Will Wright leaving EA

If true AMEN that mega suck treat me as a prirate compagnie si feeling the squeze. Hope it falls thought the floor.

Hmm that link doesnt work.

1. It is true they are losing money (hence staff layoffs).

2. I got the impression from the msnbc article about it that he left for his own reasons rather than as a layoff.

3. I don't think EA would fire him, since he is probably one of their most profitable developers (what with the Sims and all).

After reading the article:

4: "EA will hold rights to develop games that come from the company." This means that he is essentially still working for EA, just as a slightly more independant unit. Rather than them paying his salary, he will be paid for his ideas when he comes up with them. This will likely be followed by EA butchering them and making them something icky.

Spore was the most disapointing game to me since MOO3, and Mr. Wright is "supposedly" suppose to be the king of strategy games (Spore was a coloring book).  Perhaps he is leaving to work on that new "Barbie Pet Rescue II" PC game. . .

Yes, Spore is probably the biggest disappointment in a long time. I first saw the E3 2006 pre-alpha build... and it looked amazing. Unfortunately, they took the great looking pre-alpha and turned it into a peice of crap. All it is good for now is kids under 10 and Sporn.

Although you gotta give them props for coming up with a new art form (sporn), albiet inadvertantly.

That's odd. Is anyone else having that problem? I can try to link it again...

I got that, too. But it also seems like he was "encouraged" by EA to do it, as EA will no longer be funding (at least not completely) his games anymore. Because Spore aparently cost about $30-40 million to make, so EA is glad to not have to pay for that anymore.

It wasn't a layoff, but I don't think that the executives at EA are sad to see him go. Even if they still have a partial say in his new company.

You must be kidding.  Maxis makes more money than any other department in EA.  Since he's still working for them, of course they aren't sad to see him go.

Spore and the Sims franchises are cash cows, it doesn't matter how much money they throw into development because they'll easily make it back.

EA's getting better.  I'm actually interested to see how this economic downturn treats them.  Either they will become SUPER strict or they will become a much better company than they are now.  (or the economic downturn actually will not effect them that much and the will stay mostly the same, but it looks like one of the other options)

Maxis makes more money than any other department except EA sports... which makes the most money.    Maxis is second, and while will wright IS maxis, the ignorant casual gamers that make up like 90% of the sims market base really don't care.  They likely don't even know who Will Wright is (my cousins sure don't. I wouldn't even be surprised if they couldn't even tell what part of EA makes the sims,)

 I'm sure they will just continue to pump out the sims marketing machine and make more and more money.

I'm happy that Will is leaving a big corporation, it sounds like his vision for spore was killed by EA and it was reanimated by EA into what it is, then there's Sim City Societies... Hopefully EA survives, it'd be terrible to have more people unemployed.

Oh yeah, EA Sports....yeah, forgive my blinders since I never have and never will play sports games.  I forgot about em.

Agreed.

I have to admit that I don't know the first thing about Spore other than that it looks awful and has SecuSuck on it. Still, if the pre-alpha looked so amazing and the end product was such crap, I get a certain feeling that the marketing division got a say in the development process, telling them that they have to make it appealing to a bigger audience. So they turned into a kiddie play toy.

Frankly I'm impressed that Spore was made at all, and that it worked as a game to the extent that it did. It hasn't had any lasting appeal for me, but it did have me grinning like an idiot on a few occasions.

I hope that, having made the technology and broken new ground, they will take it further.

hope Will'll keep desgning games (tough not at EA) i've had fun from his games >.>

i've always waited for Spore, it's pre-alpha build looked rly nice and couldnt wait for it's relase...  right now all i use is spore's creator... tough i get annoyed by how little parts you can actually use b4 the game says you cant use any more....got this Akkan design... just the hull tough, it wont let me add any more parts (that means no engines, whatsoever.. just the basic hull (+ bridge and that dome..)

maybe i should google for a (fix) that allows you to change the maximum parts to like x10 of it's current lvl -.- (not that it'll work online...)

As much as people love to bitch about EA, how many publishing labels actually make all that much money?  I don't like some of their operations but I'm all for success in American businesses right now, and EA (unlike several European publishers) hasn't been pissing me off.  They've gotten quite a few unique franchises pushed out that I'm really interested in since that new guy took over, and I'm impressed.

The only thing I give a great big 'meh' to is the Need for Speed franchise.  Just let it go already.

I'm sure I'll buy Spore once its got an expansion, it does interest me at the very least.  I've just got too much to play right now.

Honestly, some of this EA hate isn't deserved anymore. They've been making a real effort recently to produce more new games and less sequels. Did all those games work out? No. But that's exactly why companies like to produce a zillion sequels instead of innovating. I mean they picked up Brutal Legend when it was abandoned, so they can't be all bad. They're also backtracking on DRM.

What's really happening here is that Will Wright is leaving Maxis and going to another company that EA also owns (Wright and EA co-own it).

So Spore has sold 2 million, and cost $30-40 million.

I think typically devs see about $15 / unit on full-price items ($30 wholesale less publishing fees).  That means if every unit sold was at full-price then we're talking wholesale revenue of about $60 million ($30 * 2,000,000).  Split down the middle for EA and their RIO is $30 million.  Not too encouraging, probably only just covers their investment in development and marketing (if that).  The real winner is Maxis who probably only spent about $10 million on development of the product.  Thus they come out with a 200% ROI.

So this move is in EA's favour as investment is now 50-50 and ROI is now 50-50.

Of course the above figures come out a lot worse for EA in the red, and lessening Maxis's profits for non-full price sales.  I'd estimate probably 25% of sales would be < full price.

They will have to do a lot more work on their DRM before I trust them again. After the installation of unwanted software of my computer they will have to earn my trust and that will take a long time.

You should probably take note of the fact that a lot of the aversion against EA stems from the awful customer support and the lack of useful game manuals. And of course from it's statements about their customers rebelling against their DDRM schemes having to be all pirates.

As for their backpaddeling on DRM: I believe it when I see it... And even IF they do it's rather most likely just out of fear of more class action suits and resulting additional image loss than out of love and understanding for their customers.

*gag*

I can't believe I actually payed money for that peice of crap. Pointless, stupid, and nowhere near the awesomeness which I had expected from a Sim City title.

I'm not a big fan, but I'd likely buy one of their games if they got off there butts and made something 'new'.   Like another Mutant legue Football.   (I know that would technically be old, not new.  A new more child friendly IP would be fine, since mutant legue football wouldn't get past ESRB in this day and age, I just can't use that as an example.  But at least it isn't another maddan)

most of my 'ea hate' stems from the mistreatment of their employees and the obviously rushed quality of their games.   They've been improving here though, realizing I guess that if you give a good development team extra time and money you will get something better than the strictly modeled game, and your good employees don't leave on a moments notice.

I wonder if this change means Wright will not be able to do any Sim anything without EA's direct participation and approval--are the Maxis brands going with him, or is it just him? Either way, I'm still hoping that he'll get back to his old, pre-buyout vision of a suite of games that when played together might end up being SimEverything.

DRM crap aside, the main reason Spore disappointed me enough not to buy it is that I was hoping to see the game be a fusion of SimEarth, SimCity, Civ, and MoO/GalCiv.

I thought EA haved moved the rights to SimCity etc from Maxis to Tilted Mill?

Spore could have been Sim Earth for "all" - they failed, get over it.

It's not the designer fault, it's the dev team when switching chairs for profit or not.

Even assuming those figures are accurate (which I highly doubt,) Spores full sales chart hasn't been played out yet because it's still 'in development.'  Look at how many expansions Sims 1 and 2 had.  Every time an expansion is released (unless there have been quite a few already, but even then most likely...) the base game sells more copies too.  Over the lifespan of Spore they'll sell a ton of random sh...stuff.  The investment was well worth it.

RE Spore sales: this analyst believes that it will take EA five years --and a bunch of expansion packs -- to recover their investment in Spore.

Pretty sure that was just SimCity Soceties... which was so awful they had to create a bundle pack witht he older Simcity 4 to sell it.