EA - No Boogeyman

[MC]

Independent developer Valve is "happy to have that conversation" should the company be approached with a buyout offer, marketing VP Doug Lombardi has revealed.

That said, he noted that the independent studio behind Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, Portal and the Steam digital distribution platform is "doing pretty well" and is "really happy with what we're doing."

Lombardi also heaped praise on publishing partner EA, describing the relationship between EA and Valve as "really good," with Valve yet to see the fabled EA "boogeyman." id Software president John Carmack had previously said that Valve's positive experience with EA was a key factor in its decision to let EA publish id's Rage (PC, PS3, 360, Mac).

"We set up the deal so that it turned out that if EA was this evil empire, that it wasn't going to last forever," Lombardi explained to Gamasutra. "But it's turned out that all those scary stories--maybe some of them were true, and maybe some of them are history; I don't know--haven't appeared to us. We haven't seen the boogeyman."

"EA was very progressive about saying, 'We understand who you guys are. We understand what Steam is. We don't want Steam to go away,'" he continued. "Well, they might want Steam to go away, but they're not asking us to make Steam go away."

Source: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54037

 

[tolore]

It sounds like the WAR team is having a good relationship with EA as well.

 

[sub]

It'll totally suck if Valve gets bought by anyone. It'd result in Steam being exclusive to one publisher... I mean, I couldn't picture Activision, Ubisoft and Take Two wanting to put their games on Steam if EA owned it, you know.

 

[DiebytheSword]

As one of the many interesting things I've done, I once worked as a fitness attendant/lifeguard and DJ for Caesar's Pocono Resorts. While it was loaded with your typical wealthy people behaving badly, there were a few interesting people I met.

I was at the fitness room running a few duties, one of them was to act as a security guard for Lennox Lewis, who was training for a world heavyweight bout against Evander Holyfield at the time. While there, Lennox had a press junket, and EA was there to throw some crap around about a boxing game that was coming out. I met several of the Vice Presidents from EA, and I was fairly impressed with how nice they were. Many executives are pricks, I've known my fair share. I'm not at all surprised by this, since I probably met more than one of the guys/gals that Lombardi deals with. They were actually into the games they produced, and it wasn't that typical buisiness man tooting his own horn kind of care, but genuine I like this game, and I want to share it vibe. Sure they rush crap out and screw up often, but I really do think that besides serving their corporate bottom line, they actually try to make something the consumer will enjoy.

That kind of attitude is something that you need to become as big as EA has.

 

[Barney]

Sure they rush crap out and screw up often

At the expense of their workers social lives and welfare...

 

[Hibiki]

EA recently shuffled around some of their heads of staff and I think the CEO or someone up there stepped down over the whole debacle of worker treatment. According to tons of people from inside EA they said that ever since the new guy became CEO there has been a big shift in the working environment for the better.

 

[Barney]

That I didn't know. I only read an article, not sure when it was published, about how they kept people late and didn't even pay them for the extra work and other horrible things.

 

[Hibiki]

EA was like that before the new guy took over. That whole thing was the cause of the old guy leaving and the new guy taking his place and switching everything around.

 

[sub]

Right, the whole EA spouse thing. I think they got sued over it or the government investigated them for it. Probably both.

 

[guest]

I don't want to imagine EA pulling Valve's strings.. We'd end up with PORTAL: MOAR CAKE LOLOLOL expansions and the TF2 free patches would probably be scrapped and turned into an expansion pack instead.

 

[wheres_]

Yeah, I'd prefer no EA in my gaming soup please. I haven't bought a game published by them since I was old enough to realize what my games were made of.

 

[Sonic the Vampire]

Is that so?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games

You have missed out on a lot of games.

I believe EA is also publishing the half life franchise from this point forward, at least on consoles.

 

[wheres_]

AHAHAHAhahahahaha, man I went through that entire list.

I bought "Need for Speed: Something" for my little brother many years ago- but that is the extent of it...

I honestly never owned any other one of those games, and they're all terrible! The only game in there I'd ponder getting would be crysis if I got a new machine.

What a shameful, shameful library of titles.

 

[sub]

You're missing out on a lot of good games. EA isn't that bad anymore, save the boycotts for an actually evil company.

 

[wheres_]

List some good games from that wikipedia list for me then please.

 

[sub]

These are a few of the games I liked

Aliens Versus Predator
Battlefield 1942 and its expansions
Battlefield 2
Battlefield Bad Company
Burnout 3: Takedown
Burnout Paradise
Burnout Dominator
Command & Conquer
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath
Crysis
Fight Night 2004
Fight Night: Round 2
Fight Night: Round 3
Half-Life 2 (Vivendi published this at first, EA does now. If you buy through Steam, EA gets no money)
Half-Life Episode 1 (Just note that if you buy it through Steam, EA gets no money)
Half-Life Episode 2 (Just note that if you buy it through Steam, EA gets no money)
The Orange Box (Just note that if you buy it through Steam, EA gets no money)
Team Fortress 2 (Just note that if you buy it through Steam, EA gets no money)
Mass Effect
The Medal of Honor games were great when they first came out
Any Need for Speed game
Populous
Any Road Rash game
Shogun: Total War
Shogun: Total War - The Mongol Invasion
Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Sid Meier's Antietam!
Sid Meier's Civil War Collection
Sid Meier's Gettysburg!
Sid Meier's SimGolf
SimCity
SimCity 2000
SimCity 3000
SimCity 4
SimCity 4: Rush Hour
SimCoaster
SimCopter
SimFarm
The Sims
The Sims 2
Skate

Controversial ones
Battlefield 2142
Battlefield Vietnam
Black and White
Black and White 2 (to a lesser extent)
Command & Conquer: Red Strike
Command & Conquer: Renegade
Command & Conquer: Theater of War
Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge
The Godfather: The Game
Any of the Madden games
The Lord of The Rings game (?)
The Simpsons Game
We Love Katamari

The list on wikipedia seems incomplete, but I'm not sure. In any case, there are some amazing games coming out of EA in the future, such as Spore.

 

[Hibiki]

Not to mention Spore and the other cool stuff coming out.

EA hate is sooo 2007

 

[guest]

EA hate is eternal! I still remember wasting my cash on those useless Sims expansions..

Spore is the only thing I'm interested in, but I'd much rather someone else produced it. It's already been announced that underwater cities are scrapped for an expansion pack at a later date, who knows what else they'll crop out and use later to post as a "fancy new feature!"

 

[Zeonix]

meh, i like a lot of ea's games. I don't care what people say. Sure they're a money hungry bastard company, but what company isn't?

ikea .

 

[Hibiki]

Are you actually trying to say that Ikea makes good stuff and does not pump out tons of ****ty furniture to make tons of money with no regards to the customer?