EA Shuts Down Visceral Games

@mrcraggle: Westwood*

Linear games are fucked in the AAA market? Doom & Wolfenstein beg to differ. I guess you can't make a year long cash cow out of those games (unless you're willing to create multiple DLC packs for it, but that's way too much work.)

I guess it will be an always online game now with sidequests, character creator and coop missions. Also a lightsaber arena as deathmatch.

Jim sterling was right, again.

Time to add a new one to this:

@drdarkstryfe: Look to the indies, I suppose.

@ds9143: Let's not get ahead of ourselves, here.

Damn it. I get the feeling I know what this means.

So the next great wave of studio closures will come from an army of failed Destiny clones? Yeah. Sounds about right.

I miss 2008 EA, where they were willingly to try new things like Dead Space, Battlefield: Bad Company, and Mirror's Edge. It's saddening to see them going back to their old ways of killing off good development studios.

2 sides of the argument:

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Amy Henning is off the project.

Update: An internal email obtained by Kotaku indicates that Amy Hennig is off the project.

"A development team from across Worldwide Studios will take over development of Ragtag, led by the EA Vancouver team that has already been working on the project," the email says. "Steve Anthony will lead this team, and we will use much of the work that has been done to date by Visceral—the assets of Ragtag that have already been built will be the foundation of this new game."

Source: PCGamer

In the words of Isaac Clarke:

Very disappointing, they obviously had talent.

EA's really gunning to reclaim that "Worst Company" award aren't they.

On another note, EA's got the Star Wars license until 2023. So don't expect much more than Battlefront sequels this console generation.

Unfortunately this is just continuing long-established policy for EA. The president of EA Labels (at the time), Frank Gibeau, said way back in 2012:

Gibeau is very proud of the fact he has never green lit a single project that consisted solely of a single-player experience. He insists that every game EA publishes has an online component to it. His reason for doing this? Apparently EA has “evolved with consumers” suggesting he thinks this is what consumers want in every game.

You started seeing the first impacts of this policy on games like Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Both games from single-player franchises with superfluous multiplayer modes driven by lootboxes. ME3's mode (at launch) even compromised the single player if you didn't engage with it. It went on to kill Visceral's Dead Space 3.

It sounds to me like they're mutating this to be some kind of Destiny clone. While they do have Anthem coming, it's not Star Wars. I also really hope EA isn't using Mass Effect Andromeda's flop internally to justify this. I want single player games!

Publisher's need to start seeing that the majority who don't buy in aren't okay with their new business practices, even if the whales make them profitable. I think the critics need to take a larger responsibility for condemning anti-consumer practices in their reviews and game scores. We need to send publishers a clear message on all fronts, and stop giving these kinds of games a pass just because the core loop is good.

I was so disappointed when it was announced EA got the Star Wars license, we had such a good run of Star Wars games in the late 90s/early 2000s capped off with the original Battlefront 2. Then we had almost nothing for a complete generation, we had The Old Republic MMO, the lego games, and one or two random mediocre Clone Wars based action games clearly intended for kids. Guess we'll got another generation of more or less nothing great...

@meierthered: This is such a fucking bummer. Sounds like they are going to do their best to Frankenstein this thing together into whatever it's going to be and that just sounds like a real depressing state for a game to be made in.

So Bioware is totally getting the axe when their Destiny-like completely fails to capture Bioware's audience that wants none of it, right? I hate this. Some games are just fine as single player experiences that stand on their own.

I never understood the idea that games need to be more expensive to offset this "dramatic" rise in expense. Sure, games have gotten more expensive over the years. But in the same timespan we've seen the games industry go from a niche "nerds" only market to a 20+ BILLION dollar industry. Considering the rise in digital sales and downloads, there isn't even a cost to publishers after development is done; especially when they can (and do) have massive layoffs after completion of a game. I'm just not buying it (literally or figuratively).

That isn't to say all DLC is bad, but the idea that companies can't make a profit and stay profitable at a $60 price point is absurd.

Man what the fuck. That game was easily the best looking Star Wars game out there but it not being an open world game with loot killed the studio. What a pack of cunts.

I'm playing Dead Space 2 off and on. I'm about halfway through. It's alright. I still don't get why these games are so highly regarded. They're not scary at all, they're not especially good shooters and they don't tell interesting stories.

That's the thing that bothers me about this. Every game has to be an an open world full of filler content, collecting, crafting and upgrading. I don't like gamers.

There is certainly a balance but I think you underestimate how much it costs to make a advertise a triple A game. Really games are almost cheaper than they ever have been. The same people who hate DLC also are often the same who make technical aspects of the game very important. frame rates need to be amazing. graphics must look great. those things are expensive in 2017.

gaming makes more money as a whole but its also more varied than ever too. all my friends are playing different games. its a harder market.

I remember Phil Spencer saying during the GB E3 2017 interview that he was genuinely concerned about the future of AAA single player games. With good reason. Unfortunately, the increasing lack of those games is why I cancelled my Xbox One X order and can't see myself bothering to upgrade consoles any time soon. The games I want to play are being developed by mid-tier or indie developers and mostly live PC.

I'm not a developer, or a publisher; but I am a long time gamer who has seen plenty of examples of companies doing perfectly fine selling $60 games that don't include microtransactions, forced multiplayer, loot boxes, or anything else people say are "necessary" to fund game development. Sure, DLC expansions, (some) season passes, etc can be done quite well and help fund further development on a franchise that wants to flesh itself out a little more.

But CD projekt, Nintendo, Naughty Dog, FROM software, (historically) Kojima Productions, Sucker Punch, Platinum, Atlus, the list could go on and on and on of companies that do just fine for themselves on single-player focused (or exclusive) games w/o all the additional bullshit. Just because some companies can't seem to figure out how to "game development" and "budget" and "not fuck over your staff and everyone but your shareholders" doesn't mean $60 AAA games are doomed or at some unicorn dust status. Because that is what it always comes down to with companies like EA, the money. They don't give a fuck about anything else, or anyone unless it means more profit for them. It's why I haven't bought an EA game in almost a decade now (and now see I probably won't for another decade at the rate they seem to be going).

God I am still angry about this. What the fuck were they thinking.

Edit: Is there anyway to like... make something good come of this? The reaction to this is surely going to be so strongly negative that I hope EA do... something. I know they can't unfire the people or uncancel the game but man this is the most nakedly hateful move they've made in a long time. Clearly they don't give a fuck about anything but the money. The mass market is bad. Please ignore them.

I know it doesn't make a difference but I need a petition to sign or a senator to email or something.

What Not to Do with a Promising New Studio: The Visceral Games Story

“Our Visceral studio has been developing an action-adventure title set in the Star Wars universe,” EA’s Patrick Söderlund said. “In its current form, it was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game. Throughout the development process, we have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design. We will maintain the stunning visuals, authenticity in the Star Wars universe, and focus on bringing a Star Wars story to life. Importantly, we are shifting the game to be a broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore.”

Fuuuuuuuck this.

Seriously, I'm generally not the kind of person to react strongly, but there really was no reason for this. You had a proven great writer on hand. You had a proven great development studio on hand. You had these two making a game in one of the world's most popular franchises. How is that not a guaranteed profit? And they just dissolved it because "it's a linear single player game". You focus tested a bunch of good developers out of a job. Christ, I can't wait for the Jim Sterling video on this one.

Aren't Doom, Wolfenstein, Resident Evil 7, and Prey proof enough that linear single player games are doing pretty well this generation?

This game sounds like it just turned into something I don't really want to play.

EA is dead to me.

FUCK
EA

Huge fan of Dead Space. Huge fan of the concept of Uncharted Star Wars. Not a fan at all of the games as a service crap.

Oh cool, game is getting redesigned to be open world and have loot boxes. Brilliant.

I'm not a Star Wars fan so this specific game changing doesn't impact me but it's a sad direction to see games going in. More and more games seem to be attempting to become the only game you play for months on end which for me at least just isn't how I play games. A game without a defined end or stacked with repeatable content just doesn't appeal to me, I don't have to put in 300 hours to feel I've got my money's worth. Unfortunately it's the trend of a lot of the bigger companies but at least for now the smaller ones seem to still offer the traditional single player narrative driven game.

I am sad for Amy but if the product isn't working and the company is losing money then decisions need to be made. And to be perfectly honest ever since all the loot box crying begun it still boggles my mind that people think that these corporations owe them anything. They are in business to make money and make as much as possible for as long as possible. And i would bet the farm if any of you were in charge and answerable to profit loss and market loss you would be doing the same things to keep the lights on.

Oh, swell. Can't wait to see this newly designed product. Hope there are daily quests and a very weak story, with main missions that are identical to the hundreds of side-quests available.

Visceral is was actually fairly old. They were founded in 98 as Redwood Shores, and then renamed themselves sometime around the release of DS1, I think.

I was looking forward to Star Wars 1313. I was looking forward to this. This is really disappointing, and seriously fuck those reasons given. "More variety." Who wants to bet that the game will feature raids that require specific classes to have specific loadouts?

I haven't latched onto Visceral as much as I have with Pandemic, but my respects regardless.

I seriously doubt that EA has any problems keeping the lights on. They're a massive publisher and some of their games make ridiculous amounts of money every year. They aren't struggling. EA had Visceral working on Battlefield Hardline and, if I'm not mistaken, was throwing other things their way instead of just letting them work on the game they want to make.

Also, their reason for shutting down Visceral had nothing to do with them not making EA any money and everything to do with EA looking for something that they can turn into another money-printing machine. EA wants their Overwatch or their Destiny, they want it the same way they wanted their Call of Duty last generation. Visceral was making a good old linear action game, the kind of thing that launches, makes its money, and then disappears into the "price recently dropped" section and then later into the used games stores. And there's nothing wrong with that, not when Bethesda has been putting out precisely these kinds of things for a few years now and never really had a problem.

EA actually does have a developer graveyard, by the way - here's a list. They're known for doing this.

EA is the dark force.

Sure, but you can't ignore how much more the profit margins have increased, for companies like EA in particular. I'll give you a direct example with one of their flagship franchises, Mass Effect:

-ME1 in 2008: i was a pcgamer. To buy the game I had to go to a Gamestop and purchase a physical copy. I spent 50€ instead of 60€ because it wasn't a console game and at the time there still was this price disparity since Microsoft and Sony couldn't claim their cut. From that starting 50€ you have to take away the physical retailer cut, the manufacturing and shipping costs (and the risk associated with unsold copies and storing) and the taxes for a physical good they couldn't elude. Let's stay they get half of that? And that's without considering the option i had of buying a used copy, which would have meant they would not have seen a single dime. Nothing at all. Oh and to own all the dlcs aka "the complete experience"? Add another 5 to 6€

-ME2 and 3: add a fuckload of shitty practices like retail based promotional dlc, cross-game dlc, anti-used sales dlc (remember the Cerberus Network?), multiplayer mode tied to the single player campaing with loot boxes, critical story components hidden behind expensive dlc...just look at this page

-ME Andromeda in 2017: Still a pcgamer. To buy the game I go to the digital store they own, Origin. I spend 60€ because at the turn of the 00s they decided for this 10€ price increase for AAA pc games (just to dispel the myth that at least in pcgaming we didn't see increases in prices). Since they own the store they don't have to give any cut to anybody else. They don't have any manufacturing costs for the "copy" (license) they sell me. They have zero risk of my copy being resold to someone else and them losing possible profits. That starting 60€ it's still all theirs. Taxes? Ah! I'm a EU citizien and they are a tech company. This means they have a "subsidiary" that owns and sell them the rights either in Ireland or the Netherlands (or maybe both and went for the notorious "Dutch Sandwich") which means that all that money went straight to a tax haven. Or maybe they were "smart" like Valve and went directly to Luxembourg cutting the needless complications (god everytime I was billed to VALVE, LUX my blood boiled) and straight up pay ridiculous tax rates. Because yay for tax elusion! Now, best case scenario they made at least part of that liquidity re-enter in the USA (fuck my country/the EU tho) so it could be pumped back in a developer studio, worst case they are just sitting on the money and if opportunity arises maybe they buy another off-shore company like Activision with King?

And i'm not even touching the entire salary-inflation differential in increase, or all the studios that have sprung up to generate assets in countries with lower salaries (EA China still in Shangai?). But as you said, making (AAA) games is more expensive. Marketing them is more expensive. It's undeniable. But let's not kid ourselves, the profits for every copy they sell also have increased a lot. These are businesses, whose management entire job and responsabilities is to increase profits and keep the shareholders happy. And I don't see many investors' conferences ending with CEOs being fired in the gaming industry.

Unfortunately the only thing that will prevent more of this sort of situation in the future is if people simply don't buy whatever this game eventually becomes. We all bemoan micro transactions, loot boxes and pseudo-MMO characteristics in games but if it doesn't sell it will stop being a trend.

I think you guys are missing the point Dead Space 2 was profitable and so was Visceral, but EA thinks it can make more money from Star Wars Destiny than Star Wars Uncharted its all about ROI and unfortunately EA is right it doesn't matter how much a $60 game cost.

The reason big pub spends an astronomical amount on dev budgets is because it drives audience expectations and fewer companies can compete which is why the AA games have disappeared.

Games haven't been $60 for a while with expensive collectors / special editions and season passes and other extras also forgetting game prices are not universally $60 worldwide and Origin, PSN and GameStop all net a different returns.

@thepanzini: yeah i was missing the point in the sense that i was responding (in a very simplified manner and with a singular case as example) to the idea that somehow the only thing going up is development and marketing costs, ergo the dlc/lootboxes/etc or straight price increases are a "longtime coming" necessity, while i disagree and think that profit margins (via various means) also went up. Which is tangential to the topic in question.

I actually agree on what you wrote on the topic of Visceral.

Fuck you EA !!!

You will always be remembered.

It is getting a little hard to be skeptical of the idea that EA just drains studios until they die. I used to be skeptical of that when those ideas first surfaced, but so many of their studios are having issues that EA just doesn't want to solve and ends up killing the studio entirely. You could make the argument that the studios shouldn't have development trouble and it is their own fault, but honestly what developer doesn't run into issues when developing games on this scale?

It is quite an unpopular opinion nowadays to like BioShock Infinite, but regardless of what you think of that game's narrative or gameplay, we can all at least admit that game came out in a finished state and it had a specific thing it was going for. That game was one of the more troubled to develop as we now know and would have never come out if 2K didn't support it. Which I now realize is a poor example as Irrational was closed down regardless after.

Still, looking at how things like Andromeda came out made me able to see that BioShock Infinite would have been an unfinished game too had it been released two years too soon, only a year after restructuring it.

Wow, that is a disaster. I hope the best for the affected staff. I can't say I have any hope for the Star Wars project if that is what EA wants to do with it, reminds me of what they did to Dead Space 3.... Which is what killed the franchise... Which is likely what caused them to shut down Visceral.

Bioware is near and dear to my heart. I will not play an EA game ever again if Bioware goes.

Real shame.. Dead Space 1 & 2 were two of my favourite games of the last gen.

Ok, fine lets assume everything financially for EA is coming up roses. My point still stands they are a business, they are by definition meant to earn a profit on the products they put out to the world. And they have every right to to do that in the way they see fit. I am not saying anyone has to like or agree with their actions but it is super naive to assume because you play video games you know what it takes to manage a corporation the size of EA. (And i don't mean you specifically but you in the general sense) So what if they are chasing the golden goose, what if they catch it? then what? everyone is fuck yea i love EA? Bethesda puts out one game every 6 years you can hardly compare the two, and have you seen quake champions, that shit was paid early access, and loot boxes and four different currencies up the wazoooo.

Also saying they are a massive company and have money to burn is so silly, its like saying "since you made a 100k last year and your neighbour made 75k you could pay his property taxes" no just because you have the money to burn doesn't mean you burn it. You protect it or invest it to increase your value now or in the future.

And my final point is, a lot of us when asked stepped up and started giving money directly to GB to help keep the lights on so to speak. But they are now owned by a massive media company why do we still need to keep paying? These aren't the days of the basement whiskey offices when they were doing their best to grow the company. Yes they are smaller then gamespot but surely CBSi can easily absorb any negative revenue that might be connected to GB. The answer is no, because if GB wants to keep the lights on the have to generate a level of revenue that CBSi has deemed necessary and it will be sad but if GB ever get's to a point where they are consistently missing their revenue goals they could face shut down as well.

Its not personal its just business.