GameSutra : The tale of 'The Most Evil Video Game Corporation'

There are outputs, there are inputs, there is division and there is efficiency, nothing new, nothing fancy about that. Most of the discussion is usually undertaken from an academic perspective using  generic terms such as ‘tangibles’, ‘intangibles’ etc.  but once again, we were reminded of something which is, or rather was very close to our hearts, and by all gods it has been a pain to watch the events unfold over the last couple of years.

So, we are going to talk about the Electronic Arts. Yes, one of the largest publisher/developers in the industry. Situated in redwood, California, the firm has published over 900 games till date.

EA’s rise has been marked with game-changing (Yes, we are going to make pathetic puns like that, and there is nothing that you could do about it) events. Founded in 1982 the firm changed its name from Amazin’ Software (with an apostrophe!) to EA. Also the second CEO Larry Probst, faced with falling stock, had to change is stand on M-rated games and hence the firm gave us System Shock 2 in 1999, which proved to be a healing potion for the firm (I know it’s very late in the night and we aren’t even trying).

Basic structure:
The firm has what it calls ‘labels’:

EA Games (102 games published)
EA Sports (Need we say anything?)
EA Play (EA Hasbro titles)
EA Interactive (Mobile and Social Media)
Some numbers to impress you:

Revenue : $3.797 Billion (Declining)
Employees : 9370
Number of acquisitions till date : 39

Coming on to, why should anyone read this post?
Well, unless you have been living under a rock for the past 4 years you know just how badly EA has been criticized for its aggressive expansion policies. In fact the firm beat Bank of America, in the final round of “Worst Company in America” at The Consumerist, in 2012. This result came in the aftermath of the Mass Effect 3’s ending controversy; what could have been an awesome game with sheer adventure value as its prime value proposition was ruined by an ending which rendered the character choices nearly inconsequential, not to mention the innumerable plot-holes, but we digress. Its $10 online pass strategy failed, resulting in many disappointed fan boys, Origin was supposed to be a challenger to Steam and it is nowhere nearby.

So, the question is what is EA doing wrong here?

 1) Buying smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then giving us subpar games, destroying established franchises. Post-acquisition, being a larger firm EA meddled too much with the corporate culture of the acquired entity, forcing quick development of, let’s say, Ultima VIII: Pagan and IX: Ascension, which were criticized by the fans and the creator Richard Garriot alike.
Also, failure of EA’s walkthrough strategy of finishing the games, mostly resulted in the original studio taking the blame and EA went on to even shut down Origin and Bullfrog after Magic Carpet 2 tanked, resulting in massive layoffs, which again were a bad signal to the industry.

Till date 22 studios/developer subsidiaries of EA have been declared defunct, including bigger brands like Victory Games and Playfish.

Also, EA was criticized for acquiring 19.9% of Ubisoft’s shares, which was described as an attempt at a ‘hostile takeover’, although EA later sold off the reduced stake in 2010.

2) EA employees were overworked, to the extent of 100 hours per week, which invited class action lawsuits, which it had to settle, and had to cough up $30.5 million in compensation.  Recently there have been stories of reform and a supposed 13% increase in employee morale, but the bottom-line remains the firm has been struggling with the numerous projects that are in the pipeline due to rapid expansion, resulting in boring reboots/additions to franchise rather than genuinely creative games.

The market effect of this perception is rather clear. When EA offered a bid to take over Take-Two, the critics and analysts deemed it to be the best offer ever made and the deal was already being heralded as the largest deal in the video game industry, but when Take-Two declined the offer, the gamers heralded the decision almost unilaterally. The reason for this being that some of our favorite franchises (GTA and Bioshock) wouldn't be lost to EA, and we would not have to painfully wait for a new edition every year with minute alterations, which hardly make any difference.


3) EA was sued in 2008 for signing exclusive contracts with NCAA and NFL to use their images and names, thus forbidding other companies from doing the same (?) and again in the same year for using some players’ images in FIFA, without their permission.

4) Battling with declining profits, the firm included a program in its game Spore (2008) enforcing a lifetime machine-activation limit of 3 instances (What?!). While this was supposed to minimize piracy, on September 13, 2008 Spore was judged the most pirated game ever (Now I am just quoting torrent comments here, so there might be some hyperbole, but yeah, well every truth is relative). Not to mention Spore invited its own set of lawsuits.
The firm then changed its verification methodology to online authentication, which has made SimCity such a pain.


5) EA announced that they would shut down more than 50 multiplayer games in 2014, as; faced with capacity constraints the firm needed the Gamespy Multiplayer Server for the development of newer games.


The firm has defended its stand by putting up a rather polarizing argument about how the 'Anti-LGBT' propaganda has tried to defile the organisation's reputation after it started allowing the players to create players of every gender and sexuality in its games. but had that been the truth JC Penny's would probably win the above mentioned award hands down.

The question still remains, when organisations have a diverse pool of creative teams, what is the degree of control the center could exercise on the functional divisions. Video games units will always remain product oriented and no cross functional utilization could ever be possibly achieved in an acquired entity, and EA’s failed attempts to mix-up the work culture of the newly acquired entities with its own, have proven this once and for all, that when dealing with creative challenges, subjectivity and specificity of knowledge should be given the highest regard.

Although this seems like a grim picture, speaking from a strictly personal perspective EA has gained back some of the lost respect. The newer games have been rather innovative, the Dead Space franchise (apart from the sexist advertising) has been a success and the firm’s operating income has been rising.

Not to mention Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick’s desperately antagonistic remarks probably had something to do with it, as a new phrase hit the market in early 2010 “Activision is the new EA”.
Probably because they threw the guys who developed ‘Call of Duty’ out!

But that’s a story for another day.

References :
http://www.ea.com/news/we-can-do-better
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/EA-Responds-Accessing-Disc-DLC-Mass-Effect-3-40358.html
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/EA-Says-Some-Online-Passes-Supposed-Expire-37500.html
http://gamerant.com/ea-responds-activision-ceo-bobby-kotick-attacks-dyce-43139/