EA and I have never really gotten along. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, I don’t like sports simulations. Secondly, I like innovation. While I can’t blame EA for carving out a profitable niche in my least favourite genre, I can blame them for the uninspired and largely unnecessary sequels they insist on pumping out on an annual basis.
That said, the last 18 months has seen something of a change of philosophy from EA. It seems that someone in the company must have voiced the opinion that releasing the same game every year with an incrementally tweaked graphics engine and a higher integer tagged on the end is not the most creatively fulfilling of pursuits. Whilst I imagine that this person spent the next ten minutes picking the contents of the office stationary cupboard out of their face, they appear to have made an impact somewhere up the food chain. All the way up to EA Chief Executive John Riccitiello, in fact.
Speaking to IndustryGames last month, Riccitiello said, “I believe there are publishers out there that are milking franchises at their peril. I do think you can sort of stop innovating and do well while you coast for a couple of editions before a product starts to fall apart or a sector starts to fall apart. But I think we owe our customer – core or non-core – quality and innovation that really blows their minds every time we put a product out there.”

I’m sorry – did EA just criticise other publishers for milking franchises? Riccitiello does realise that EA Sports is part of EA, right? The same EA Sports that has been making the Madden franchise since 1989? EA calling-out other publishers for releasing shameless, cash-in sequels is like Metal Gear Solid’s Hideo Kojima criticising other designers for putting too many cutscenes in their games. His comment is likely a none-too-subtle dig at fellow franchise-floggers Activision Blizzard Inc., the recently merged uber-publisher responsible for the barrage of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty titles that clog up the shelves every few months. Oh, and that online game which Mr T plays. You know, the one you pay for monthly but can never complete? Kinda wish I’d come up with that one actually…
The thing is, EA do look like they’re making genuine efforts to mend their copy-and-paste ways. Over the last two years we’ve seen the EA logo grace the box art of Army of Two, Spore, Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space, Brutal Legend and Dragon Age. Each one was a new and unproven IP, and therefore a financial gamble on EA’s part. Is it possible that Riccitiello actually believes what he is saying, that EA will continue to support and invest in exciting new ideas rather than just trying to spin existing titles into bloated, soulless cash-cows?
I want to believe Riccitiello. I recently attended an EA event and got my hands on Dante’s Inferno, another interesting new IP being released early this year. But when you look at the rest of EA’s releases for 2010, you see an awful lot of games with the figure 2 next to the title. I worry that the innovative new titles of last year are merely the foundation for the next five years of smash-and-grab sequels.
I’m not saying that sequels are necessarily a bad thing; I played Mass Effect 2 at the same event and couldn’t be more psyched about its arrival later this month. But just because a game is successful, doesn’t mean it needs a yearly update. Some games stand alone: unique, complete entities that achieve everything they set out to accomplish in one glorious incarnation.
Some games just don’t need sequels.

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