Electronic Arts... & the Devil

[NeoDevilbane]

I read a post in a recent thread on this topic and wholeheartedly agree - Westwood did go to shit when they fell under the Electronic Arts umbrella.

And you know what? It's not the first time EA has pulled this shit.

Remember a little series called Wing Commander? Remember a little company called Origin? If you do, you're an old-skool hardcore fan, and I applaud you. If you don't, it's the fault of Electronic Arts.

Here's what happened (note the similarities to when Westwood fell under EA)... Origin made both the Ultima and Wing Commander series, two VERY highly esteemed single-player series. Wing Commander was regarded as BAR NONE the top space/sci fi war game series of all time, WC3 being the highest grossing game of the genre ever. WC3 came out, WC4 came out, WC: Prophecy came out, and then... WC faded away. Why? Electronic Arts fired the entire Origin team involved with Wing Commander after Chris Roberts (the creator) left for Digital Anvil so that EA/Origin could develop Wing Commander Online, basically the Wing Commander equivalent of Ultima Online. Soon, EA made the announcement that Origin would become an online-only company producing online-only games - OK, fine. THEN... EA makes the decision to CANCEL Wing Commander online because they felt it would too heavily be competing with Ultima Online... and since Origin is now an online-only company, we will NEVER see another Wing Commander game.

Origin's motto had always been, "We Create Worlds." Electronic Arts unwritten motto has always been, and will always be, "To hell with the fans, if there's a market unexploited, we will milk it dry and then move on to something else unexploited."

There's an entire fan base numbering over 500 (in the WC Aces club alone) that to this DAY still religiously play the Wing Commander series, write highly organized fan stories, and create fan tech to continue the Wing Commander universe. Don't believe me? Check out www.wcnews.com or www.wc-aces.com.

Basically, it's no surprise to me what's happened to Emperor and Dune in general, the lack of support, TOTAL lack of marketing (seriously, I'm as much of a hardcore Dune fan as there can be, but I literally didn't realize Emperor: Battle for Dune even EXISTED until I found it in the bargain bin) under Westwood direction as long as it's been under EA... because, simply, whenenever a company makes EA its parent company, that company dies and whatever "company" it is that continues its name (Westwood, Origin, or whatever company EA buys out next) no longer bares any passing resemblance to the former entity.

Origin Systems, Inc., rest in peace, Westwood Studios... rest in peace, too. You'll be missed.

- Neo

[Terror]

yup. Westwood has indeed become less interested in their fans and stuff since EA. Damn EA assholes

[Anathema]

*Starts making circles off garlic around house while muttering quotes from the bible.*

You will not get ME, you EA demons!

[Timenn]

I'm sorry that I didn't know Westwood very well before Dune2000 (while takeover), only from Dune II, and C&C and RA. But I didn't bought them, mostly played by someone else...

[Edric O]

I have been saying this for many months now:

Westwood is dead.

Rest in peace, my favourite company. :'(

The bastardised zombie that now bares the WW name is an isult to the memory of the true Westwood.

[Anathema]

I decided not to spend another buck on WW after they destroyed the official Emp boards. Won't need C&C Generals either, I'm going to buy FA: War over Europe, wich looks better anyway.

[exatreide]

*Stands ontop of platform. one row of 10 and one row of 11 to each of his sides.

"Westwood. You were the best RTS company in your day. you created some of the best strategy games in history. Command and conquer. Red alert. Red alert 2, emperor battle for dune. Just to name a few. You however were baught out by the EA demons. They forced you to abandon your fans,leave your jobs. quit your families. They betrawed you, and they betrawed us. We will miss you westwood. you creater of red alert. you creaters of command and conquer. you creaters of dune II.

God bless you westwood, and may the shi-hulud bless you.

In your memory. I present the 441 las gun salute. presented by the fourth saudkar legion. second division, third battalion, second company."

"READY!"

"Aim!"

"Fire!"

A satisfying ping was hurd as the las guns fired into air.

441 times.

For you westwood. For your memory. May you rest in peace. Bi La Kief.

[DjCiD]

the all would only fire once if there were 21 guns. if the fired 21 time each youd have a 441 gun salute.

tradional you would have 3 guns fire 7 times or the oppisite 7 guns fire 3 times.

but you could have 21 guys firing once or one guy firing 21 times i guess ;D

[exatreide]

Emperor deserves a 441 gun sulute....

fixed it ;D

[DjCiD]

that it does ;D that it does 8) O0

now for abandoning the game they (WW, EAP, EA, or whoever was responisble) should also be shot that many times :P ;D

[exatreide]

I said they shot.

i should have mentioned they were shooting at the EA command blimp...

which is now a flammming rec in the middel of the adriatic sea.

[DjCiD]

lol i just noticed your edit up there ;D

[Terror]

mwah, a nuke would do. Westwood is infested by EA chaps anyway. Nuke em all i say

[RequiemXi]

This has happened to ALOT of companies unfortunately. They get bought up by larger companies, or lose all the people that MADE their "classics".

PS - Wing Commander just rocked, period. I've only played up to 3, cuz now the latter few are kinda hard to find :( . Check out the books too! Even if you're not necessarilly a Wing Commander fan, they're great sci-fi space combat goodness.

[PToN]

WOW WC i remember that, i still have all the CDs for WC3, WC 4 and WC: Prophecy. And i started with WC because i played WC for SNES and i fell in love with the game. They did came out with a version that allowed Multi player WC: Cover Ops or WC: Gold one of those 2. I like all of them i ve been looking for a game like that since the WC project was cancelled BY EA and no luck in fact i ll never find a game like that one. BEST GAME EVER WC with EBFD ;)

[NeoDevilbane]

Unfortunately you're wrong, there never was any "WC Gold" or "WC: Covert Ops" that allowed multiplayer. You're probably thinking of WC: Prophecy Gold (collecting Prophecy & Secret Ops) or just WC: Secret Ops, the more-or-less add-on to Prophecy you could download for free from Origin before it was collected in WC: Prophecy Gold.

Origin WAS planning Wing Commander Online/Privateer Online (depends on who you ask, it was going to be called one of those two things), but prior to that they were planning the eventually-axed Wing Commander: Strike Team... supposedly it would lean toward an "extreme multiplayer experience." Before that, Prophecy was advertised to have a multiplayer function, but sadly as the development team's deadline closed they couldn't deliver the multiplayer shit. Putting Secret Ops on the web, mission by mission, for free was Origin's way of making up for that, so they said at the time.

Anyway, the ONLY way anyone could EVER and probably WILL ever play Wing Commander multiplayer is with the old-skool Wing Commander: Armada game, that came out before WC3 even came out. And that was just modem-to-modem, no elaborate network system like Westwood Online or anything... if you knew a buddy's phone number and wanted to play a quick fighter-vs.-fighter game in WC:Armada and he was ready to receive your call, you could play but that's about it. Cool at the time.

- Neo

[Frodo]

i hate westwood, the devils.

[Terror]

I do not hate westwood that much. I hate EA trough the bone though

[Frodo]

yes, but ea's sports games for the consoles are good though.

[RequiemXi]

Well, there IS a game that is very similar in style to Privateer. Its called Tachyon : the Fringe, put out by Novalogic, and it DOES have multiplayer. The game actually reminded me alot of WC. Unfortunately, eventho the multiplayer stuff is actually pretty well executed, there are some gameplay issues that serve to make it much less enjoyable.

You could probably find the game pretty cheap, and even without the MP stuff its still a fun SP romp.

[Anathema]

Maybe it was EA that infected WW, but that doesn't change the fact that WW is now a bastard company too. Nuke'm both.

[PToN]

Unfortunately you're wrong, there never was any "WC Gold" or "WC: Covert Ops" that allowed multiplayer. You're probably thinking of WC: Prophecy Gold (collecting Prophecy & Secret Ops) or just WC: Secret Ops, the more-or-less add-on to Prophecy you could download for free from Origin before it was collected in WC: Prophecy Gold.

Origin WAS planning Wing Commander Online/Privateer Online (depends on who you ask, it was going to be called one of those two things), but prior to that they were planning the eventually-axed Wing Commander: Strike Team... supposedly it would lean toward an "extreme multiplayer experience." Before that, Prophecy was advertised to have a multiplayer function, but sadly as the development team's deadline closed they couldn't deliver the multiplayer shit. Putting Secret Ops on the web, mission by mission, for free was Origin's way of making up for that, so they said at the time.

Anyway, the ONLY way anyone could EVER and probably WILL ever play Wing Commander multiplayer is with the old-skool Wing Commander: Armada game, that came out before WC3 even came out. And that was just modem-to-modem, no elaborate network system like Westwood Online or anything... if you knew a buddy's phone number and wanted to play a quick fighter-vs.-fighter game in WC:Armada and he was ready to receive your call, you could play but that's about it. Cool at the time.

- Neo

yeha i now remember :) thanks for the info, i knew it was something with covered and one with Gold on its name, an dGold was supposed to have LAN gaming

[NeoDevilbane]

You're absolutely right - WC: Prophecy was SUPPOSED to have multiplayer... deathmatch, co-op, the works. In fact, if you look back in old PC Games or probably PC Gamer magazines from 1996-97 you'll see ads for Prophecy that advertised a "head-to-head or deathmatch multiplayer!" option. But, as I said, a deadline was a deadline for Origin, so Prophecy shipped with no multiplayer (albeit, with the faux promise that Origin would be developing a multiplayer WC that they honestly were, but got axed by the bean counters running the show).

That's EA for you though... once they obtain a company, EA dictates the deadlines of that company's games... whatever game is ready (or not) ships on the deadline. Patches? Bug reports? Bah, once the fucking bean counters come in and decide what's most cost effective or absolutely necessary to do to ensure profit, that's what you get. Sure, you'll get 1, maybe 2 patches, but only patches that fix things the bean counters decide are *absolutely necessary & critical* to ensure marketability. Ironically, since EA doesn't really seem to *grasp* marketing itself, they pretty much fuck themselves in the ass on every level.

- Neo

[NeoDevilbane]

Huh, maybe I'm just not understanding something about the fundamentals of a growing software company... but I'm just at a loss for why companies like Origin and Westwood would allow themselves to be acquired by a company like Electronic Arts.

Does anybody have any clue? I always thought as a company grows, makes successful games, it should become its own identity, its own giant in the industry. Why would Westwood, with an almost cult following of hits like C&C & Dune, suddenly be like, "EA! Yeah! Our company will definitely benefit from being bought out by them!" ???

The whole thing with EA just sounds counter-productive to ensuring Westwood's growth and I can't fathom how the bigwigs at Westwood on whatever fateful day it was decided to sell out to EA. Now EA runs the show... say, if tomorrow Westwood decided to make a MASSIVE multiplayer Dune experience their next game, EA can now have the power to step in and scrap the idea just because they could deem it too heavily competed with Ultima Online, another game they own under their Origin line. You see? No good could come of it. EA probably doesn't even care if their Westwood line bombs... if they have to let their WW line of games die to further what may one day prove to be another, more lucrative line, then that's what they'll do and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

- Neo