Gamescom: EA Press Conference

EA’s Gamescom press conference on Wednesday brought us a closer look at some of the publisher’s biggest titles for the next year.

Aaryn Flynn, general manager for Bioware Edmonton and Montreal, took to the stage with a gameplay demo of Bioware’s upcoming title Dragon Age: Inquisition. Set to hit stores on November 18 in North America, the fantasy RPG promises a focus of story and in-depth character customization.

In Inquisition, you can switch between the player character and any of your companions. You can also use the Tactical Camera feature to position your teammates and assign them actions, which can give you a strategic advantage in combat.

The presentation stressed the increased scope of Inquisition. With more than a million words in dialogue and over 150 hours of gameplay, Flynn said the game is “the biggest story we’ve ever told.”

Following a string of teaser videos released last week, the reveal of BioWare’s mysterious new game was one of the most anticipated parts of Gamescom. At the press conference, we finally got a look at Shadow Realms, an online role-playing game where the world of the fantastic and mundane meet.

Developed by BioWare Austin, the game will depict a battle between supernatural forces in a modern setting. Inspired by classic pen-and-paper RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, the game pits four party members against a fifth player in the role of the villainous Shadowlord.

BioWare has said Shadow Realms will have a focus on storytelling and the game will have an episodic format.

A demo for Battlefield: Hardline’s single-player campaign showed a game that is radically different from previous installments in the series. Dead Space developer Visceral Games has teamed up with EA Digital Illusions for this cops-and-robbers action game.

The gameplay highlighted a stealth mechanic and non-lethal takedowns as an alternative to guns-blazing action. The demo suggested that the game will be less linear than past Battlefield titles, with the option to take different approaches to obstacles.

There were also announcements for updates to EA’s online titles. A new map pack will be added to Titanfall later this year and a digital expansion to Star Wars MMO The Old Republic will give players “guild flagships” and customizable houses.

The future of video games is not in blockbusters

Anita Elberse’s book Blockbuster: Hit-Making, Risk-Taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment takes a look at the business strategies found in the entertainment sector. When it comes to movies, music and video games, the tendency is for companies to gamble on a few high-profile “blockbuster” projects to make a profit.

While expensive to fund, blockbuster projects typically have very high production value. They are also often designed to appeal to the broadest audience possible in the hopes of attracting the largest number of consumers.

Media industries have found success by focusing their resources on creating blockbusters. Elberse’s thesis holds that this business model is a safer business strategy than diversifying with a number of smaller projects. Though blockbusters present a greater risk of loss to a company, she argues that they also pose the greatest chance for profit. With a decade’s worth of statistics and insider interviews, Elberse makes a very good case for the success of the blockbuster model in entertainment.

Back in March, GameInformer ran an article where they interviewed Elberse. The biggest question the article raised was whether or not  the blockbuster model applies to the newer video game business in the same way it does for the other entertainment industries.

The blockbuster model has always worked for the video game industry in the past, but the sheer scale of AAA titles is reaching an unsustainable level. The most obvious example is Dead Space 3.

While the production costs on Dead Space 1 and 2 were fairly average, the third installment in the horror franchise received the blockbuster treatment. When the game was finished, EA announced that Dead Space 3 would have to sell five million copies to be considered a viable IP for future sequels.

Considering the sales for Dead Space 1 and 2 didn’t come close to cracking 5 million copies combined, this sales goal was incredibly unrealistic. In the end, Dead Space 3 sold less than a million copies, representing a huge loss for EA.

Dead Space 3 also introduced a number of new mechanics and a shift in tone to create greater mass appeal. This goes along with the blockbuster model, but it just doesn’t make much sense when you consider the roots of the franchise.

The previous games in the series were niche titles that appealed to a small but dedicated group of survival/psychological horror fans. They managed to turn a profit because they keep costs low and still produced quality titles that had a defined market. Instead of learning from the past, they made the disastrous shift to big budget blockbuster that tries and fails to appeal to everyone.

The successes have kept the industry going, but more and more AAA titles have been failing financially. The less-than-stellar sales of Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 show that gamers are losing interest in these blockbuster franchises. Game journalists have written about the instability of the blockbuster mentality and even some industry insiders have said that AAA games are rapidly becoming obsolete.

When looking at the success of blockbusters in movies and music as a guide, you also need to look at a key difference between those industries and the video game market. Between the $60 price tag on AAA titles and the consoles needed to play them, there is a much higher costs for consumers with gaming. Trying to appeal to everyone has less chance of paying off when you consider that most gamers only make a few purchases a year.

It’s clear that investing big and striving for the widest demographic works for more mainstream entertainment, but gaming is a more specialized medium, which is something companies should embrace.

With the rising cost of creating next-gen games, it seems to me like the safest path for the games industry would be  to back away from the blockbusters. Devleopers and publishers should be spreading their money out with a number of small-scale, quality titles rather than placing all their faith in one or two blockbusters that need to sell millions to make a profit. It could protect against the possibility of big loss from the blockbusters and it would give the smaller projects better funding to create innovative titles that appeal to specific audiences.

CEO John Riccitiello resigns, EA stocks fall

John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts, has resigned and will leave the company on Mar. 30, according to an online article by GameInformer.

“My decision to leave EA is really all about my accountability for the shortcomings in our financial results this year,” wrote Riccitiello in his resignation letter.

Former CEO Larry Probst has been appointed Executive Chairman  and will act as the head of the company until a permanent replacement can be found. News of Riccitiello’s departure from the company resulted in an 8.6 percent drop in EA’s stock value on Tuesday.

“I remain very optimistic about EA’s future,” Riccitiello said. “There is a world class team driving the Company’s transition to the next generation of game consoles.”

According to the LA Times, since Riccitiello became EA’s chief executive in 2007,  the company’s stock prices have dropped 67 percent. March has been a particularly difficult month for EA with the disappointing sales of Dead Space 3 and the server problems with SimCity, events which undoubtedly contributed to Riccitiello’s resignation.

Maxis Apologizes for SimCity Launch, Offers Free Game

Following a disastrous launch early this month, game studio EA Maxis has announced that customers who bought SimCity will receive a second game for free.

“To get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio,” said Lucy Bradshaw, general manager of Maxis in a post on EA’s website. “That was dumb, but we’re committed to fixing it.”

The offer will be extended to anyone who buys the game before March 18. The titles available to the early adopters for download have not been announced yet.

According to Kotaku, the launch of the latest installment in the classic city-building franchise was marred by a number of technical problems. The game uses a Digital Rights Management system which requires an Internet connection to play. EA’s servers did not have the capacity to handle the volume of people logging on at launch, leaving many players waiting in frustration.

“The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected,” Bradshaw said. “More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.”

John Gaudiosi, a video game journalist at Forbes.com, said EA should have anticipated the demand for the game and been more prepared for the launch.

A lack of a “pre-loading” system also forced everyone who bought the game to download it at the same time when it was released, causing long download times and error messages.

EA said that they have more than doubled the server capacity since the incident and that SimCity should be fully functional soon.

UPDATE: According to The Escapist Magazine, EA announced Monday that early adopters of SimCity can choose their free game from the following eight titles:

• Battlefield 3
• Dead Space 3
• Mass Effect 3
• Bejeweled 3
• Medel of Honor: Warfighter
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted
• Plants Vs. Zombies
• SimCity 4

EA Says Dead Space Has Not Been Cancelled

Representatives of EA have denied rumors started on Tuesday that the Dead Space franchise has been cancelled.

A news story posted on VideoGamer.com Tuesday morning reported that production of Dead Space 4 was halted because of disappointing sales from the newly released Dead Space 3. The article said the information came from an anonymous source involved in the production of the series.

“Almost nothing in that article is true,” tweeted EA creative director Ian Milham in response to the article.

EA officially stated “While we have not announced sales for Dead Space 3, we are proud of the game and the franchise remains an important IP to EA.”

The speculation about the Dead Space franchise is closely linked to the closing of game studio Visceral Montreal on Feb. 21. Along with California-based Visceral Games, Visceral Montreal had been working on pre-production for Dead Space 4.

It is believed that Visceral Montreal was shut down by parent company EA because sales of Dead Space 3 have not met EA’s expectations. EA has not officially released sales data on Dead Space 3, but vgchartz.com said the game has sold approximately 880,000 copies since it was released at the beginning of February.

In June 2012, president of EA Games Label Frank Gibeau said Dead Space 3 would have to sell about five million copies for EA to continue the franchise. This goal has been criticized as being unrealistic, as both of the previous installments in the series combined only sold 2.55 million copies, according to vgchartz.com.