http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/4/8149791/ea-closes-maxis-simcity-the-sims
This article announces the recent closure of the original Maxis studio by EA games. Maxis is responsible for games like Sim City and The Sims, and created many foundational games that built the industry we see today. The last we heard of Maxis was the failed launch of their new Sim City that was released last year. The game was plagued with launch issues, server problems (thanks to a surprise requirement of having to always be connected and poor PR. It was clear that the executives and producers at EA (the publishing company that purchased Maxis) required many unpopular features from the development team. When issues arose due to these requirements, EA tried to iron-hand their policy of no-returns, trying to force people to stick with a broken unusable product. When people started calling their credit card companies for returns, and the credit cards agreed the sale was fraud due to a non-functioning program, EA would delete the person's account with ALL their purchased games. Since then Sim City has floundered uselessly until the point where EA decided to close the studio (again, because of lack of performance caused by their decisions). This is just another of many studios to fall due to EA's mis-management. This shows the types of problems that arise when businessmen who have no idea how to make or manage games get into a position of power to put requirements on their employees. When all goes wrong, the only people who suffer are those that didn't have a choice. This is a problem across the industry as a whole, with every lead AAA developer mentioning how, at one time or another, they've had to manage the ridiculous demands of a producer that could end up ruining a game.
No comments:
Post a Comment