EA has got to be one of the worst contributers to this by far.

They just tweak a few things and call it good for the year it seems on many of their games.

the CEO must not know what his company does huh.

Family guy is what kills people of boredom. If that show(EA) was original(new IP's), maybe it would be more popular(more units sold).

In before the same old, incredibly ignorant, "damn the man" rhetoric from-

Damn. Too late. Seriously, folks. Stop with the "Evil Empire" business. It got old about five years ago when there actually was a reason to dislike them.

I havent bought an EA game in years.. im not interested in their sports franchises, so, theres really nothing for me. What else do they have.. nothing?

He's right about the never finishing games things, at least for me, but disagree that games are getting harder to play. It just depends on who you are. For me, the only games I have trouble controlling are extremely complex ones, like RTSs. Everything else is natural.

And about boring games, yeah, there are a lot of boring games out there, but hasn't it always been that way? Back in the 80s and 90s, it seems like every other games as a platformer, which quickly gets boring, especially considering they're all copying each other. Today, it seems the same thing is happening to other genres like FPSs.

The core of the industry's not really any different than it was in the past. We just have more people now who play games (and can complain about things), and as such have wider genres and products to choose from.

Boogie. 'Nuff said.

40hrs a disc? is it just me or isnt that a rarity these days.... then again, i will admit that it's getting alot better in that department...

btw i love family guy! great pic!

He also urges publishers to experiment by looking beyond the typical $50-60 disc with 40-plus hours of play that "few players will ever finish."

What the hell is this statement. The only games that are 40 hours long are RPGs. Is he honestly saying the video game industry doesn't need RPGs. I agree that more originality is needed, but EA is guilty for this like many other developers.

Most games are 12-20 hours in length. Just look at all the next gen games. There are only a handful that are beyond 12 hours in length. Where is he coming from? Is he an idiot?

If you actually read the article. EA isnt guilty at all of what he is saying. he sint talking about original ips or games, hes talkinga bout games that have storys that are too long or are to hard to play. And since EA's games artn particularly hard, and few even have storys at all

But I still wouldnt buy any EA games, They dont really make any thing im intrested in

Geeze!

Not only did you end a sentence with a preposition, that same preposition closes out the entire post. I don't even care about the story's content, I'm offended.

"games that are harder and harder to play"

Which games are these? Game have gradually gotten easier, IMHO. Remember how difficult some of the NES and SNES games were?


"typical $50-60 disc with 40-plus hours of play"

The $50-60 is right on, but I think the 40+ is the exception. There are the RPGs, the GTAs, and the Zeldas, but there are more of the 10-12 hour games anymore. I don't think games that never end can really be figured into this (a.k.a. The Sims).

Love the family guy pic! That was one of their funniest bits!

EA has seriously impressed me and turned my views on them around with how they treated Wii. Even though I couldn't get into Madden 07 it was fresh and new, and 08, and Fifa and Mysims are really evidence they are trying new things.

Look at Sims on DS, while not perfect they haven't tried to do that kind of sims game in a while.

I feel that games really are getting boring. There's far too much travelling in recent games. In the 80s and 90s there were almost always an enemy somewhere on screen! But now you often have to walk through several rooms between enemies. I can walk around in real life, I'm not entertained by walking around inside a game.

I remember when CEOs used to have the common sense to not pretend they knew anything about the industry.

I'm waiting for Madden 08! I hear the helmets are WAAAAY more shiny this year!

I agree that by and large the industry lacks innovation on the scale that it needs. The thing is, with such high developing costs designers would rather stick to the tried and true then take a risk and chance losing thousands and thousands of dollars. There has to be an easier and less expensive way for developers to try new ideas without risking massive financial damage should they fail.

Also, that is a wonderful picture.

EA doesn't have to personally make an innovative game to encourage innovation. They can fund and publish innovative or original titles as well. And they've actually been doing that quite a bit. If you haven't realized that than you've just been looking the other way on purpose simply because it's EA, and that's pretty dumb. They've been putting a lot of money into new ventures like Boogie, Skate (while a skateboarding game isn't new, they are trying a very interesting new control scheme, and it probably wouldn't get as much attention if it didn't have EA's bucks behind it), and they're also putting a lot of weight behind Harmonix and Rock Band, which is cool of them.

EA is the new Ubisoft, and vice versa. And that makes me kinda sad :(

Wow, this is kind of like the Pot telling the Kettle to fuck off and die or something..

Pot...
Kettle...
Black...

GTA is a short game. It just has a bunch of useless shit that people do for no reason. You can easily finish GTA games in 12 hours.

In other words, why spend an enormous amount of cash when you can rake in gold for a hell of a lot less. Right?

I can't handle this! Why is EA saying and doing all these good things? First they make all these Wii-exclusive games with experimental (but solid) control schemes, and now they're telling the rest of the industry that they're getting stale! I mean, I know they're just hopping on the Wii's rocket train to Cashville, but still... my brain asplode!

"boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play."

Lots of attention paid to that quote but no mention of this one?

"For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat," he says. "There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before."

Okay EA, I will be looking out for Madden 09 and Need for Speed: Drift Wars

Oh the irony.

It's like a chain smoker complaining that too many of his friends have lung cancer.

Right ... nothing new since 2000 .... just sequels and boring sh*

*sigh*

I don't mind a game that is 'hard to play', as long as it isn't boring as well. Shooter games are all pretty much 'Same game, different background', and RPG's are too based to repetition.

Take games like X3, etc. It's a good little space trading game in it's own right, but it really could have done with a little bit more effort at viewing the game from the players' perspective, rather than the developers' one. I'm pretty sure the heart of the trade Engine in that game dates back to the original 'X - Beyond the Frontier'.

In part I blame the 'Magpie' attitude bought about by the fact that Graphics cards seem to be becoming more powerful far faster than the rest of the gaming tech (And, after all, there's only so much you can do with sound), things like the Playstation 3 and XBox seem to care more how pretty the graphics are than how good the game is. Even the Wii relies heavily on 'gimmicks', though, gameplay wise, it's a good attempt.

As long as people are attracted to shiny, companies will produce shiny.

Terrific. Thanks, Wii.