he Spy wishes to entertain the
possibility of publisharmageddon:
the lesser-known cousin of the
indiepocalypse. As Bungie breaks
free from the grip of Activision
and there’s talk of change at the
top at Blizzard, there’s a case to
be made that this will be the year
that cracks form in the industry’s
old powerhouses. In particular, let’s consider the
uncertain future of EA.Buoyed year-on-year by vastly successful sports games
andThe Sims, it’s nonetheless been years since the
California giant turned out an unqualified smash hit. The
launch ofAnthemfeels like one last test for a set of
guiding principles that were put in place several years ago,
but have yet to make anybody happy. They go as follows:
turn every game into a rolling service, own every part of
the licence, and build it all in Frostbite.
These principles likely looked like savvy business a
couple of years ago. Indeed, they’ve worked for the
Battlefieldseries – but then again it feels like they were
designedforBattlefield, a series that has always suited the
‘game as service’ model and,
as a DICE game, gets on
well with DICE’s engine.
Consider instead the
damage that has been done
to BioWare. It has struggled
twice to overcome
complications introducedby the Frostbite engine (getting away with it for
Inquisition; less so for Andromeda) and has lost much of
its old school creative leadership over the last few years.
Anthem is a promising game – The Spy hears positive
rumblings, at least – but what it fundamentally represents
is a compromise between this new EA monoculture and
the sorts of games that BioWare is known for. This is not
something that anybody outside of EA wanted. It is an
entirely self-set challenge. And if it fails, and takes down
BioWare with it, there will have been no good reason to
embark on the attempt.DARK SIDE
Then there’s the matter of Star Wars. What must have
seemed like one of the best deals in the industry a couple
of years ago now appears to be an albatross. Visceral’s
open world Star Wars game has been quietly canned –
again! – despite being the only part of EA’s Star Wars
offering, other thanBattlefront and a few mobile games, to
achieve a public showing. Lucasfilm is notoriously
protective, but The Spy suspects that EA has given itself a
problem in this regard too: Lucasfilm has the right to be
cautious when theBattlefront II loot box fiasco effectively
smashed the words ‘Star Wars’ and ‘gambling for children’
together all over the mainstream press. What else can you
trace that bad press back to, if not EA’s over-investment in
the service game model?
The Spy believes there’s a serious upheaval on the
horizon: perhaps the loss of the Star Wars licence, perhaps
the sublimation of BioWare into EA proper, perhaps both.
If that sounds far-fetched, consider how deeply ingrained
EA’s flaws have become in the psyche of the gaming
community. The ‘worst company in America’ narrative,
sustained by forums and YouTubers at the expense of the
people who do the day-to-day work of creating EA’s
games, may end up being the thing that brings about the
end of EA’s preeminence –
because while it has built
principles to create and
retain customers, it’s failed
to take any steps that might
win them back some fans.
Spy out.
The Spy1
World of Warcraftlaunched in 2004
andmadealotofmoney.Other
publishers looked at all the money and
asked, ‘But what if it was ours?’ And so the
late-’00s were awash with also-ran MMOs.
Five years intoWoW’s dominance, PC
Gamerroundedupthebestoftherest.
ManyoftheseMMOsarestillalivetoday,
albeit as free-to-play monstrosities with
just a handful of players.3
PC gamers may remember being
horrified by Dragon Age: Origins’
pre-release trailer, which was set to
Marilyn Manson’s This Is the New Shit
presumably because a marketing man
weaned on a diet of cover shooters saw a
tactical RPG about wizards and got scared.
Fortunately, Evan’s chunky PCG preview
did a much better job at explaining why
BioWare’s world would be worth our time.(^2)
Hey, look at
that, a Tot a l
War game on the
cover. How times
have changed. An
Empire: Total War
review was the star
of the issue,
earning an
enthusiastic 94%.
ISSUE
198, March 2009
ON THE COVER
Empire: Total War
IN THE CHARTS
The Fear – Lily Allen
T
This month in... 2009
ANTHEM IS A PROMISING GAME
- THE SPY HEARS POSITIVE
RUMBLINGS, AT LEAST
THE SPY
The Spy sometimes
wonders if
megacorporations
were a bad idea.
NEWS | OPINION | DEVELOPMENT
BUT WHO WATCHES THE SPY?
The Spy