

669
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:24,240
Speaker 1: keys that would allow them to right so that they

670
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:26,879
Speaker 1: wouldn't they didn't have to offer a kid. They were

671
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:31,320
Speaker 1: playing pirated copies that they got for free that didn't

672
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: have this drm in it. And so the players, the

673
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 1: legitimate players who had bought the games say it said, look,

674
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: you're only punishing us. You're not you're not stopping piracy,

675
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,319
Speaker 1: and you're making the game a miserable experience for the

676
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 1: people who actually paid to play it. Yeah. This this

677
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 1: never did go into effect, this particular bit of of

678
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: d r M on the side. They relented pretty quickly

679
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 1: after community feedback, which was highly highly negative as you

680
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: can imagine. They however, did not learn their lesson from it,

681
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 1: because they would they would incorporate it again in the future.

682
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:06,720
Speaker 1: H two thousand nine, e A acquires a play Fish,

683
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 1: which was a developer of casual games. They had seen

684
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 1: how Louis was doing and they thought let's get in

685
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: on that as well. Um. They also went ahead and

686
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: cut another fifteen hundred employees, which was about sevent of

687
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 1: its workforce, and they shut down Pandemic Studios that year.

688
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: So yet another example of them acquiring and then shutting

689
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,320
Speaker 1: down a company. Uh and next, I don't have anything

690
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 1: for me neither, but inn In the summer they acquired

691
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:39,399
Speaker 1: PopCap Oh wow, yeah, another casual games developer, so lots

692
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: of lots of mobile content all that. Yeah, who own

693
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:45,240
Speaker 1: like The Jeweled and stuff like that? Right, They also

694
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:48,279
Speaker 1: released Star Wars the Old Republic, which was a Star

695
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:51,399
Speaker 1: Wars based m m O RPG. Uh. Now, we had

696
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: one person asked us if we could talk more about

697
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 1: Star Wars the Old Republic and why did it move

698
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: from a subscription based service too free to play with

699
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 1: micro transactions, and and how you know, what's the story

700
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 1: of its failure if you want to look at it

701
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: in that way? All right? As so, I actually played

702
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: Star Wars the Old Republic. I I subscribed. I was

703
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,279
Speaker 1: one of the subscribers. I was one of the people

704
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 1: who got who rolled his eyes when I heard that

705
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: was going to free to play because I had actually

706
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:22,919
Speaker 1: bought a I think it was like a twelve month

707
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:28,760
Speaker 1: subscription in advance. But so Star Wars the Old Republic

708
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 1: takes place thousands of years before the events of the

709
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 1: Star Wars movie series. Um. But it puts you in

710
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:41,959
Speaker 1: either a a Sith role or a Republic role, and

711
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: you have different storylines that we play out based upon

712
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: the type of character you were playing. I think part

713
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:49,600
Speaker 1: of the problem was that it, even though it was

714
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 1: an m m O RPG, more frequently than not it

715
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 1: felt to me like a single player game. It felt

716
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: like another sequel to Cotur, which isn't a bad thing.

717
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: The Coach board game were great. I very much enjoyed them,

718
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: even though the second Cotur game obviously had an entire

719
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: section that was left unfinished because you could see it

720
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 1: on your map, but you couldn't get to it in

721
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: uh in the actual game. Anyway, the Old Republic felt

722
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: like another sequel to that. It didn't feel as much

723
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: like an M M O RPG. You didn't have as

724
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: many people partying up together and kind of interactions that

725
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 1: you would normally expect from and not after the initial launched,

726
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: Like there was a lot of interest in it very

727
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: early on, but that kind of dropped off quickly. And

728
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: part of the problem was that people were completing the

729
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: storylines for the characters very very quickly, and once you

730
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: did that, you didn't really have any incentive to keep playing.

731
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 1: So it was just like if you had played a

732
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: single player game all the way through and then you're thinking,

733
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 1: all right, well, that was fun, but now I want

734
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: to sell this game and get some money back, and

735
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: then I'm going to buy another new game. That's kind

736
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: of what people were thinking. Well, subscribers started to drop

737
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 1: off from this game, and e A's response was that, well,

738
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,280
Speaker 1: you know, we could either pull the plug on it entirely,

739
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: or we could try and switch our strategy and get

740
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: more people interested in this game. But obviously the subscription

741
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: models not really working. So what if we dropped the

742
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 1: subscription and go to free to play and instead of

743
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: making money through people subscribing, we make money by selling

744
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: items in the game for real money, small amounts of

745
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: money micro transactions, but um, and you could still play

746
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: it for free without buying anything, but you wouldn't have

747
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 1: access to the entire game. There'll be sections of the

748
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:35,759
Speaker 1: game you could not get to because you would have

749
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: to purchase them in order to have access. And all

750
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 1: of the micro transaction items were the super powerful cool

751
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 1: things with rainbows and unicorns or whatever the you know

752
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 1: Star Wars equivalent of rainbows and called lightsabers. So I

753
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:52,839
Speaker 1: realize you're not familiar with the venerable franchise known as

754
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:55,800
Speaker 1: Star Wars. Yeah no, never never seen any of those

755
00:41:55,880 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 1: scruffy looking at um. So yeah, they that was the

756
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: whole response there was to switch over to free to

757
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: play and do micro transactions. Now, this is another thing

758
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: that e a has received a lot of criticism for

759
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:12,600
Speaker 1: is the whole micro transaction approach. I can't say the

760
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:18,799
Speaker 1: word criticism either, obviously, but the micro transactions are that's

761
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: another way to try and generate revenue, and if you

762
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: make your game free to play, it may be the

763
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: only way unless you incorporate lots of advertising, and either

764
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,919
Speaker 1: way most players kind of react in a negative way. Yeah,

765
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: that has also been something that e A has gotten

766
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:34,360
Speaker 1: a lot of flak for, is the the inclusion of

767
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 1: kind of kind of annoying out there advertising in the

768
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: middle of their games. Right. Well, the disappointing performance of

769
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:45,360
Speaker 1: Star Wars may have also contributed to another dip in

770
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: e AS stock prices in although, but before we move on,

771
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: just thank you Chaz our listener from Twitter for for

772
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: writing in about that. Yes, thank you very much, and

773
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 1: we have a few more questions we will address at

774
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:00,360
Speaker 1: the end of this episode as well. Also in twenty eleven,

775
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 1: something else big happened to e A. E A had

776
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 1: the honor is the wrong word for it, had had

777
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: the unfortunate um role as Lull's SEC final target. LULLS

778
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:18,400
Speaker 1: SEC being laugh out Loud Security was kind of a

779
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:25,040
Speaker 1: an offshoot of Anonymous. It was not necessarily related directly

780
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 1: to anonymous, but it was a group of of hackers

781
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: who decided that they were going to cause as much

782
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: trouble as possible really for the main reason they wanted

783
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: to do it was to show that they could. And Uh, boy,

784
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 1: I bet they're regretting that decision right now because as

785
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast, uh, four of them have

786
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: been sentenced to between a year and two years in

787
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: various uh jails or juvenile facilities. Well, so, yikes, I

788
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 1: guess they weren't quite as anonymous as they thought. Uh. Anyway,

789
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 1: they hit e A as their final target for disbanding,

790
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 1: and uh they ended up releasing the log in information

791
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: of thousands of people who were playing Battlefield Heroes. So

792
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: uh that was a big black I. E A had

793
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: to reset all that and send emails out to everybody saying,

794
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: you know, it was compromised and you need to change

795
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:20,919
Speaker 1: passwords and all that kind of stuff. Uh. In twelve

796
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:27,440
Speaker 1: e he wins another awful uh distinguishing feature here they

797
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:30,280
Speaker 1: were called they they they were named the worst company

798
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: in America by the Consumerist And this is a this

799
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:35,480
Speaker 1: is a thing that that the consumers does every year.

800
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 1: They've been doing it for a while. They gave a

801
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: Golden Poo award. Yes they do. It's a very distinguished

802
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. The way it works is that they set

803
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:48,240
Speaker 1: it up like a tournament bracket and they let people

804
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 1: vote on which company they think should progress in the bracket.

805
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: And that year e A took home the Golden Pooh.

806
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: It's final opponent was the Bank of America. Now keep

807
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: in mind this is all from reader votes, it's not.

808
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think the consumers is the

809
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: one that ultimately decides which ones are in the brackets,

810
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: but the readers are the ones who determine which companies progress, right,

811
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 1: And this is the Internet, and there are some gamers

812
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: on the internet, so so I'm sure that that is

813
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:17,279
Speaker 1: part of why e A made it that far. But

814
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: but also, I mean was when Occupy was happening, so

815
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 1: so think I mean there were thousands of people on

816
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: the streets protesting the actions of corporations like Bank of America,

817
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:32,840
Speaker 1: and e A still still beat them out. Yeah, by

818
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: I think it was like close to to you know,

819
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: twenty six or something like that. It's really like that,

820
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: So it was it wasn't even close. It's a runaway

821
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: but again, you know the platforms the Internet. Gamers like

822
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: the Internet, so you know, keep that all in mind.

823
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 1: It's kind of it was kind of skewed to e A,

824
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: is what we're saying. Probably, So why did it win

825
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:58,280
Speaker 1: Worst Company? Well, some of the the suggestions were because

826
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:00,320
Speaker 1: it had stripped the video game in the story of

827
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 1: talent through all those acquisitions and then shutting down competitions.

828
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: Are shutting down competing studios, I should say. So they

829
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 1: not only bought up competing studios but then shut them down,

830
00:46:10,600 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: which then meant that that talent and those games would

831
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 1: often become inaccessible. There would never be another one because

832
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 1: e A would own the intellectual property, but not have

833
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 1: anyone to actually develop the games anymore. At least the

834
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:26,359
Speaker 1: people who had developed it were gone, so it would

835
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,399
Speaker 1: be a completely different experience. Uh. Then there was also

836
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 1: citing of the use of micro transactions, just like I said,

837
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: especially for any games where you already had to buy

838
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:38,919
Speaker 1: a game and then on top of it, have micro

839
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,760
Speaker 1: transactions within the games that were not free to begin with. Yeah,

840
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: so the idea of buying like a sixty dollar game

841
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:46,359
Speaker 1: and then having to spend more money within the game

842
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 1: in order for it to be a satisfying experience. That

843
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 1: did not sit well with a lot of people who

844
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,759
Speaker 1: voted in this Also, the one of the things they

845
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: cited were the exclusivity deals that e A had made

846
00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: with organizations like the NFL. Now that big deal. Now

847
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: for e A, it made perfect sense. That meant that

848
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:06,359
Speaker 1: they had tied up the NFL license that they were

849
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 1: the only company that could put out an official NFL

850
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: affiliated football game. And the same thing is true for

851
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: other sports as well. They made exclusivity agreements with other

852
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 1: sports agencies, but NFL is an easy example. So e

853
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 1: A then shuts down competition because no other game company

854
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:29,919
Speaker 1: can make an official NFL licensed game. They can't use

855
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: the actual team player names or anything. And although you know,

856
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: another football strategy game could certainly be enjoyable, when you

857
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 1: don't have that brand recognition behind it, it becomes a

858
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: lot harder to market, right. I mean, why if if

859
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:44,320
Speaker 1: you're a fan of football and you want to play

860
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: as your favorite football team with with the actual players

861
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,760
Speaker 1: who are on that team as your as your players,

862
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:53,319
Speaker 1: then you had to go with the A because no

863
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:55,879
Speaker 1: one else had the licensing agreement that would allow them

864
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:58,759
Speaker 1: to do that and so that you know, people said, like,

865
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 1: you're essentially saying we're the only game in town. Yeah,

866
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: you're you're further further shutting down the opportunities of other studios. Right,

867
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: So that was another reason why they got a lot

868
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:14,320
Speaker 1: of votes. Uh So the tournaments came out pretty badly

869
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: for e A. Uh, it showed that that had a

870
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:20,560
Speaker 1: real problem with public perception of the company. Um and

871
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:24,839
Speaker 1: e A tried to kind of uh respond to that,

872
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 1: and and a lot of people thought that their response

873
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: was lackluster. This would happen again, but we'll get to it. Yeah,

874
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:33,439
Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil it, but yeah. That year

875
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 1: also was when e A released Mass Effect three, which

876
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 1: may also have affected its standings as Worst Company in

877
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 1: America because, as I recall, there were a lot of

878
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:44,320
Speaker 1: people who were not happy with the way that game ended.

879
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 1: Yeah didn't they didn't they wasn't that the one that

880
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 1: they released a different ending too that you could you

881
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 1: could download. There were, as I recall, there were there

882
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: may have been. I think there might have been, but

883
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:56,799
Speaker 1: I know there were at least three different endings that

884
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 1: were already in the game. But some people argued that

885
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: the three different endings were not distinct enough that you know,

886
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: you would have small details that were different, but that

887
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme it felt like what you had

888
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 1: done in the series of games. Yeah, it defeats the

889
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 1: entire purpose of the Mass Effect series exactly. It felt

890
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:17,280
Speaker 1: like like, while while the whole game makes it feel

891
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 1: like you're going to have this huge impact, ultimately, if

892
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:24,319
Speaker 1: the differences aren't that great, then it means that you know,

893
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,399
Speaker 1: what you did didn't really matter in the grand scheme

894
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 1: of things, which from an existential point of view is

895
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. But from a gamer player, uh, you know, experience,

896
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:34,879
Speaker 1: maybe not so much fun. Right, It's not called nic

897
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 1: the game so therefore so so people said that they

898
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 1: felt that the game had what the end game in particular,

899
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: had been rushed, and that it just wasn't a fitting

900
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: capper to it. UH and Penny Arcades Ben Kuchera and

901
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:52,400
Speaker 1: I apologize if I'm miss uh mispronouncing his name. He

902
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:55,760
Speaker 1: criticized the company for concentrating on free to play games

903
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 1: and micro transactions, and he also said that the company

904
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: was failing to create compel in retail games. So you're

905
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 1: saying that the games that you are selling for sixty

906
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:07,440
Speaker 1: dollars aren't really good good and the ones that are

907
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:10,360
Speaker 1: free to play with micro transactions are irritating. Right. So

908
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:14,320
Speaker 1: Penny Arcade, by the way, has nine hundred and twenty

909
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:17,200
Speaker 1: two comics that are tagged e A in their system,

910
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:19,879
Speaker 1: which as of the recording of this podcast, yes, as

911
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:22,879
Speaker 1: a well, yeah, as of as of Tuesday, I think

912
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 1: actually Tuesday or Wednesday this week, so there there. There

913
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:30,239
Speaker 1: might have been more UH since then, but it just

914
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 1: which just goes to show that the gaming community has

915
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:34,880
Speaker 1: had a lot to say and a lot of crisis

916
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:38,319
Speaker 1: criticism to lob against the company over the years. And

917
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:43,360
Speaker 1: UH and John Richard tell O stepped down as CEO

918
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 1: and as a member of the board. UH. Here's a

919
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 1: direct quote from one of the blog posts that was

920
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 1: written that he wrote about this. He said, I am

921
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: writing with some tough news. I have resigned my position

922
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 1: as e A s CEO. I will be around for

923
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks and I hope to have it

924
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: the chance to say goodbye to many of you. Larry

925
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 1: Probest will be stepping in as executive chairman to help

926
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:08,400
Speaker 1: smooth the transition. UH. E A also continued to layoff

927
00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:12,240
Speaker 1: employees in part as a streamlining effort at this time,

928
00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 1: and so Probest comes back in. You know, he had

929
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 1: stepped down and now he was interim CEO. Uh and

930
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: uh that's as of the recording of this podcast, that's

931
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:27,080
Speaker 1: still the case. They hadn't found a permanent replacement yet. Yeah,

932
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 1: but they yeah, that was that was another ten percent

933
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 1: of global staff that was laid off as of May

934
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: of this year. So tough times over at e A.

935
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 1: They also said that they planned to open a Dice

936
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: l A office, uh, where they would be developing games,

937
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:46,800
Speaker 1: including Star Wars games because they made a deal with Disney,

938
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:50,720
Speaker 1: which of course acquired the rights to the Lucas Arts

939
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 1: stuff earlier. And they won the Worst Company in America

940
00:51:56,760 --> 00:51:59,360
Speaker 1: for the second year in a row. And most of

941
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:01,879
Speaker 1: the reasons is the first time that any company has

942
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: ever done this, by the way, done a two for

943
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:07,359
Speaker 1: and they they the reasons are pretty much the same

944
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:11,080
Speaker 1: as twelve. But also there was another controversy that happened

945
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:14,800
Speaker 1: between those two times that ended up costing the company

946
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 1: big time, which was the launch of sim City five,

947
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: one of the most anticipated games in a long time.

948
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: I mean, like there's certain titles that when you hear

949
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: about them coming out, people old school gamers get really excited.

950
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:30,239
Speaker 1: Diablo three is a great example of a game that

951
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:33,480
Speaker 1: got a lot of people talking months before it came out.

952
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 1: Sim City five is another one of those where people

953
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:38,800
Speaker 1: who are fans of the sim City franchise were really

954
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:43,319
Speaker 1: excited by this game. But the big issue was that

955
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 1: sim City five was a game that requires you to

956
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 1: have a persistent connection to the Internet in order to

957
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:50,400
Speaker 1: play it. Even if you're just playing single payer, single

958
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:52,920
Speaker 1: player offline, it's just you and your computer, but you

959
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:55,719
Speaker 1: still have to have a persistent Internet connection. And they

960
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:58,879
Speaker 1: had some server issues when the game launched, which meant

961
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 1: that people couldn't play the game they had just bought.

962
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 1: They had spent the money, the game was in their hands.

963
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: They wanted to play a single player game, and they

964
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:10,120
Speaker 1: couldn't do it because the servers weren't working. Now, that

965
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:13,520
Speaker 1: tells you that this is a huge problem that that's

966
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:17,160
Speaker 1: another example of why the persistent Internet connection thing is

967
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 1: an argument that people say makes for bad gaming experience,

968
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 1: because when you have a technical issue on the the

969
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 1: game providers end uh, then it's adding a completely unnecessary

970
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 1: extra step that a lot of things can go wrong

971
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:34,359
Speaker 1: with right, And if it's an online game, then that's

972
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 1: just the way that works, right. But but when it's

973
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: a single player game, then people have a real hard

974
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: time feeling. And uh, you know again, a lot of

975
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:45,400
Speaker 1: people say that the whole reason for this was just

976
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:48,800
Speaker 1: so that e A could have another kind of DRM

977
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 1: there that you know, that's not e A has denied that.

978
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 1: They said, that's not the reason, but that's the reason

979
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 1: everyone says, says is a lot of people suggest that's

980
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 1: the real Let me put it that way. Sure. They

981
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 1: also made headlines in February and March when um, the

982
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:08,240
Speaker 1: CFO Blake Jorgensen announced that all future titles would involve

983
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:11,919
Speaker 1: micro transactions. Uh he back pedaled really hard a week later.

984
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 1: Um yeah, let it. That did not get a great

985
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:17,960
Speaker 1: reaction now and again that's probably what contributed to it

986
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:21,239
Speaker 1: winning the Worst company in America again. Yeah. Despite all

987
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:25,439
Speaker 1: of this, their their stock has been rising dramatically over

988
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:30,240
Speaker 1: the course of of so far. Um and uh really

989
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 1: really interestingly, as of as of this week, the a

990
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 1: couple of the really high level people have been selling

991
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 1: off a lot of their shares in their own company's stock,

992
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:45,920
Speaker 1: like fifties seven thousand of their shares. Wow, that is uh,

993
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:48,960
Speaker 1: I'm actually looking it up right now because it's actually

994
00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:50,600
Speaker 1: a little lower than it was when I wrote it down.

995
00:54:50,640 --> 00:54:52,840
Speaker 1: Because originally we were going to record this episode the

996
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:55,320
Speaker 1: day before. We're actually recording it right We're going to

997
00:54:55,400 --> 00:55:01,280
Speaker 1: record it yesterday. But on May fifteenth, fifteenth, the stock

998
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:03,759
Speaker 1: price was at twenty two dollars and fifty cents when

999
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:07,920
Speaker 1: I looked at originally. Uh, right now on May sixteenth,

1000
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:11,719
Speaker 1: at four forty four pm Eastern time, more information than

1001
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,400
Speaker 1: you need to know, it's at two and two cents.

1002
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: So it's dropped almost fifty cents, right around fifty cents

1003
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:22,480
Speaker 1: since I checked it yesterday. So it's still and it's

1004
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:27,120
Speaker 1: obviously not at that pre August two eight high when

1005
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:29,719
Speaker 1: it was in the high forties and lower fifties, but

1006
00:55:29,719 --> 00:55:33,040
Speaker 1: it's but it's dropped a great deal since then. Um,

1007
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:35,560
Speaker 1: I think I think that that well as of as

1008
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:38,440
Speaker 1: of wednesday, as of the May fifteenth, anyway, shares where

1009
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:42,799
Speaker 1: your shares were up very nearly for the course. Yeah,

1010
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 1: so it's it's I think volatile is a safe wordy use, Yes, Yes,

1011
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:51,560
Speaker 1: that that's there's a lot of very very important financial

1012
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: publications that are talking about e A right now, which

1013
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:55,880
Speaker 1: I which I always find fascinating, and all of them

1014
00:55:55,920 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 1: are going like, be cautious, don't actually invest, we don't

1015
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:00,759
Speaker 1: know about this thing. Yeah, there does seem to be

1016
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:06,360
Speaker 1: a real problem with consumer confidence in an investor confidence

1017
00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:08,520
Speaker 1: in a e A. And again that can really affect that.

1018
00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 1: You know, e A is a multibillion dollar industry company

1019
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:15,400
Speaker 1: right now. It's you know, it's revenues can be over

1020
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:18,200
Speaker 1: a billion dollars, can be over three billion dollars in

1021
00:56:18,239 --> 00:56:20,960
Speaker 1: a good year, and so when you're talking about that,

1022
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 1: it's kind of weird to think that it's it's value

1023
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 1: as a company is in question. That suggests that there's

1024
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 1: been some pretty serious missteps or that something's really funky

1025
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:32,319
Speaker 1: with the industry in general, right right, Well, you know,

1026
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: it's I think it's just basically that thing where they're

1027
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:37,440
Speaker 1: not really they're not really heating all of all of

1028
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:40,400
Speaker 1: this this feedback that they're getting from from all of

1029
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 1: their their from their fans, and that's you know, like

1030
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: and they also just renew their license with with the

1031
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:51,800
Speaker 1: Football Association with a FIFA, FIFA and the soccer soccer

1032
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 1: So yeah, sure, football whatever, go back to France. Um

1033
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:02,279
Speaker 1: until two? Um so well, and and FIVA is one

1034
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:06,240
Speaker 1: of those titles that consistently does really well for e A. Sure,

1035
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: And and you know again like it's it's understandable why

1036
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:13,200
Speaker 1: would they would want that exclusivity? Now, we asked our

1037
00:57:13,239 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: listeners if they had any specific questions they would like

1038
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 1: us to address, and uh, we We've talked about some

1039
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:20,760
Speaker 1: of them already, so I'm not going to go over

1040
00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 1: all of them. But I've got two left that we

1041
00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:26,959
Speaker 1: can chat about really quickly. Peter from Facebook said, what

1042
00:57:27,000 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 1: was the most popular e A game? And if you

1043
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:33,680
Speaker 1: go from the debut of e A till present day

1044
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 1: and you look at all the units sold, the SIMS

1045
00:57:36,760 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 1: comes out on top with a level eleven point twenty

1046
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:43,800
Speaker 1: three million units sold globally according to VG charts. And

1047
00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 1: second place would go to Need for Speed Underground. Now,

1048
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 1: UM that that doesn't surprise me because the SIMS is

1049
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 1: one of those games that had a very wide appeal.

1050
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 1: I mean I loved it when it came out. I

1051
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:56,920
Speaker 1: thought this was such a cool, innovative game. Also, I

1052
00:57:56,920 --> 00:57:59,720
Speaker 1: thought it was funny to lock people out of the bathroom.

1053
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I did. Some pretty cruel things. Good good,

1054
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:07,720
Speaker 1: good thing to know about you, Jonathan, That's great. Uh.

1055
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:12,080
Speaker 1: And then Ian he asked also on Facebook if I

1056
00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:14,800
Speaker 1: could give a rundown of some of the PR meltdowns

1057
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:18,000
Speaker 1: the e A has had. I could, but that's a

1058
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:21,000
Speaker 1: full episode. So I'm going to give you, Um, I'm

1059
00:58:21,040 --> 00:58:25,520
Speaker 1: gonna give you three examples of PR attempts that e

1060
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:29,920
Speaker 1: A maybe did not handle very well. This isn't just

1061
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 1: like coming out and saying, uh, we didn't do this right,

1062
00:58:33,560 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 1: We're going to do better. This is this is this

1063
00:58:35,680 --> 00:58:39,520
Speaker 1: goes beyond this. This comes into marketing mistakes. Okay, three

1064
00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:43,040
Speaker 1: big marketing mistakes. Now, keep in mind that this might

1065
00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:46,520
Speaker 1: not be entirely e a's fault. They could have partnered

1066
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,360
Speaker 1: with a marketing firm that came up with a terrible

1067
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:52,640
Speaker 1: idea and just ran with it. Um. One of them

1068
00:58:52,760 --> 00:58:56,720
Speaker 1: was when e A was marketing the game Dante's Inferno,

1069
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 1: remember that, Yeah, which had all these different characters that

1070
00:59:01,200 --> 00:59:06,320
Speaker 1: were based off the Seven Deadly Sins. So the promotion

1071
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:10,080
Speaker 1: for the Sin of Lust came around and right around

1072
00:59:10,120 --> 00:59:13,560
Speaker 1: the same time as Comic Con An e A had

1073
00:59:13,840 --> 00:59:18,040
Speaker 1: a booth at Comic Con where they had some young

1074
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:23,360
Speaker 1: ladies dressed in costume models colloquially known as booth babes

1075
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:29,000
Speaker 1: to promote their games, and they had their Sin to

1076
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 1: Win campaign, which was a contest that encouraged people to

1077
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:39,920
Speaker 1: quote commit acts of lust unquote with costumed reps at

1078
00:59:39,960 --> 00:59:43,520
Speaker 1: e A's booth. Later on, the team clarified this as

1079
00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 1: saying that they were just trying to tell people to

1080
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 1: take photos with these reps and then tweet and share

1081
00:59:51,920 --> 00:59:56,080
Speaker 1: them in various ways. But no, that doesn't sound like

1082
00:59:56,160 --> 01:00:02,640
Speaker 1: that thing. Yeah, I'm I I remember I had completely

1083
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,720
Speaker 1: blocked that from my memory, but I remember exactly how

1084
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:08,760
Speaker 1: offended I was by that because it was really offended.

1085
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:12,600
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, yeah, not a great move. Okay, So here's

1086
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:15,520
Speaker 1: another one. This one, This one really makes me scratch

1087
01:00:15,600 --> 01:00:18,480
Speaker 1: my head. So theyre for a promotional campaign for the

1088
01:00:18,480 --> 01:00:23,080
Speaker 1: game Mercenaries to e A converted a London gas station

1089
01:00:23,840 --> 01:00:26,480
Speaker 1: to make it look like a military depot, so it

1090
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:28,480
Speaker 1: was like a depot that you would see in the

1091
01:00:28,480 --> 01:00:30,600
Speaker 1: game Mercenaries to which is kind of cool. I mean,

1092
01:00:30,600 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 1: we've seen promotions like that, like the Simpsons, Quickie mark

1093
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:38,920
Speaker 1: type stuff. They had a bunch of a bunch of

1094
01:00:39,120 --> 01:00:42,160
Speaker 1: life size column dolls on London Underground for a while.

1095
01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:46,480
Speaker 1: That clever stuff. So what's the big deal about converting

1096
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:50,320
Speaker 1: a gas station into a military depot. Well, they had

1097
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:54,320
Speaker 1: this campaign where anyone stopping at the military depot slash

1098
01:00:54,360 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: gas station would get seventy dollars worth of gas for free.

1099
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:02,360
Speaker 1: Keep in mind that the game doesn't cost that much,

1100
01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:05,240
Speaker 1: which meant that even if every single person who stopped

1101
01:01:05,280 --> 01:01:08,280
Speaker 1: at that gas station then went out and bought a

1102
01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 1: copy of Mercenaries, to still at losing money. And they

1103
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 1: ended up screwing up traffic patterns so badly in London

1104
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 1: once people found out they could get free gas at

1105
01:01:19,240 --> 01:01:24,320
Speaker 1: this station that it caused a massive traffic snarl and

1106
01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:28,880
Speaker 1: even ended up with government censure of e A cost

1107
01:01:28,960 --> 01:01:31,920
Speaker 1: him about fifty to convert the gas station into a

1108
01:01:31,920 --> 01:01:36,280
Speaker 1: military depot. Seventy bucks of gas per person who stopped. Yeah,

1109
01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:39,400
Speaker 1: not the most effective use of your marketing dollars, you

1110
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:44,080
Speaker 1: might argue. And here's the third one. So godfather to

1111
01:01:44,720 --> 01:01:48,600
Speaker 1: the game coming out and e A, like many companies,

1112
01:01:48,800 --> 01:01:53,560
Speaker 1: tries to court the gaming press by sending out publicity kits.

1113
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:57,720
Speaker 1: They have various little gifts in them. Right horses head, No,

1114
01:01:57,720 --> 01:02:02,080
Speaker 1: no horses had no fish. Okay, no, knowly brass knuckles.

1115
01:02:03,120 --> 01:02:06,439
Speaker 1: They send out brass, actual brass knuckles, actual breast knuckles, which,

1116
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:11,400
Speaker 1: by the way, not legal and also illegal to send

1117
01:02:11,680 --> 01:02:15,160
Speaker 1: by May. So then they had to send a message

1118
01:02:15,200 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: to everyone they had sent a package to saying could

1119
01:02:17,680 --> 01:02:20,959
Speaker 1: you please send back those breast knuckles and please don't

1120
01:02:21,440 --> 01:02:26,320
Speaker 1: sue us. Three examples of marketing failures on e A's part. Now,

1121
01:02:26,840 --> 01:02:28,880
Speaker 1: there are plenty of other examples of e A coming

1122
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 1: out and apologizing or not apologizing for something, like when

1123
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:35,680
Speaker 1: they won the America's Worst Company the second time. There

1124
01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:38,040
Speaker 1: was a blog post that essentially said we can do better,

1125
01:02:38,520 --> 01:02:40,520
Speaker 1: but a lot of people viewed it as kind of

1126
01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 1: a backhanded slap at gamers, and not not like so

1127
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:49,280
Speaker 1: much as owning up to problems, but rather saying, uh,

1128
01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 1: you know, people perceive it as this, so we can

1129
01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:58,080
Speaker 1: change their perception. So uh and I'm paraphrasing obviously, but

1130
01:02:58,080 --> 01:03:00,440
Speaker 1: but nonetheless it no, they've they've they've not always had

1131
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 1: the best attitude about that sort of thing, or at

1132
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:05,640
Speaker 1: least that that seems to be the implication anyway, you know,

1133
01:03:05,680 --> 01:03:08,120
Speaker 1: because we're all reading this through our own lens and

1134
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:09,960
Speaker 1: perhaps the way they intended it and the way that

1135
01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:12,880
Speaker 1: we're interpreting it are just wildly different. Oh. Absolutely, And

1136
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:17,360
Speaker 1: you know, and it's an understanding, understandably upsetting situation to

1137
01:03:17,440 --> 01:03:19,400
Speaker 1: be in UM to to have to be the company's

1138
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:22,240
Speaker 1: representative coming off of something like that. Yeah, there's there's

1139
01:03:22,240 --> 01:03:24,600
Speaker 1: ever you know, it's you know that that's the kind

1140
01:03:24,600 --> 01:03:26,040
Speaker 1: of thing that if if I had to write that,

1141
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:28,280
Speaker 1: I would draft it like nine and a half times

1142
01:03:28,280 --> 01:03:30,000
Speaker 1: and get everyone in the office to read it and

1143
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:31,960
Speaker 1: make sure there was absolutely no way that it could

1144
01:03:32,000 --> 01:03:35,080
Speaker 1: be perceived as being negative to the fans that I

1145
01:03:35,080 --> 01:03:38,560
Speaker 1: had piste off so much to begin with. Yeah, that's fair. Well,

1146
01:03:38,600 --> 01:03:42,000
Speaker 1: and that's our rundown of Electronic Arts, the history of

1147
01:03:42,040 --> 01:03:44,920
Speaker 1: the company and what they have managed in the industry,

1148
01:03:44,920 --> 01:03:48,480
Speaker 1: how they've been influential, both in good and bad ways.

1149
01:03:49,360 --> 01:03:51,440
Speaker 1: I thought it was a really interesting story. It's it's

1150
01:03:51,480 --> 01:03:54,880
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating. I'm curious to see where the company

1151
01:03:54,880 --> 01:03:58,040
Speaker 1: goes from here. I will be going to the Electronic

1152
01:03:58,200 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 1: Arts Keynote presentation at E three this year, so UM

1153
01:04:02,480 --> 01:04:04,479
Speaker 1: I will give a full report on what I saw

1154
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 1: when I come back. We're already we've already planned that episode.

1155
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:09,360
Speaker 1: So when I come back the day I come back

1156
01:04:09,360 --> 01:04:12,440
Speaker 1: from E three, we'll be going into the studio and

1157
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:15,479
Speaker 1: I will be sleep walking my way through talking about

1158
01:04:15,520 --> 01:04:18,080
Speaker 1: what I saw the three red Red Eye flight and

1159
01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:21,439
Speaker 1: then then podcasting. Yeah. I land at six am, come

1160
01:04:21,480 --> 01:04:25,120
Speaker 1: to the office, and I just rock star lifestyle. Yeah.

1161
01:04:26,640 --> 01:04:29,320
Speaker 1: Sure does feel good to be a gangster. So guys,

1162
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:32,920
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for future episodes of text Stuff,

1163
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:37,120
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you let us know because otherwise we won't.

1164
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:41,480
Speaker 1: So write us our addresses tech stuff at Discovery dot

1165
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:43,560
Speaker 1: com or get in touch with us on Facebook or Twitter.

1166
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:46,760
Speaker 1: Our handle of both those locations is text Stuff H. S.

1167
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:48,800
Speaker 1: W and Lauren and I will talk to you again

1168
01:04:49,240 --> 01:04:58,760
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and thousands of other

1169
01:04:58,840 --> 01:05:10,040
Speaker 1: topics because it has to of works dot Com