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The Jimquisition 17: Unicronic Arts (Patreon)

Published:
2015-03-09 14:21:43
Imported:
2020-05

Content

So Electronic Arts has shut down Maxis and, really, should we be surprised? Given EA's track record, it's never truly shocking (though it IS always sad) to see it kill off one of its acquisitions. Even so, there's more to EA's behavior than simply buying studios and snapping their necks. There's a pattern of degradation at play as the Unicron of videogames strips its victims bare, and tosses out the husks.

Files

Unicronic Arts (The Jimquisition)

http://www.patreon.com/jimquisition http://www.thejimquisition.com So Electronic Arts has shut down Maxis and, really, should we be surprised? Given EA's track record, it's never truly shocking (though it IS always sad) to see it kill off one of its acquisitions. Even so, there's more to EA's behavior than simply buying studios and snapping their necks.

Comments

Anonymous

Did I just hear "hate boner?"

Anonymous

While I agree with your message overall about EA's fuckery, I would like to have seen a bit more discussion on /why/ EA keeps doing this, and if that information isn't available, at least argue about how it doesn't make good business sense. I mean, how does it make any good business sense to spend millions purchasing a studio, spend millions funding it, and then only make a little bit back on the games? I don't remember any of the games you mentioned in this video even recouping their development costs, so...what the fuck? Is EA just like a private equity company but for video games? They buy something for cheap, inject a little cash into it while claiming the investment will make the company more profitable, run said company well into the red, sell their stock in said company before it completely sinks into the ocean, laugh all the way to the bank? Despicable.

Anonymous

Jim, EA didn't shut down Maxis: they shut down the Emeryville studio. Maxis as a subsidiary of EA remains in operation.

Anonymous
>>382553

Ea is in fact just like the private equities industry, the IMF is just like the private equities industry, everything is becoming like the private equities industry. Right now the prevailing wisdom from businesschool-topia is that the private equities model of business is the most efficient way to allocate resources within an economy and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise. At this point control of finance is akin to Excalibur. He who holds aloft the mighty sword of finance is king by divine mandate and his will ought to be done. Remember, the people at the top make ludicrous amounts of money by these structurally unsound business practices, and until they stop making money gutting the future they won't put the cleaver down. For further reading on the limits of a finance driven economy check out Stephen G Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroub's most recent paper on the effects of financial structure growth, it's marvelous.

LifeIsStrange

I personally liked the Medal of Honor series myself, so I was sad to hear about Danger Close closing down. I can see Visceral being next, their Montreal division was already shut down shortly before Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel came out, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if EA were the ones who were responsible for that godawful plot twist in the game that completely ruined one of the main characters in the series.

Anonymous

Would it be fair to say, "You got the touch..."? Do love me some transformers references.

Anonymous

I think EA does make a lot of money for a while, then they retain the IPs after the closure and can make more sequels while facing low risk. EA has a really hard time generating new IP internally since their management style discourages innovation and they work talented people like dogs until they move to better companies. I don't think they get to offload the losses onto the companies original shareholders. When they buy a studio current shareholders (or private owners) are either given cash or EA stock (which they can immediately sell) at the buyout price. Thus the old owners risk ends with the purchase. It's the original owners of EA stock who end up losing when their shares are devaulued by overpaying on an acquisition.

Anonymous

How did The Sims 4 have a poor release? I frequent r/thesims and while a few people were upset that there were no toddlers or something (toddlers are gross, GOOD RIDDANCE) I saw barely any evidence of a poor release amongst fans, including myself. I think that the game is the sequel TS2 deserved, with a great aesthetic and solidified gameplay. Am I in the minority or something? I mean, the game has received free monthly updates (meaningful asked-for content too, like the stuff you were a fan of for Hyrule Warriors), the first add-on was high quality, and the upcoming first expansion is looking fantastic and way more full of content than expansions for the horrendous DLC hub that TS3 designed to be. I don't play TS4 daily or anything but I've found it to be a great bang for my buck with a supportive and engaged team of developers behind it. I agree with everything else in your video for sure, especially the absolute fuckery that was SimCity, but that little bit about TS4 struck me as odd. (Also, I don't think TS4 had anything to do with the Emeryville Maxis studio but I could be totally wrong. I think they did SimCity and the Sims studio proper did TS4.)

Anonymous
>>385831

"I don't think TS4 had anything to do with the Emeryville Maxis studio" Didn't Jim mention that Maxis got associated with it even though they weren't the main developer? Coupled with his point that EA seemingly closes studios which receive a lot of negative attention for their games... it sounds like a relevant note to bring up IMO. Haven't played TS4.

Anonymous

I really hope visceral dodges EA's shit. I'd love to see them make another dead space game that actually expands on the things it did right. But I guess that's hoping for too much from EA. You can always count on them to fuck everything up.