Lou Castle talks leaving EA for InstantAction

by Justin McElroy { Aug 10th 2009 at 4:58PM }

Even if Lou Castle's name isn't familiar to you, the franchises he's attached to certainly will be. Not only was he instrumental in EA's Boom Blox, the dude founded Westwood and was the driving force behind Command & Conquer. Now, Castle's left EA behind to run InstantAction, the browser-based portal that Castle says is at the vanguard of the industry's future, thanks to their experience with web development and social networking.

"So I had an opportunity to join a company that was already proficient in the parts I frankly don't have as much experience with," Castle explained to IndustryGamers. Of course, I have a lot of experience making products, and the company I'm joining has a lot of eager and talented people that could really use somebody with a little bit more experience."

Castle was most recently tied to now-closed EA Blueprint, built around the development of smaller, more social games. InstantAction said that, besides Castle's years of experience, they were mainly paying for the coolness of his name, which sounds like it would be perfect for a hardboiled newspaper editor that moonlights as a private dick with fists of steel and a nose for trouble. Can't say as we blame them.

Tags: ea, EA-Blueprint, instantaction, lou-castle

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

SpyderTaco (PSN: Ar4chNova89) @ Aug 10th 2009 5:04PM

I'll admit, I've taking a huge leap away from PC gaming because of my PS3. Even Steam can't revive what it once was (at least for me) - Not trying to flame.

But one thing that seems to be getting stronger over time is the concept of "free, web-based games". Places like Facebook are really thriving on this platform and Battlefield Heroes, while kinda knock-offish, is still a very solid experience.

SpyderTaco (PSN: Ar4chNova89) @ Aug 10th 2009 5:05PM

I've taken*

Levi @ Aug 10th 2009 7:29PM

Totally agree. I went from hardly playing console games during the PS2 era because I preferred PC, right back to console gaming with my PS3. It seems that big devs are porting console games to the PC this time around instead of PC to console. Anything that doesn't come to console first seems to be doing a simultaneous release between PC and at least one console.

I think it's partially the economy, for making people think about the better prices of the consoles vs gaming PC, as well as the tightening gap between PC and console experiences.

SpyderTaco (PSN: Ar4chNova89) @ Aug 10th 2009 7:34PM

Not only that, but some people are just fed up with having to constantly upgrade their PCs. That is usually the common argument, which is always followed by "omg i liek neva upgrade n i run crysis on max". The point is that we have reached a point where technology is evolving at a very drastic rate, and some people (me) would rather go with a safe bet like a PS3 or 360 than have to always stay on top of swapping out their hardware.

Levi @ Aug 11th 2009 6:25PM

that's a big reason I wanted to switch back over to console gaming - because consoles are a single development platform per console, compared to PC, where a developer has to create a very scalable engine that will work on a million different configurations. This means that there will be a lot of problems, it's just unavoidable. With consoles, the way it runs for the developer is the same way that it will run for the consumer.

Problem is, we've been shown that developers are sacrificing performance here and there for various reasons. Without citing examples, we have ports that run like garbage, as well as big name titles that sacrifice performance for prettier graphics. This is the kind of BS that PC gamers upgrade to avoid, but console gamers don't have the option. We can't stick another graphics card in our PS3's and run our games in SLI, for example. So now, we are getting stuck with no options for some games. Killzone 2 comes to mind for underperforming games for the sake of better graphics, and the ports of Ghostbusters and Orange Box to PS3 are great examples of really lazy ports.

I think console gaming has definitely tightened the gap between itself and PC gaming this generation, but some of the negatives of PC gaming seem to have made their way over the gap too. I guess that would be the point of this post. So, I've been bouncing back and forth from my console to my new laptop. I have Lost Planet Colonies Edition for PC and Lost Planet for PS3. LP:CE has input lag issues that exactly mimic those in Killzone 2... but the input lag is not existent whatsoever in the PS3 port.

Blank-Mage @ Aug 10th 2009 5:21PM

I played Fallen Empire: Legions (the one in that screenshot) for a while, I highly recommend it for Tribes veterans. The nostalgia will blow your mind.

blitzkrieg999 @ Aug 10th 2009 5:31PM

Playtribes.com will (most likely) make Legions pretty pointless. Instead of a Tribes clone trying to stay away from infringing on the old IP, its the original Tribes, based off of the original code (finally found in some Sierra storage closet!). Get yourself some of Andrew's enhancements and relive 1998

relaxeder @ Aug 10th 2009 6:03PM

Fallen Empire: Legions is pretty cool, I like to fire it up and play sometimes. It looks great for a browser-based online game. The gameplay is a little more streamlined than what the Tribes series offers, but its still fun.

I'm stoked about Garage Games resurrecting Starsiege: Tribes, I hope they eventually do the same thing for Tribes 2 as well.

360 OWNS PS3 @ Aug 10th 2009 6:43PM

Play rokkitball on the site, it is dam amazing. Best game on that whole site!

Damon @ Aug 10th 2009 7:12PM

Yeah. InstantAction. Well, i'm not saying the games aren't of good quality. I spent plenty of time with the mech action game and i find that fast-paced strategy game a very unique experience.

But the problem comes with the revenue system. Some of the people i fought in the mech game where ridiculously overpowered bcause they min/maxed their rigs with some premium items. AND you get hit with extremely intrusive adds in between games. One or the other, people. One or the other. I'll just stick with S4 league.