EA gets exclusive licensing rights to the Star Wars franchise from Disney

[K9]

EA And Disney announce a multi-year Star Wars games agreement

Under the agreement, EA will develop and publish new Star Wars titles for a core gaming audience, spanning all interactive platforms and the most popular game genres, while Disney will retain certain rights to develop new titles within the mobile, social, tablet and online game categories.

I'm guessing this will be related to new IP coming from episodes 7-9?

[luckton]

Did we really need another EA hate thread?

[K9]

*shrug* It's one of the biggest gaming companies in the world getting the biggest new piece of IP we're likely to see for the next 5-10 years, it seemed worthy of comment.

[Ingmar]

I think it was the obvious move for Disney and not surprising.

[K9]

I wonder what will happen to Lego Star Wars, those games are too much fun.

[Paelos]

Glad I bought all my SW games off steam this weekend.

[Kail]

I'm not a fan of EA, and I'm not really in love with the idea of having to finally get Origin if they somehow make a decent SW game, but on reflection I'm not sure who else I'd rather have them give the rights to.  Just about all the big studios I can think of offhand have been a bit shit recently, as I recall anyway, and I can't see them going with a smaller one.

[Merusk]

I think it was the obvious move for Disney and not surprising.

Yep.  In a world where so many produce crap and fail/ go under EA is at least not likely to go anywhere for a while.   Big corporations prefer to do work with big corporations.

Now the funny thing is Kail seems to think a decent SW game will come from the new episodes any more than the previous ones.

[Evildrider]

I wish Raven would get back into the SW game.  :(

[Soulflame]

I wonder what will happen to Lego Star Wars, those games are too much fun.

Now wtih day one DLC, and an ending that needs to be retconned!

[HaemishM]

So I can safely continue to ignore every single Star Wars game produced for the next decade just like I did the previous decade? Done.

[luckton]

*shrug* It's one of the biggest gaming companies in the world getting the biggest new piece of IP we're likely to see for the next 5-10 years, it seemed worthy of comment.

Oh no doubt.  I'm just foreshadowing the inevitable 

[Margalis]

I'm not a fan of EA, and I'm not really in love with the idea of having to finally get Origin if they somehow make a decent SW game, but on reflection I'm not sure who else I'd rather have them give the rights to.  Just about all the big studios I can think of offhand have been a bit shit recently, as I recall anyway, and I can't see them going with a smaller one.

Personally I would either take pitches on a per-project basis or come up with my own game ideas then solicit offers to make them. I don't see why one place needs a broad swath of rights, especially a place like EA that can create a very narrow selection of game types.

Have Ninja Theory pitch a third person lightsaber combat game, Capcom a Star Wars fighting game, Namco a pod-racer game and EA a cover-based shooter. Bam.

In the long run I think a healthy Star Wars video game brand is worth much more than whatever is Disney is getting for exclusivity. Remember when EA made a Marvel fighting game?

[Bzalthek]

So I can safely continue to ignore every single Star Wars game produced for the next decade just like I did the previous decade? Done.

I'm with Hammie.  I think I'll live.

[Nayr]

Summed up: Bioware is now Disney's bitch.

[Sir T]

[Soln]

sigh fucking sigh

[Velorath]

I'm not a fan of EA, and I'm not really in love with the idea of having to finally get Origin if they somehow make a decent SW game, but on reflection I'm not sure who else I'd rather have them give the rights to.  Just about all the big studios I can think of offhand have been a bit shit recently, as I recall anyway, and I can't see them going with a smaller one.

Personally I would either take pitches on a per-project basis or come up with my own game ideas then solicit offers to make them. I don't see why one place needs a broad swath of rights, especially a place like EA that can create a very narrow selection of game types.

When they closed down LucasArts I thought that's the direction they would head in. Also, from the press release:

“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. “Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise.

Bioware's obviously a no-brainer, but DICE and Visceral called out as seemingly the only other two studios that will be working on Star Wars games? I guess I could see DICE obviously doing something like a Star Wars Battlefront game (Star Wars Battlefield?), with Visceral possibly doing some new trilogy tie-in games. With Disney's "we're going to churn out Star Wars movies every year" mentality though, I'm surprised to see such a seemingly restrained effort here with the games.

[schild]

EA could get the exclusive rights to Planescape, hire all of Black Isle, and give the game a billion dollars in dev money - and I still wouldn't install Origin.

[Margalis]

“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. “Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise.

Three of our top studios or three of our only studios?

If you discount sports and social/mobile I'm not sure EA has much more than those three. Visceral Montreal is dead, EALA / Danger Close looks to be on its death bed. Maybe Maxis could make a SW sim game...

Yeah, I don't see this making a whole lot of sense for Disney. So no Lego Star Wars? No 3DS game of any kind? EA is one of many publishers that has doubled down on creating a smaller number of games in a narrow range of genres, most of which are not kid-friendly. Seems weird.

[eldaec]

It makes sense because it means they do not have to spend any management time on a non-core market. Corporates are not good at this.

Lego star wars was neat, but not something to base corporate strategy on.

[Merusk]

That, plus what games has Disney released that makes you believe they know jack about the games market?  They want to focus on movvies, tv and their parks and vacation industry.  Toys and games they obviously lump in together as merchandising for kids. Which makes sense based on traditional Disney approaches to everything.

[K9]

That, plus what games has Disney released that makes you believe they know jack about the games market?  They want to focus on movvies, tv and their parks and vacation industry.  Toys and games they obviously lump in together as merchandising for kids. Which makes sense based on traditional Disney approaches to everything.

Did you know that ESPN accounts for about 40% of Disney's operating income?

Maybe DICE will make Battlefield: Star Wars.

[Teleku]

Mass Effect 4 will be a Starwars/Mass Effect crossover.

[Velorath]

“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. “Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise.

Three of our top studios or three of our only studios?

If you discount sports and social/mobile I'm not sure EA has much more than those three. Visceral Montreal is dead, EALA / Danger Close looks to be on its death bed. Maybe Maxis could make a SW sim game...

Criterion (unless you were counting that with Sports), Victory (working on that C&C game nobody cares about), and... fuck if I know really. Personally, I guess I don't really give all that much of a shit regardless since I don't really care enough about Star Wars itself (especially new Star Wars) to be excited for a game just based on the license, but from a business standpoint it seems odd. I mean, Visceral is probably freed up to do whatever at the moment, but at best I imagine DICE would have to divide their attention between Star Wars and Battlefield, and Bioware is still working on Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, so unless they start doing some more weird rebranding like they did when Victory was briefly branded as a Bioware studio, I'm not seeing how they're going to produce more than a trickle of SW product.

[Merusk]

Yeah, which is still TV, but it's also part of the larger corporate umbrella. Disney is 4 main subsidiaries with lots of smaller affiliated corps under that name.  (ABC being under Disney Media w/ ESPN, for example)
http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about-disney/company-overview

Until such time as someone fucks up and actually hurts the brand, EA's going to be their go-to.  Disney's done the same in their other segments often enough.  DCP didn't operate the Disney Stores when they first opened, they were operated by a contracted company, which is why you saw them in every mall in America.  It diluted the band and hurt it, so Disney took it back and closed most.  Now you only see them in high-level malls and you're not going to have more than one per city.  (We work on them here, and that's direct from DCP)

I see games going the same way.  Disney Interactive looks to be OK with publishing but doesn't seem like they want to be a games dev for more than mobile games.  They've worked with EA and small companies in games go "Kaboom" far too often to be worth the effort.

[Cyrrex]

Yes please to the Mass Effect/Star Wars, and to the Star Wars: Battlefield.  Also, Someone please get to making Jedi Academy/Outcast 2, or somesuch.  Maybe a Tie Fighter/X-Wing game with modern graphics.

That's what I want.  What I think we'll get is shitty movie tie-ins.

[Fabricated]

Battlefield Star Wars would unironically own incredibly hard, provided DICE actually did it. Sure, it'd have some godawful Battlelog like thing and poor balance but DICE are kings of sound and graphic design.

[Miasma]

Battlefield star wars will sell like crazy.  They're probably in a meeting right now talking about how to transform whatever game they're already halfway finished with into star wars.  "Okay replace all the marine textures with storm trooper textures, turn the brown people into rebels and make the shanty town into ewok huts".  There could be droid classes, a third mandalorian faction.

Then they will fuck it up by trying to integrate over powered light sabres into the gameplay somehow.

[Fordel]

So wait, I could actually get a Republic Commando sequel in some fashion then?

Sweet.


-edit- How u type

[Fabricated]

Also I know Battlefront existed. It kinda all sucked.

[Sir T]

Yep, the gaming group I was with at the time tried SO HARD to like it. We only played it maybe 3 times despite all their gushing.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Just need to release a new version of this BF2142 mod with frostbyte 3 engine and they will make a billion $.
http://www.fsmod.com/

[luckton]

[eldaec]

I chuckled when I realised that whoever made that image couldn't think of even one game made (rather than bought) by EA with a decent story.