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The games industry moves pretty fast, and there’s a tendency for all involved to look constantly to what’s next without so much worrying about what came before. That said, even an industry so entrenched in the now can learn from its past. So to refresh our collective memory and perhaps offer some perspective on our field’s history, GamesIndustry.biz runs this monthly feature highlighting happenings in gaming from exactly a decade ago.
What’s in a Name?
Electronic Arts has had reputation problems for a very long time.
We can trace them back to at least the ’90s, when the publisher acquired beloved developers like Origin Systems, Bullfrog Productions, and Westwood Studios. There were some post-acquisition success stories among those studios, but within a few years fans noticed that some of the talent they knew by name was leaving, games were getting cancelled, and the quality of the games that did make it to release was sometimes lacking.
All three studios were shut down or consolidated into the publisher’s larger operation. Westwood was gone in five years, Bullfrog in six. Origin lasted almost a dozen years, but the last few were focused exclusively on supporting Ultima Online even as it faded in relevance compared to newer MMOs like EverQuest.
EA’s reputation for ruining companies it acquires was perhaps a bit unfair — Tiburon, Maxis, DICE, and Criterion all exist and have enjoyed some of their biggest successes since acquisition — but Origin, Bullfrog, and Westwood had especially devoted fanbases to bemoan their fates.
While this industry has a knack for forgetting the past, it can be paradoxically great at holding grudges. And once that grudge is established, there’s going to be little forgiveness for any following transgressions.
Like in 2004, when EA Spouse vastly amplified the discourse around crunch by detailing terrible labor conditions at the publisher’s studios, with her partner working a mandatory 85-hour work weeks. EA Spouse herself, Erin Hoffman, would eventually work with EA on SimCityEdu, and in GDC 2013 session said the publisher didn’t get enough credit for internal reforms it had quietly made over the years.
Hoffman’s defense didn’t do much to improve the company’s standing. In 2012, an online poll on The Consumerist named EA the Worst Company in America. A couple weeks after Hoffman’s GDC session, EA defended its title, beating out truly loathsome competition responsible for massive oil spills, fraudulently foreclosing on people during the global economic crisis, and Ticketmaster.
EA beat out a strong field of contenders to retain its crown
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