EA Games: Challenge Innovation!!

Electronic Arts have for years been viewed by many to be the most heartless, greedy and destructive producers in modern gaming. EA fall only behind Nintendo in terms of UK sales, but some would question the ethics of this financial success, and the apparent lack of originality and creativity involved. In recent months, however, EA have been attempting to turn it around, but can they escape the brush today’s gamers are painting them with?

      It is difficult to name a genre in which EA have not released a successful series of games in. In its last fiscal year the company generated net revenue of 3.665 billion dollars. Undoubtedly some reading this will ask; “So what’s the problem?” Well, for those who feel that video games are as much a part of culture as TV or music, it is damaging to see a producer hold such a strong share in the market while making no clearly innovative games. While EA earn such a massive yearly turnover, developers like Clover Studio, creators of the critically acclaimed Ōkami are dissolved due to lack of revenue. EA generally do not produce the sort of games which make the “Best Ever” lists, that is left to creative developers like Clover and Bungie, and of course the classic behemoths, Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Sega and more recently Sony. EA produce the sort of game we see every year with minimal changes if any. Medal of Honour, Need For Speed, James Bond, Harry Potter, along with countless other movie tie ins and the myriad of games made by EA Sports, all of these were created with one goal in mind. The method which has made EA the gaming leviathan that it is; get the same people to buy the same game next year. The company’s own CEO, John Riccitiello stated last year “For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There’s been lots of product that looked like last year’s product, that looked a lot like the year before.” He also acknowledged the fact that this could lead to games becoming less interesting than Facebook, not the attitude one would expect from the man behind one of the world’s largest game producers.

      Further to the issue of EA’s large market share, the company’s aggressive expansion has made many gamers view EA with less than enthusiasm. Their strategy for strengthening their hold on the gaming market often involves the takeover of a promising developer, and in some cases the destruction of that company if it is not immediately successful, as was the case with Origin, developers of the Ultima series. In 2004 many eyebrows were raised when it emerged EA had purchased 20% of the shares in game publisher Ubisoft, creators of the Rayman, Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia and Far Cry series. To date, however, no takeover has been initiated. A similar effect has been caused by EA’s purchase of licenses from sports leagues such as FIFA and the NFL, which makes it difficult for companies to compete in the sports genre, for which there is a huge demand.

      With these ideas in mind, it has been surprising to find that in the last year EA have attempted to shrug this reputation off. The release of games like Spore, Dead Space and Crysis in the last year have held great promise for the future, and the upcoming Sims 3 appears to have made large advances in gameplay and visuals. This has led to developers like id Software, developers of Doom and Quake to use EA as a publisher. However, with rumours rife about a possible EA takeover of 2K Boston (formerly Irrational Games), creators of Bioshock, it will be interesting to see whether EA will continue its domination policy, or if the capitalist developer can change its stripes and end the hatred felt toward it by millions of gaming fans who see it as the “Evil Empire” of the video game world. 

Byron Murphy