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Industry reacts to "EA Louse"

ETA: EA Louse claims they're about to be dismissed from BioWare Mythic (and we can infer that they're in the art department, although we don't know in what position), the studio that produced Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Among other claims in the blog post (like the one about Star Wars: The Old Republic costing EA $300 million in development so far), Louse says that the game failed due to incompetence of their superiors.

1) The media: (Mostly) hated it

Gossip is fun to write about, but with no verifiable facts on which to base a straightforward report, most media sites like Gamasutra, Kotaku, and Joystiq avoided EA Louse (so far). As of press time, only Develop, 1UP, and VG247 picked up the blog post to run as a rumor story around some of EA Louse's more outrageous claims about layoffs and EA's development costs.

2) The developers: Hated it

Count on God of War developer David Jaffe to let loose wherever he sees injustice. Rather than coming down on EA's management, however, Jaffe sides with the so-called "higher-ups" EA Louse calls out in his original blog post. "What the f*** is it about making games where it brings out the worst, most immature, most obnoxious sides of certain types of people on a team?" Jaffe's blog post reads. "Everyone thinks they always know better than the people in charge."

3) The publishers: No comment

We reached out to EA for comment this morning and discovered that its public relations arm was unaware of the post. After waiting for publicists to see the material in question, we received the following response from Tammy Schachter, vice president of public relations: "Sorry but we don't respond to rumors or anonymous blogs." Other larger publishers, notably Activision, have also avoided public comment.

4) The audience: Loved it

With over 600 comments less than 24 hours after its posting, it's clear EA Louse struck a chord with people. Though there's no definitive explanation for what that might be, we have some ideas. First, notice how EA Louse has about four times the number of comments the Wives of Rockstar San Diego blog letter generated on Gamasutra in January. Comparing the two works reveals a pattern: Louse names names while the Wives speaks in general terms; Louse's post is easy to read and contains striking words like "f***," "fail," and "joke" while Wives are formal to the point of obscurity; Louse complains about a job they already lost while Wives complain about people who still have jobs.

You can check it out here if you want a link to the original EA Louse blog but how quickly do the EA fanboys forget how much of a douchebag EA is as a company.

You can bet your ass dice want that shit on steam.

The thing is, they still carry Games For Windows Live games, why?

This is very likely a far more complicated issue than the gamer pundits in this comment section are trying to lead others to believe. Don't buy into nonsense reasoning, people. EA and Valve probably both have very good reasons for sticking to their guns.

This is very likely a far more complicated issue than the gamer pundits in this comment section are trying to lead others to believe. Don't buy into nonsense reasoning, people. EA and Valve probably both have very good reasons for sticking to their guns.

man... remember when the 'new' EA was kinda cool?

man... remember when the 'new' EA was kinda cool?

allright guys here's the long and short of it  Ea is a corrupt corporate machine with no other purpose then to maximize profits with as much well-marketed shovel-ware as they can. (Dragon Age 2, Crysis 2) Then, once that's done. They are going to take the GOOD GAMES that people care about. Use these games to hold companies like Valve Hostage, basically saying "If you don't get of us as much of the  profit share as we wan't. we won't sell our game on you're network"   They know Valve is a company that actually cares about it's consumers, and are going to use the cries of the community (COD AND BATTLEFIELD ON STEAM PLZ) to force them into submission. Simple as that

This seems pretty clear to me. EA is betting heavily on Origin and in order to make Origin a success they need to but out the middle man aka Steam. Why exactly EA wants to do this though is completely unclear from what I can see.

I, for one, do not buy PC games unless they are connected through Steam. Learned this the hard way, as EA has one of the worst account infrastructure set-ups I have seen, and I won't ever be getting my games again.

Apple and EA are the cute chicks at the end of the block that put out but hate that everyone one goes there..... meaning good looking games you want to play but have too much crap to deal with in order to play with but everyone buys huge amounts and in record volumes.

@Kordesh said:

@Rowr said:

You can bet your ass dice want that shit on steam.

Yep, I'm sure they do. That said, their soul belongs to EA, and in true EA fashion they're going to exploit it for all it's worth. This is why the whole Origin thing is dangerous, because EA themselves are dangerous. A good dev house rises up with a few creative or high quality titles and then EA waves a money bag in front of them. Once they latch onto that money, EA just drags them to hell, and takes the quality of their IP and business practices with it. Hell, they tried to buy Mojang not too long ago. I don't even want to think of what would happen to Minecraft if they had accepted...

What you just wrote is essentially Infinity ward with Activision regarding call of duty. But i'm sure you realised that.

I would like to think dice are above being sucked down the same hole, but i had a then again i had a shitload of faith in infinity ward not going that way and here we are 3 shitty modern warfare sequels later - infinity ward a broken shell of a company.

It's all about money naturally.

@CosmicQueso said:

@The_Nubster said:

On another note, Gabe (and the direction he has Valve going in) is ridiculously positive. I can't believe how nice this guy is. No pointing fingers, no bad names, no praise of Steam; just, "There are issues between us and I understand that EA has the right do do it's own thing. However, it would be nice if they came back and I'm gonna try and convince them to."

Because it's just business, and Gabe's a business person. The only emotional nonsense that causes internet rage comes from fanboys who confuse Steam's brand identity with their own personal identity. Or something.

I get that it's all business, but Gabe Newell is a charming, funny guy who's done some pretty awesome stuff, like have a video conference with some high school students . He comes off as a nice, rational guy who isn't all corporate and cold. Even though his main interest is business, you have to have a passion to get places. I don't doubt that Gabe genuinely cares about the things he talks about. Of course, when it comes down to it all, it is business, but a truly talented author doesn't just write words for money. I think the same would go for anyone in any field.