Thyroid

EA drops new IP

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Marek makes a good point. It's also good to remember that EA pretty much does this all the time, pretty much every year. Maybe not in such numbers, but pretty close; I can't tell you how many times I've heard of EA burnaby letting people go and a few months later rehiring them because not paying people to sit around for 3 months is cheaper.

Also the economy. Whatever you want to believe about that and however EA is actually doing with it, this is a way to save money and if stockholder asks them what they are doing to ensure profitability with a violent economic climate they can point to this.

Saves money, keeps people happy, is a bullet point to mention in the next finacial statement; all pretty well and good. Also I get the sense when your as big as EA or activision you adopt a Fox strategy of business where "If it's not the Simpsons, we'll cancel it" meaning they want their 1-2 million copy sellers, they aren't in the business of putting out the 200-800k stuff.

Another point on Mythic, since it took a hit, they pretty much had this planned right around when they bought Bioware so we can't really seem too surprised.

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I don't know if the real story here is "EA has problems because gamers don't buy new IP". You really think that because Dead Space and Mirror's Edge didn't sell gazillions they're now firing 1,500 people (following 1,000 layoffs about a year ago)? I think you should be careful not to oversimplify.

Also remember that EA successfully launched Army of Two, Spore, Skate as new IP franchises.

EA is one of those very large oil-tanker-size company that's been trying to re-calibrate itself since around 2007. I don't claim to have the complete picture on why they're not doing so well right now but I strongly suspect the picture is more complex than this thread makes it out to be.

You're right, oversimplifying is tempting. A $300 million loss within a single quarter probably isn't attributable to Dead Space.

But I still think the reason they're backing off the "new IP" bandwagon is largely that it doesn't work as a large-scale business model. As I mentioned earlier, we've seen at least two publishers try it before, and then turn away from it as soon as they could, reporting huge financial losses.

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You're right, oversimplifying is tempting. A $300 million loss within a single quarter probably isn't attributable to Dead Space.

But I still think the reason they're backing off the "new IP" bandwagon is largely that it doesn't work as a large-scale business model. As I mentioned earlier, we've seen at least two publishers try it before, and then turn away from it as soon as they could, reporting huge financial losses.

I wonder if they keep doing it in such a binary fashion because of the good PR they get from the more formidable new IP wave? As far as big publishers are concerned, they never seem to find a happy place between trying out new IP and harvesting the old ones.

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Wasn't the whole point that they were trying to do both? Keep putting out the same old mass-produced and massed-selling crap but also fund the original stuff that had potential to become a breakout hit. It's the same philosophy as 20th Century Fox setting up Fox Searchlight Pictures to release non-mainstream stuff.

So here's my question: Is EA cancelling the original IP because they expected it would sell better? If it didn't sell well, is that a mark against the games, the way they were marketed or just that EA are bad at making predictions? (By the latter, I mean that they would have been happy with a game that sold 600,000 copies if they'd been expecting it to sell 500,000 copies rather than assuming that every single game would sell in the millions.)

Also, are they dropping all of their focus on original IP, or just some of it that they thought didn't have as good a chance of success?

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Wow. Did they really expect Brutal Legend to sell 2m copies...? And it sold, what, 446,668? (According to video gameCharts.) :-/

It has been out for exactly a month. Isn't it too early to say how much it sold?

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It has been out for exactly a month. Isn't it too early to say how much it sold?

Indeed, I still haven't bought my copy, because I still haven't bought my PS3.

I blame torchlight.

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It has been out for exactly a month. Isn't it too early to say how much it sold?

Month-one sales are pretty critical when it comes to a publisher determining the success of a game, so in the context of this conversation not really. It does seem that Brutal Legend isn't the massive hit EA was hoping and marketed for, although Schafer games do tend to have a really long shelf life so EA may still turn a profit. It doesn't have the long-term sustainability of some games though, so it won't be a magical LittleBigPlanet-esque recovery.

The sales really aren't too bad, though. It seems quite a few games you'd expect to have sold well in October didn't, including DJ Hero which sold even less than Brutal Legend.

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It seems quite a few games you'd expect to have sold well in October didn't, including DJ Hero which sold even less than Brutal Legend.
That's interesting!

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The sales really aren't too bad, though. It seems quite a few games you'd expect to have sold well in October didn't, including DJ Hero which sold even less than Brutal Legend.

Take that, Activision!

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Month-one sales are pretty critical when it comes to a publisher determining the success of a game, so in the context of this conversation not really. It does seem that Brutal Legend isn't the massive hit EA was hoping and marketed for, although Schafer games do tend to have a really long shelf life so EA may still turn a profit. It doesn't have the long-term sustainability of some games though, so it won't be a magical LittleBigPlanet-esque recovery.

What's weird is how poorly it's done outside of the US. Mirror's Edge sold almost double of what it did in the US, worldwide (excluding Japan). Brutal Legend seems to have done nothing in Europe...

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What's weird is how poorly it's done outside of the US. Mirror's Edge sold almost double of what it did in the US, worldwide (excluding Japan). Brutal Legend seems to have done nothing in Europe...

Is metal an American-centric phenomenon? Perhaps that could explain the trend.

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No, metal is very much a big thing in Europe — particularly England, which is where a lot of the genre's foundations were laid and where three of the game's main voice actors come from (Lemmy, Halford, Ozzy).

I'm also surprised by the relatively low sales here, but then I haven't seen that much in the way of aggressive marketing here to the extent that has been done in the US (chat show appearances, frequent TV ads, etc).

Not to say it hasn't received a lot of love from EA, but going by the failure of DJ Hero which had loads of marketing it seems something's in the air at the moment and a game needs more marketing than usual to even sell decently. Quite a few big games like Guitar Hero 5 and Need for Speed have had unexpectedly low sales during the last month.

Maybe all that talk about the Modern Warfare 2 effect was justified after all. :erm:

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Metal is also pretty big in Germany, more so than England. From what I understand the Nordic countries are really into that sort of thing too.

Thanks for the link, Marek. I enjoyed that article a lot, it put the situation in context for me. Having said that, I still fucking hate gamers :oldman:

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Is metal an American-centric phenomenon? Perhaps that could explain the trend.

The first country i think of when i hear the word metal is Finland.

I suppose it depends on the kind of metal you are into.

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No, metal is very much a big thing in Europe — particularly England, which is where a lot of the genre's foundations were laid and where three of the game's main voice actors come from (Lemmy, Halford, Ozzy).

I'm also surprised by the relatively low sales here, but then I haven't seen that much in the way of aggressive marketing here to the extent that has been done in the US (chat show appearances, frequent TV ads, etc).

Not to say it hasn't received a lot of love from EA, but going by the failure of DJ Hero which had loads of marketing it seems something's in the air at the moment and a game needs more marketing than usual to even sell decently. Quite a few big games like Guitar Hero 5 and Need for Speed have had unexpectedly low sales during the last month.

Maybe all that talk about the Modern Warfare 2 effect was justified after all. :erm:

Might be a question of audience maybe ?

Who is really into heavy metal and plays video game vs who is really into rap music and wanna play saint's row and so on.

Also, I would say that Brutal legend is pretty light and cartoony for a heavy metal thing, it has the open-audience look of wow but the content of a satire if you will of the metal world. But that is me pulling things out of my ass and Vimes wouldn't want that.

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As a purely personal observation, most metal heads I've ever known (90% of which from college) are well into games.

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The idea of "original IP" being the basis for a sustained business model at a large video game publisher is a nice one, but ultimately a false one.

This reflects more badly on us as consumers rather than them as producers I think.

We (as in consumers) are too easily talked into buying the same old shit, so therefore they keep on pumping it out, as it's cheaper to produce (I imagine, with no real internal knowledge, but you'd be able to re-use at least some assets hopefully), and more people will buy it without thinking.

This makes me sad.

[Edit]Looking back, this has probably been said already in a different way. In my defence, I forgot to look at pages 2 and 3 before blindly shooting my mouth off, internet style. :getmecoat

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The first country i think of when i hear the word metal is Finland.

I suppose it depends on the kind of metal you are into.

Man, Finnish metal sucks balls. But yeah, a ton of people here love metal. Perhaps Tim Schafer is the only person to be both a metal fan and a gaming fan.

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it has the open-audience look of wow but the content of a satire, if you will, of the metal world.

I'd been wondering the same thing. If metalheads saw this as taking the piss out of metal would they steer clear? I think Spinal Tap is really popular amongst metal fans, and that really is taking the piss, so maybe not. Not sure :erm:

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Man, Finnish metal sucks balls.

Apocalyptica

Ghost Brigade

Before the Dawn

Eternal tears of sorrow

Insomnium

Nightwish

Kalmah

Children of Bodom

Sonata Arctica

Stratovarius

Wintersun

Shape of despair

Rapture

etc.

Finland has a good amount of quality metal.

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I'd been wondering the same thing. If metalheads saw this as taking the piss out of metal would they steer clear? I think Spinal Tap is really popular amongst metal fans, and that really is taking the piss, so maybe not. Not sure :erm:

Naw. Like you said, Spinal Tap rips heavily into the stereotypes of metal bands but they're also liked by metal fans (and metal bands). Schafer said it several times that it was his intention to acknowledge the eccentricities of the genre while still honouring it, and I think (in the same way School of Rock does), it succeeds. I mean, you're still driving through the world listening to metal tracks and unlocking them.

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Finland has a good amount of quality metal.

Oh yeah? Name one band ;) I just get bored by the big names like Sonata Arctica whenever I happen to hear a song by them. But I'm not a metal head.

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