EA has shut down Visceral Games

[Xeogred]

[noiseredux]

I honestly had to look up Visceral's list of games and it turns out I've played none of them. The Dead Space games were always on my lower tier "I'll probably check those out some day" list. Obviously it sucks to hear any developer shut down, but I personally I don't feel one way or another about this since I have no personal experience with their games.

And I can't really echo all the hatred for EA as a publisher given that Madden 18 is one of my most played games of this year.

[Tanooki]

Shame, but that's EA for you. As DS pointed out there, they did have it coming with the flops, but it was a good studio. EA is all about nickel and diming people to death with dozens if not into the hundreds of dollars of extra charges on a game to add content, or in some sports games put all the content there which traditionally would have been included in previous years and decades because they're greedy assholes. Some years back they released a Tiger Woods title with just like a 1/4 to 1/3 of the players and courses of previous years and IGN did an expose on it and realized to get the previous years content would have made the game cost around $200-300 total. They did the same with The Sims 4, much of the normally unlocked through play/skill stuff now all came in bundles for party stuff, patio stuff, spooky stuff, and so on. Either one would run into into dozens of dollars if not into the 3 figure level. Here's a third example. We(Cinemablend.com) reported before how EA's CEO John Riccitiello gloated over the 40% attachment rate to the day-one DLC for Mass Effect 3, "From Ashes"...DLC that was later proven to have been cut from the game and sold back to gamers as premium content, with the only some media files missing, similar to the Risen 2: Dark Waters disc-locked content fiasco.

Viseral wanted nothing to do with that it appears. They were the more honest types of game makers who pitched a product and gave you the product, not just part of it to bait more cash after the $60 investment. EA doesn't like that. They'd rather hit you with a $60 game then a bunch of $5 to $15 a piece downloads for what traditionally wasn't even considered extra but just unlockable content. Now those $60 games were like $120, $200...who knows depending what they held back (and this isn't going into the honest DLC made well after the fact to keep things trucking.) As long as dumb people feed this beast it will only get worse if they're not called out on it and the sales hurt because whining does no good, profit crushing closed wallets do alone.

[isiolia]

Viseral wanted nothing to do with that it appears. They were the more honest types of game makers who pitched a product and gave you the product, not just part of it to bait more cash after the $60 investment. EA doesn't like that.

Eh, I get the impression that the problem was more (as I've seen in comments elsewhere) that Visceral was building Star Wars Uncharted where EA wanted Star Wars Destiny. Probably a lot less a matter of having DLC to sell, and more that they were not delivering the product that EA wanted. Granted that, most likely, having a game model that players would tend to keep playing for months/years instead of for 14 hours and done is likely because they want more opportunity to sell loot crates or whatever. However, if it was just an issue of DLC, they no doubt coulda/woulda had it.

Kind of a shame, as I'd personally rather have a strong 10-20 hour narrative game than an MMO-lite. /shrug Then again, Dead Space (like RE4) was one I couldn't really stand to play for long due to narrow FoV and such, so maybe it's just as well.

[noiseredux]

Eh, I get the impression that the problem was more (as I've seen in comments elsewhere) that Visceral was building Star Wars Uncharted where EA wanted Star Wars Destiny.

see, if that's the case then I would have to agree with what DSH was saying earlier. Honestly, I'd have very little interest in a Star Wars Uncharted, and a lot more interest in a Star Wars Destiny.

[dsheinem]

From everything we know, there's no one to blame for the closing of Visceral except Visceral.

[BogusMeatFactory]

From everything we know, there's no one to blame for the closing of Visceral except Visceral.

I an not mad with the closing. It stinks that people may be losing their jobs, although EA says they will be moving people around. That is part and parcel with the industry sadly. What I am disappointed about is what that star wars game could have been. EA has the exclusive license. There is more than enough room for a single player linear story in addition to other star wars games that meet their criteria. It is just the way business is.

[marurun]

Yeah, I'm not sure handing the exclusive Star Wars license to EA was a great idea. I mean, EA is huge and probably paid a lot for it, but I wonder if Star Wars will suffer from the lack of strong narrative experiences in games. I mean, it might not matter at all. The way Disney relegated anything outside the movies to the Legends moniker and is rewriting and relicensing the canon, it might allow them to better control the essential story beats, but I do think limiting Star Wars games to the kind of games EA is now making is troublesome. EA has largely abandoned single-player story-driven experiences, despite their continued value.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Yeah, I'm not sure handing the exclusive Star Wars license to EA was a great idea. I mean, EA is huge and probably paid a lot for it, but I wonder if Star Wars will suffer from the lack of strong narrative experiences in games. I mean, it might not matter at all. The way Disney relegated anything outside the movies to the Legends moniker and is rewriting and relicensing the canon, it might allow them to better control the essential story beats, but I do think limiting Star Wars games to the kind of games EA is now making is troublesome. EA has largely abandoned single-player story-driven experiences, despite their continued value.

It is also part of that big budget ideal. Games are more expensive to make now then ever and the price tag has not increased so there is a need for these huge budget games to keep player retention and keep them spending. I understand why they do it, but I am an idealist in that I would think people want a single player game.

YouTube and Twitch have all but killed that idea though as everything that drums up business comes from streaming and let's plays and multiplayer is where that is at.

[dsheinem]

Isn’t there supposed to be a campaign in the new Battlefront?