Remebering the Dev studio's and franchises EA has killed over the years.

[Monster Hunter]

as i made the original in the wrong thread...whoops..re-posting here i was watching some old need for speed underground 2 footage and got nostalgic,
so i thought a moment of silence and remembrance for these fallen giants, bought out and murdered by EA over the years. in today's age of loot box controversy its easy to forget that EA's crimes against gaming are vast and lengthy.

1.Bullfrog Productions (1987 – 2001) - Populous, Syndicate, Theme Park, and Dungeon Keeper
2.Westwood Studios (1985 – 2003) - Command & Conquer series
3.Origin Systems (1983 – 2004) - Ultima series
4.NuFX (1990 – 2007) - NBA Street series
5.Pandemic Studios (1998 – 2009) - Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, Destroy All Humans!, and Full Spectrum Warrior
6.PlayFish (2007 – 2013) - Facebook games
7. Black Box Games (1998 – 2013) - Need for Speed, skate
8. DreamWorks Interactive (1995 – 2013) - Medal of Honor, The Lord of the Rings, James Bond
9. Phenomic Game Development (1997 – 2013) - Settlers series, SpellForce franchise
10. Victory Games (2010 – 2013) - made and killed before it had made anything
11. Mythic Entertainment (1995 – 2014) - Dark Age of Camelot
12. Maxis Software (1987 – 2015) - The Sims, sim city.
13. EA Salt Lake (1992 – 2017) - the premiere golf simulator developers
14. Visceral Games (1998 – 2017) - CyberTiger, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, MySims,The Simpsons Game, and ofc Dead Space

I have put in bold the studio's they killed off and stripped of ip that particularly stung for me.

i think we can all agree the list of dead company's and ruined franchises EA has left in its wake, as its greedily gobbled up competition is staggering for the age of the company. make me wonder who is next on the chopping block? is the flop that was battle field 5 the herald of DICE's doom? or will Bioware fail to save itself with anthem? only time will tell who joins the list.

what studio's were you most upset to see ended? what franchises have been buried or ruined that most upset you? at least lets all take a moment to remember some cracking Dev studios and games. R.I.P

[Verdugo]

Bioware is definitely next on the chopping block if the Anthem wont "exceed the expectations", which is impossible even if it was more than a mediocre game.

[stellvia]

IMHO they get closed right after putting out that Dragon Age game.

[Malikath]

Sadly I think Biowares fate is already sealed seeing all these negative reviews flying around.

bioware has been dead for years, this'll just be an open-casket funeral.

[Monster Hunter]

Sadly I think Biowares fate is already sealed seeing all these negative reviews flying around.

I think they were set up to fail. Biowear do narrative rpg's and they do them well. Suddenly getting dumped with making a new looter shooter ip. I'd say EA has teams that specialise in that but they saked most of them :/ probly why bioware was tasked with it.

[Darometh]

Sadly I think Biowares fate is already sealed seeing all these negative reviews flying around.

Honestly, most of the negativity regarding Anthem simply comes from EA being involved. So many people just don't want to see anything but the negatives if EA has anything to do with a game. It could be the best game in the world and the vocals majority would bash and hate the game

[Monster Hunter]

I fucking miss bullfrog so much, I think that's the one crime I can never forgive EA for.

[Surfd]

I fucking miss bullfrog so much, I think that's the one crime I can never forgive EA for.

Bullfrog and Westwood. Dungeon keeper and CnC were both pretty big parts of my youth, and I am particularly pissed at how badly CnC got butchered over the years.

[Monster Hunter]

Honestly, most of the negativity regarding Anthem simply comes from EA being involved. So many people just don't want to see anything but the negatives if EA has anything to do with a game. It could be the best game in the world and the vocals majority would bash and hate the game

Yea but that's not the community's fault. EA made that bed themselves.

The lootbox and price gouging hate is new. But EA has been building that angry mob against it since the early 2000s due to its ever growing list of totally douche things its done to both customers and developer's.

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Bullfrog and Westwood. Dungeon keeper and CnC were both pretty big parts of my youth, and I am particularly pissed at how badly CnC got butchered over the years.

I just miss the theme series. Theme hospital was a fucking gem. That and black box, need for speed was a classic that got butchered by EA's meddling and is now a dead franchise after it closed black box and tried to do it with a diff studio.

[Daedius]

Fuck EA, and Disney too for absorbing and scrapping various LucasArts projects.

[Yunru]

I fucking miss bullfrog so much, I think that's the one crime I can never forgive EA for.

https://www.twopointhospital.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Point_Studios
They got revived.

But westwood team:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph_Games
Did a huge mistake with this game:
http://forgedbattalion.wikia.com/wik...Battalion_Wiki
They abandoned the game for EA!!!!

[Monster Hunter]

https://www.twopointhospital.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Point_Studios
They got revived.

But westwood team:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph_Games
Did a huge mistake with this game:
http://forgedbattalion.wikia.com/wik...Battalion_Wiki
They abandoned the game for EA!!!!

I spend far to much time on two-point hospital when I should be working on my arch tempered carves. Or doing my m+ keys again... Which I will do..... After the mhw event is over.... Honest RL I will do it

[rayvio]

BioWare bought themselves some more time with Dragon Age 3 but even then they had to fight every step of the way to get the extra races in and have the deadline extended to something more reasonable. the end product showed that there's still some life left but the wounds were easy to see. Andromeda shows that the Mass Effect team weren't given the same freedoms since the end result was essentially a good game spoilt by too short a development time and clearly rushed testing. it says a lot that they didn't even try to fix it with DLCs (this is EA after all). despite being the better game of the two Andromeda seems to have done more harm than Dragon Age 2 did

[Monster Hunter]

BioWare bought themselves some more time with Dragon Age 3 but even then they had to fight every step of the way to get the extra races in and have the deadline extended to something more reasonable. the end product showed that there's still some life left but the wounds were easy to see. Andromeda shows that the Mass Effect team weren't given the same freedoms since the end result was essentially a good game spoilt by too short a development time and clearly rushed testing. it says a lot that they didn't even try to fix it with DLCs (this is EA after all). despite being the better game of the two Andromeda seems to have done more harm than Dragon Age 2 did

It's the MO of EA since at least the mid 2000s, they have done it to most of the dev studios on that list just befor the end. It's like they want the dev studio to miss its deadline or release a rushed product so they fail.

[apelsinjuice]

BioWare bought themselves some more time with Dragon Age 3 but even then they had to fight every step of the way to get the extra races in and have the deadline extended to something more reasonable. the end product showed that there's still some life left but the wounds were easy to see. Andromeda shows that the Mass Effect team weren't given the same freedoms since the end result was essentially a good game spoilt by too short a development time and clearly rushed testing. it says a lot that they didn't even try to fix it with DLCs (this is EA after all). despite being the better game of the two Andromeda seems to have done more harm than Dragon Age 2 did

Too be fair Andromeda was in dev for like 5 years but they did 80% of the game in the last 18 months, not EAs fault that Bioware could not get anything going at all in the first years and having to change lead director like 2 times

[Orange Joe]

Weren't most of these studios already in bad places when bought by EA? I know people love to hate on EA, but some of it is just ridiculous.

[Monster Hunter]

Weren't most of these studios already in bad places when bought by EA? I know people love to hate on EA, but some of it is just ridiculous.

No most were going strong having just released there first games when EA bought them of the owners for some silly money and promises.

[Dhrizzle]

It's the MO of EA since at least the mid 2000s, they have done it to most of the dev studios on that list just befor the end. It's like they want the dev studio to miss its deadline or release a rushed product so they fail.

It's because EA try to give their studios a fair bit of creative freedom but also stick to quite rigid timetables. Devs can pitch their idea and what features they want to include and then work out how long it will take and how much it will cost. The trouble is if a feature turns out to be broken, bugged or just not very good EA will still expect it to be included and they don't like delays or throwing in extra money. One of the BioWare founders said EA will happily give you enough rope to hang yourself.

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Weren't most of these studios already in bad places when bought by EA? I know people love to hate on EA, but some of it is just ridiculous.

Usually they'd either be doing badly or need more money for their ambitions. Maxis for example would have been lucky to get a decent SimCity 3000 out without EA and would probably have sunk befor SC4 or The Sims. Westwood were doing well at producing games but their owners weren't in too good a shape.

[glowzone]

As a dungeon keeper fan I have very little nice to say about EA.

[Toijin]

1.Westwood Studios (1985 – 2003) - Command & Conquer series (special mention even if NOT EA related: Total Annihilation! while i'm being nostalgic)
2. Black Box Games (1998 – 2013) - Need for Speed
3. Maxis Software (1987 – 2015) - The Sims, sim city, Sim Tower, Sim Town, Sim Tycoon..

Ah man these were my child-hood games i grew up playing.

RIP.

I also agree with the other posters though; at the time i think they 'peaked' but would have suffered greatly on their next release with or without EA anyways. The optimist in me is at least glad something else was made instead of maybe it being entirely scrapped in the backend. Although i also agree that some of the games released were butchered with EA's assistance.