SimCity is back, gaming is dead, RIP gaming.

[tgr]

EA Twitter jokes abounds: http://storify.com/kirkhamilton/john-riccitiello-resigns

Some select examples:
EA's CEO taken offline due to server issues.
EA disabling certain critical futures to ensure smooth operation.
EA CEO to step down. Package said to include 300 gold coins for Real Racing 3
Riccitiello leaving EA to spend time with family, but turns out they're unavailable for a few days. Might free up if features are disabled.

[tgr]

[Megrim]

Its amazing how consistently unfunny that comic has proven to be, over the years.

[Jeff Kelly]

No he wasn't a writer or a game designer or a coder but he was responsble for the EA corporate policy that all of the studios had to execute on.

Take ME3 for example. Kinect integration, Multiplayer, the insistence that it had to launch before Christmas (a date they eventually couldn't make), the 'make it appeal to gamers new to the franchise', the product integration that gave us among other things Jessica Chobot voicing an ugly ass reporter, Day One DLC that clearly was already on the disc, microtransactions in multiplayer, Origin requirement etc. ME had a development cycle of three years, ME2 also, ME 3 only had two and was initially scheduled for an 18 month cycle (they delayed it by six months because they weren't finished)

I still think that the end of ME 3 was never a conscious choice it was simply that they ran out of time. They were already six months behind the original schedule and had to ship at the revised release date and ME 3 was unusually buggy at release at least for a Bioware game. I've read a lot of coverage on ME 3 before its release and the gist I gleamed from the developer interviews was that 'they underestimated the effort' it took to do multiplayer and kinect integration. EA also was responsible for reassigning most of the senior talent from ME 3 to the old republic MMO that eventually tanked.

ME 3 shows how badly a publisher can fuck up even a great studio and also what a great studio is able to accomplish when you just let them do stuff (Citadel and leviathan DLCs come to mind). The irony is that all of those measures to increase the appeal of ME 3 basically didn't work or - depending on how you want to read the numbers - may even have had an adverse effect on sales. Lifetime estimated sales of the original Mass Effect are three million copies to date, Mass Effect 2 sold four million to date and Mass Effect 3 only sold three million copies to date.

All of the effort EA put into the sales strategy and into increasing the appeal of the franchise basically cost them a million units in sales. If EA had implemented the 'our core franchises need to sell > 5 million copies' policy in 2007 we would have never seen a Mass Effect 2 or 3.

So all of the meddling cost them a million sales and led to a mass exodus of talented people. Maxis will probably not recover from the PR fallout of Sim City for a long time and this will adversely affect future sales of Maxis titles and most other EA bought developers have either gone the way of the dodo or are locked in a perpetual cycle of sequel after sequel with most of the initial talent either long gone or on the verge of leaving for good.

Medal of Honor: dead
Burnout: Dead
Crysis: Sales figures like a niche game
Dead Space: Not yet dead but close if you believe the rumors
Dragon Age: There will be a DA 3 but after the DA 2 debacle it might as well be dead, will probably sell way below expectations initially
Mass Effect: see dragon age
Rock Band: dead
Sim City: we're currently bearing witness to a slow and painful death it's basically been moved from intensive care to a hospice so that it can live out its final days in peace.
The sims: this one is in perpetual expansion land

If it weren't for the Battlefield series or the EA sports franchises EA would have been bankrupt long before take2 and even BF 3 sold way less than Modern Warfare 3 or Black Ops 2.

EA is in serious trouble and has been for a few years now. Just like with Microsoft nobody cared though as long as Madden and Fifa sold the way they did and as long as those cash cows brought in the cash but even Madden is no longer the guarranteed blockbuster sales magnet it once was. Madden '12 sold about 4 milion copies on all platforms combined (so even Madden would have to be dropped if the '5 million copies or more' policy was actually implemented) there was once a time when they sold 4 million+ copies on every platform they released Madden on. The only guaranteed blockbuster for EA sports today is the FIFA franchise.

The kicker is that all of the franchises that still make EA money have been in existence since way before Riccitiello took the helm. So during his tenure he basically failed to launch any new franchises, he failed multiple times to establish EA in the mobile gaming, phone and tablet gaming arenas and couldn't establish any kind of steam competitor or other online sales presence. All this while driving the sales numbers of every franchise down by at least a million units each.

He's also responsible for a brain drain of talents the likes of which I've never seen.

A competent board would have sacked him years ago. I can't even see how EA will recover from the state its in now. Most of their studios are a shadow of their former selfs. EA is getting squeezed hard by mobile gaming, the apple app store and steam without having a real presence in either of those markets and the pending release of the next XBOX and Playstation means that the next releases of their franchises will sell even less than before.

If EA loses any of their sports licenses they are in serious trouble, if they lose FIFA they are fucked.

It tool the stock market a very very long time to realise this and a board that only acts after investors have already realised it in such a way that your stock has dropped by 10% shouldn't only have fired the CEO but should have fired themselves right after.

[Paelos]

CNN Money now has the story reported to their investors:

http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2013/03/19/ea-ceo-stock/

It essentially summarizes the fuckups of SimCity.

[Segoris]

Riccitiello leaving EA to spend time with family, but turns out they're unavailable for a few days. Might free up if features are disabled.

"Riccitiello leaving EA, intends to spend time with family. Unfortunately they're unavailable for a few days due to how much others find them to be and won't stop hanging out with them."

[Ingmar]

Rock Band: dead

You are getting really into the  zone if you think EA has anything to do with Harmonix shutting down Rock Band. EA is just the distributor for the box copies, they don't own Harmonix, they aren't involved with DLC publishing, artist negotiations, anything. Harmonix was owned by Viacom, then they did some kind of holding company buyout to go independent a couple years ago - because Viacom couldn't find anyone else to sell to. Hell, you can find quotes from Riccitello talking about how buying Harmonix would be a dumb idea because the rhythm game market was collapsing. See Activision shutting down Guitar Hero, etc.

[koro]

And Harmonix has likely only sunset the Rock Band DLC (of which there is an absolute truckload) in anticipation of their next-gen plastic instrument extravaganza, since backwards compatibility changes from system to system will probably make DLC transfer untenable.

[Simond]

I would've thought it would've behooved them to milk things benignly, instead of now having to find a new developer with a new set of IPs to monetize before players catch on.

Origin.
Bullfrog.
Westwood.
Pandemic.
Mythic.
and Maxis & Bioware are well on the way.

Or, to put it another way:

[Fabricated]

My favorite twitter joke so far is "Can't Riccitiello just walk out of his house and to the nearest job?"

[Jeff Kelly]

Rock Band: dead

You are getting really into the  zone if you think EA has anything to do with Harmonix shutting down Rock Band. EA is just the distributor for the box copies, they don't own Harmonix, they aren't involved with DLC publishing, artist negotiations, anything. Harmonix was owned by Viacom, then they did some kind of holding company buyout to go independent a couple years ago - because Viacom couldn't find anyone else to sell to. Hell, you can find quotes from Riccitello talking about how buying Harmonix would be a dumb idea because the rhythm game market was collapsing. See Activision shutting down Guitar Hero, etc.

I listed the franchises to show just how few of them are left. It's not that EA is personally responsible for shutting all of them down, it's that only a few of the franchises under the EA umbrella actually exist anymore.

[Merusk]

CNN Money now has the story reported to their investors:

http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2013/03/19/ea-ceo-stock/

It essentially summarizes the fuckups of SimCity.

That apepars to be what the business boys are taking away from this. That it was only the failures of SimCity that forced him out.  Marketplace Morning Report just did a story that focused solely on SimCity and its failure to work at launch and never touched on the rest of his tenure.

[Paelos]

Short term people don't care about the rest of his tenure. It's only the last quarter that matters.

[Paelos]

New note, EA executives unloaded $1.86M in stocks from their personal funds in February.

I find that very interesting that they moved out of their positions right before this game released. Almost as if they saw this coming. In addition several hedges have dumped EA.

http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/this-metric-says-you-are-smart-to-sell-electronic-arts-inc-nasdaqea-92842/

[HaemishM]

I'm sure they not only saw this coming, they knew Riccotello was on the way out when they did it. Never pass up an opportunity for some borderline insider trading.

[Yegolev]

Apparently it's only insider trading if the proletariat does it.

[Surlyboi]

Apparently it's only insider trading if the proletariat does it.

Yup.

[HaemishM]

Or Martha Stewart, because seriously... fuck that woman.

[Merusk]

Well she had the gall to be in the kitchen AND successful.  You can't really tell her, "Bitch, get back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich!" She would, and she'd own your ass doing it.

[tgr]

So I just got a mail from Amazon, asking me "Are you looking for something in our PC Simulation Games department? If so, you might be interested in these items." and listing ... only Sim City Standard Edition at 33% off.

I guess Amazon's decided EA's sucked enough dicks to put it back up for sale.

[luckton]

Yeah, my weekly skimming of the Best Buy ad in the paper Sunday had me chuckling at the $20 price drop.  The fire sale begins!   

[Numtini]

So I just got a mail from Amazon, asking me "Are you looking for something in our PC Simulation Games department? If so, you might be interested in these items." and listing ... only Sim City Standard Edition at 33% off.

I guess Amazon's decided EA's sucked enough dicks to put it back up for sale.

That's interesting, not because it wasn't inevitable, but because it's within 30 days ie, the 30 day retroactive price guarantee of release date.

[Paelos]

EA is trying to shift the focus now to their next Plants v Zombie rollout.

[Xuri]

Wouldn't Amazon have already paid EA for a bunch of SimCity copies to have them in stock, and as such have to try to pimp those out at some point?

[UnSub]

Wouldn't Amazon have already paid EA for a bunch of SimCity copies to have them in stock, and as such have to try to pimp those out at some point?

Amazon can probably force EA to take back unpurchased stock, much like GameStop can.

[Rendakor]

Where did you hear that GameStop can do that?

[Morat20]

Wouldn't Amazon have already paid EA for a bunch of SimCity copies to have them in stock, and as such have to try to pimp those out at some point?

I doubt Amazon stocks them directly. Probably thrid-party. That's the model they're shooting for, at least.

[KallDrexx]

I doubt Amazon stocks them directly. Probably thrid-party. That's the model they're shooting for, at least.

Huh?  Amazon acts as a internet retailer warehouse for third parties, they don't outsource that to third parties.  Target and a lot of big retailers use their warehouses for ecommerce because Amazon has it extremely streamlined.

[Morat20]

I doubt Amazon stocks them directly. Probably thrid-party. That's the model they're shooting for, at least.

Huh?  Amazon acts as a internet retailer warehouse for third parties, they don't outsource that to third parties.  Target and a lot of big retailers use their warehouses for ecommerce because Amazon has it extremely streamlined.

I know Amazon's ultimate model seems to be basically to get out of the warehouse business, but basically act as a storefront for everyone else. (handle searching, recommendations, dealing with bad sellers, etc). I honestly can't ever tell what they really stock and what they don't.

Then again, the only games I've bought from them lately were quite old -- so I bought through a third party, since they were six or eight months past release (xbox games). Some were unopened/unused, and still third party.

[Yegolev]

Everyone wants to get out of the warehouse business.  Storing inventory is a huge waste for any large corporation.  Trouble is that someone somewhere has to keep the shit dry.

[WayAbvPar]

Maybe WalMart customers can store it in their garages.

[Trippy]

I doubt Amazon stocks them directly. Probably thrid-party. That's the model they're shooting for, at least.

Huh?  Amazon acts as a internet retailer warehouse for third parties, they don't outsource that to third parties.  Target and a lot of big retailers use their warehouses for ecommerce because Amazon has it extremely streamlined.

I know Amazon's ultimate model seems to be basically to get out of the warehouse business, but basically act as a storefront for everyone else. (handle searching, recommendations, dealing with bad sellers, etc). I honestly can't ever tell what they really stock and what they don't.

Um, no. In its earliest days Amazon did use drop shipping as their fulfillment method for most of their books (it's how they were able to offer so many book titles with so little warehouse space). Since that time they've spent a ton of money building their own warehouses and in fact now that Amazon has lost the sales tax battle in the US they are building even more warehouses as close as possible to buyers so that they can offer same day delivery and destroy local retailing once and for all.

As for determining what Amazon stocks and sells directly it's pretty obvious. Below the stock information it'll say "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com."

Edit: clarified last sentence

[Raguel]

Saw an ad for SimCity during the Walking Dead Marathon. I am easily amused. 

[rk47]

Full article = http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/29/4161422/simcity-pedestrians-teleport


Moskowitz, speaking to an audience of game developers at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, described the technology behind SimCity, the "GlassBox" engine powering the game's world-building simulation and the struggles he and the SimCity team faced putting the game together.

    his panel got off to a rocky start, as he opened his presentation and his screen failed to begin loading his presentation slides.
    The audience of over 100 laughed nervously as an error message popped up on the screen stating that the presentation could not connect to the servers.

"I can't overstate how completely evil complexity is, especially in a sandbox game," he said. "Constantly ask yourself: What can I remove from the game?"

Good god.

[Ingmar]

The slides thing was a deliberate joke. Although not getting it is probably par for the course for Polygon.