I think it's the fact that EA clearly want all new games to have GaaS subscription models, which severely limits the diversity of genres/ideas available to them.
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EA's struggles with Star Wars are mystifying to me
- Thread starter Umbrella Carp
- Start date
Not like I disagree, but man, the sheer ignorance of op of how hard it's to make good games, even obvious bets, is giving me a stroke.
Oh shit a new book makes him canon! I haven't read any SW books since Aftermath. Should go and check out the newer stuff.
He was mention on SOLO Tie in book
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Solo:_A_Star_Wars_Story:_Tales_from_Vandor
picked up BF2 the other day and am actually having a great time with it, but yeah the amount of content and variety of that content has been pretty disappointing. I almost wonder if working with Star Wars is way more annoying than we realize, like Disney making sure literally EVERYTHING goes through them or something.
This.
Several devs should have their take on the Star Wars universe just like Marvel games. We need fighting games, rpgs, action games, rts etc.
Picked it up last year and dropped it at the Luke mission. It plays so bad. Like a ps2 star wars game.
We aren't getting any of the weirder stuff like real time strategy (empire at war) or racing (episode I racer) again are we? The battlefront games are fine but some variety is nice.
I just want cool capital ship battles again!
WHERE ARE MAH STAR DESTROYERS
Disney needs to be ok with games being outside established canon and EA needs to not be the only publisher allowed to make Star Wars titles.
We've gotten a long line of pinball tables in Pinball FX2/3/Zen Pinball 2/Star Wars Pinball. Disney's re-released a bunch of the older stuff on consoles and PC, too.
I mean who else is equipped to make massive Star Wars titles in reasonable time frames? Disney or rather Lucasfilm clearly wants the games to be:
-Canon
-Have decent turnarounds likely for massive marketing push purposes
-Not be exclusive
Who else can do this? Cut EA a break. It's really not that bad.
Get Dice to fix the stuck in scenery issues that still plague every map in Battlefront 2, not just the new ones, and maybe I'll look on them and what they've done with the license more kindly...
...wait, no... that's a lie.
GaaS doesn't limit the genres and idea available. It increases them actually and allows more features and support models. Look at Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Ghost Recon Wildlands, singleplayer GaaS done right.
Hopefully there are some interesting video games in the pipeline, but with such a massive license granted for a comparatively short amount of time I really think EA should have had a clearer vision for what they could do with it. Five years on and we have two mediocre Battlefield-clones stuffed with microtransactions and light on content, updates and expansions on an aging (but well-received) The Old Republic, and Galaxy of Heroes (which can't really match the scope of a big-budget console title). Fallen Order could be the game to right this ship, but I'm worried it'll be too little too late. Game development takes longer than ever before and the clock is ticking on their exclusivity deal.
Though it's impossible for me to say where the blame lies, since I think any publisher would struggle with Star Wars. It's simply too massive a universe for EA to tackle on its own. Even so it did seem like there was plenty of potential in the early stages that was entirely untapped. Maybe Disney's oversight is too thorough, especially for story-heavy games like Knights of the Old Republic, but I can't help but feel like their looser approach before their deal with EA produced better results even if it made a few stinkers, too.
In any event, I really think Anthem would have done far better if they had simply used the Star Wars IP. I'm sure they wanted ownership of their own IP and that hindsight is 20/20 but damn that was a missed opportunity.
Though it's impossible for me to say where the blame lies, since I think any publisher would struggle with Star Wars. It's simply too massive a universe for EA to tackle on its own. Even so it did seem like there was plenty of potential in the early stages that was entirely untapped. Maybe Disney's oversight is too thorough, especially for story-heavy games like Knights of the Old Republic, but I can't help but feel like their looser approach before their deal with EA produced better results even if it made a few stinkers, too.
In any event, I really think Anthem would have done far better if they had simply used the Star Wars IP. I'm sure they wanted ownership of their own IP and that hindsight is 20/20 but damn that was a missed opportunity.
I mean thats good to hear and everything, but it has been years and years and all we have gotten is 2 battlefronts. Where is KOTOR 3, Rogue Squadron successor, Republic commando sequel, Jedi Outcast sequel, Shadows of the empire, 1313 revival. I am not saying you guys had to make sequels to old games, but there were so many gems that could have been used as a foundation for some truly incredible Star Wars experiences. I trust Respawn's game will be dope, but we need a lot more than that...we are Star Wars fans after all. That being said, keep up the good work <3
Speaking merely as a fan, its not like Lucas was making sequels to those games before the EA deal ... and btw they still can if they want to, nobody is stopping them (several non EA SW games on mobile). The people making the games are the biggest SW people Ive ever met so they have a vested interest in making these games the best they can be.
As a gamedev, it makes all the sense in the world to not make sequels to games other people made. EA should make their own creations within the SW universe and go from there. Im happy that my game (SWGOH) gets to celebrate all sides of SW and we can have stuff like our recent Darth Revan and Darth Malak events or be the first to have playable Bounty Hunter ships in a SW game
How about instead of looking for another similarly large publisher to take on the franchise Disney doesn't give over the rights to one company? The most successful Star Wars games of the '90s were farmed out to development teams who could do the games justice. Flight engine? Totally Games. FPS/TPS action? Raven Software. Arcade flight? Factor 5. RPG? Bioware/Obsidian. Arcade all-in-one? Pandemic. RTS? Petroglyph. And of course LucasArts themselves developed where they, too were strong. Each studio excelling in at least one area and delivering incredible experiences.
Instead of one company making awful decisions about what to make, LucasArts wisely doled out responsibilities to the studios who would do the game concepts justice. We probably won't get that again sadly, EA will be throwing money at them every time the license is up for renewal.
Instead of one company making awful decisions about what to make, LucasArts wisely doled out responsibilities to the studios who would do the game concepts justice. We probably won't get that again sadly, EA will be throwing money at them every time the license is up for renewal.
It's a popular theory. They certainly haven't been making friends with the gaming community.
They basically have the engine, mechanics and even loads of models already,
just do it,
People have begged for it for years, its an underserved genre and its got the Star Wars name.
It doesn't need to be a big AAA mess to sell well.
just do it,
People have begged for it for years, its an underserved genre and its got the Star Wars name.
It doesn't need to be a big AAA mess to sell well.
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Goddamn thats almost another presidential term O_o
At least we'll get next gen Battlefront 3. Hopefully DICE makes it good with a good lengthy road map to make the rest of the years go by.
I'd really like successors to TIE Fighter/X-Wing and a successor to Empire at War but I don't see either of those happening :(
X-Wing: Resistance and TIE Fighter: First Order would be amazing
X-Wing: Resistance and TIE Fighter: First Order would be amazing
EA has like one good studio left with Respawn. Combine that with their corporate culture of pure greed and not giving a fuck about quality and you end up in the trainwreck we are in now. Disney should have pulled the license from EA a long time ago. Give it to people that actually want to make video games and not interactive storefronts.
EA purchased the rights to the IP for video games on consoles, so the blame CAN be fully placed on the senior execs. I know game development is tough, but if they can't handle an IP like Star Wars, they should not have bought it in the first place (and yes I know it was the former CEO who put the deal in place, but still they have NOT handled the IP well).
LucasArts were able to pump out so many diverse Star Wars games because they were willing to publish externally developed titles in addition to their internally developed games. EA are quite capable of doing this too but seem to want everything Star Wars to be internally developed.
All i know is that releasing 2 mediocre online shooters in 6 years is far FAR too little to warrant an Star Wars exclusivity deal. They should have done much much more. Not just tripple-A, but also smaller games. The only relatively good SW game these past few years was a Lego game. That is saying something....
We're getting Fallen Order this year, so it'd technically be a game about every two years, which is about all you can really expect from any big publisher in today's world. None of them are going to abandon their own moneymaking IPs. And as mentioned before they did put out a successful mobile iteration, which is a challenge in itself to keep relevant 4 years later.
The dream games many of us have are highly improbable due to Disney's nature either way. And while there were a couple "golden eras of Star Wars games", having played through over three decades of Star Wars games, the majority were mediocre to bad.
Personally, I feel like we're headed towards a future where the only Star Wars games are mobile after the deal expires...
EA's current Star Wars situation is the result of a complex mix of ingredients:
- A pinch of bloated, overambitious AAA projects that don't "fail fast" enough
- A dash of forcing Frostbite everywhere it doesn't fit
- A sprinkle of Andrew Wilson's disdain for non EA-owned properties
- And an unexpected overdose of Lucasfilm being strict and over-controlling of every detail of their IP to a hamstringing degree
Im not into Star Wars but im pretty sure Battlefront II had a singleplayer campaign.
True enough - but at least EA is still trying, not just giving the fuck up.
Why can't EA have a small team make something like:
SUPER THE FORCE AWAKENS
SUPER THE LAST JEDI
SUPER THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
16bit games in the style of the SNES super Star Wars games. Lower cost, quicker time to complete, and I feel like those would sell well.
Additionally, just more games that aren't huge AAA executions would be nice.
To me, EA has had the license for about half a decade now and has put out... 2 battlefront games? I know there's mobile stuff, but as far as proper console games go... 2 games for a license in half a decade seems really underwhelming.
Edit - and I know you're not the end all be all voice of EA of course. Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.
And FWIW, I like Battlefront 1 and 2!
I just want more diverse games from different teams.
This is correct. You don't lollygag willy nilly with an IP like that around. Even before the exclusive contract, SWTOR had a LucasArts person following around every development step that needed approval.
This is also correct, The mobile space especially is very underappreciated by a lot of self-professed hardcore gamers which is a shame because similar to PC games: Yeah there's a ton of shovelware but there's also a ton of good stuff barely anyone talks about.
What do you mean, BFV is a mess? EA has not done a good job with it.
Why do people assume developing Star Wars games is easy? Sure, you don't have to go through the hassle of developing an IP from scratch and spending tons of money to market it but that doesn't mean it's that straightforward. First of all, developers have to satisfy Disney first foremost and thus creative freedom is limited. Second of all, these deals are expensive which means you can only develop huge games that take a lot of effort. It's also apparent that EA isn't really sitting doing nothing with the IP. They had several studios in the last few years developing Star Wars games. It just proved to be very challenging.
EA has done a 7/10 job with the franchise so far, hopefully a couple more games, with vehicles that aren't f'n tokens :(
GaaS limits nothing.
It's a shame that I'm looking at games released about 2 decades ago in search of Star Wars dog-fighting action that isn't a multiplayer mode in a battlefront game
Fun to imagine what the space battles in something like Rogue One would look like in a modern Rogue Squadron style game, but at the same time can see how that genre would be pretty niche these days
Fun to imagine what the space battles in something like Rogue One would look like in a modern Rogue Squadron style game, but at the same time can see how that genre would be pretty niche these days
I don't think they would struggle getting a proper AAA SW game out there if they wanted to.
Problem is that they tried to force a money making model on the games before anything else.
This didn't work out and I guess they are testing the waters again with a more conventional Single player game.
I hope fallen order sells well and EA green lights more single player games of their IPs in the future instead of GaaS models.
Problem is that they tried to force a money making model on the games before anything else.
This didn't work out and I guess they are testing the waters again with a more conventional Single player game.
I hope fallen order sells well and EA green lights more single player games of their IPs in the future instead of GaaS models.
When LucasArts was by themselves, they were relatively hands-off for the Star Wars games outside of advice and guidelines.
Disney is the exact opposite of hands off.
Disney is the exact opposite of hands off.