E&B replaced with WC/P universe!

K

Karthik@KANE

Spaceman
What if EA told Westwood during early in development(after the engine was completed) to remove all E&B content, renamed it Wing Commander/Privateer Online and put all WC/P reference content into it. Would you guys "buy" into it?! Would it make a bigger profit then E&B currently?

Think about it!
 
No, and no.

Why?

"No" #1: E&B's model is in the UO/EQ/etc vein, where actual application of skill isn't possible. Flying is one of the biggest draws (if not the biggest) of WC, and turning a WC game into nothing more than "point and click" (PnC for short) combat (the closest to date being Armada, but even then you could take the stick if you didn't want to trust the stupid auto-fight AI) would kill that.

"No" #2: There's a glut of PnC MMORPG games out there, and WC fans are a rather tiny subset of the gaming public. The numbers would even be less supportive of profit than E&B's current (somewhat small, by MMORPG standards) userbase.
 
Meh, it'd never have happened -- since EA specifically cancelled Privateer Online *because* Earth and Beyond was in development.
 
All I want is the never-released SNES port of WC2 on the GBA :(

I don't think we'll see any *new* WC games ever again. If not, than for a long while. Tis a shame that the GBA is really the only system publishers would bother putting old school ports on. I think a sharper, "WC3DO" port on the PS2/XBox/GCN would be the greatest; same with WC4.
 
I would have wanted to see a remake of WC1 on the GBA. Shame those guys who made the WCP GBA conversion couldn't get the rights to it.
 
Yeah, that is quite a shame. WC1 on the GBA would be excellent, as well, but I'd still prefer to have WC2 first. I would imagine, given the GBA's streak of surprising people, that a port of WC1 would include the game plus both SMs on one little cart.

For posterity's sake, I'd hope they'd keep the Green Salthis in :p
 
All I want is the never-released SNES port of WC2 on the GBA
Click to expand...

Or WC3 Saturn or WC4 3DO or WCP DVD... :)

Westwood was EA's golden calf in 1998... they could do no wrong, and so they got the go-ahead for the space MMP game. They fudged it up and they've certainly paid for hurting WC. :)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Or WC3 Saturn or WC4 3DO or WCP DVD... :)
Click to expand...

Yes! I anxiously awaited WC4 3DO, only to find out it would never be released. The 3DO was such an amazing little system. Nothing powerful, by any means, but it was truly a gem. It had so much potential, too. From WC3 on, I think the system proved that.

Alas, the company would dump all the good stuff (WC4, MK3, the M2) and go on to make... Army Men games up until bankruptcy :(
 
Bandit LOAF said:
They fudged it up and they've certainly paid for hurting WC. :)
Click to expand...

um, how is EnB a FudgeUp, over a year after its release it seems just as popular, and its just been released retail in the UK guaranteeing a further year at least in market, to be honest, after that it will easily have broken even!
 
E&B took three years to develop and was an embarassing failure sales-wise... think five digits instead of the requisite seven you need to just break even these days. Electronic Arts thought they had (and paid a huge amount of money for) a second Ultima Online.

I don't have anything against E&B, and I'm sure there are people who are fans... but business wise it was a huge bust.
 
hmm, to be honest, for a game that you could just download, paying anything for it is fairly impressive, the key to its success is not its retail sales, but the playtime for it, and to be honest, while i was playing it for a review (uk release) the servers were always 90 or so percent full, the game is pretty packed, and its still going, so i dont think it is a failure, further it cannot be expected to break even on retail alone since it costs but 15 dollars new! and besides, most pc games take as long, if not longer to develop than EnB has done, look at doom3, unreal 2, duke forever, the big games take years, red alert 2 was 2 and a half years old when generals came out, and generals was in production (not just pre-production) before ra2 was actually released (admittedly very early stages, but thats not the point)

guaging a game on wether it breaks even on retail is unfortunately a thing of the past, the games success will be (and is being imho) measured by the numbers of players, now and in the coming 2 or 3 years.
 
No, it isn't. Retail is the bottom line for a publishing company. I am not judging the *quality* of Earth and Beyond -- it may be the greatest thing since sliced bread -- but EA will (and already has) base everything on comparative sales figures.

They looked at their first week and first month sales and said "Oh, Ultima Online - the title we're basing our sales model on - shipped a hundred times as many units as this game did. This game is a failure." That's why they very promptly closed Westwood -- a cost cutting measure to make up for all the money they blew on E&B.
 
Madman said:
hmm, to be honest, for a game that you could just download, paying anything for it is fairly impressive, the key to its success is not its retail sales, but the playtime for it, and to be honest, while i was playing it for a review (uk release) the servers were always 90 or so percent full, the game is pretty packed, and its still going, so i dont think it is a failure, further it cannot be expected to break even on retail alone since it costs but 15 dollars new! and besides, most pc games take as long, if not longer to develop than EnB has done, look at doom3, unreal 2, duke forever, the big games take years, red alert 2 was 2 and a half years old when generals came out, and generals was in production (not just pre-production) before ra2 was actually released (admittedly very early stages, but thats not the point)

guaging a game on wether it breaks even on retail is unfortunately a thing of the past, the games success will be (and is being imho) measured by the numbers of players, now and in the coming 2 or 3 years.
Click to expand...

The problem is still that the game didn't sell as well as expected, -and- their membership numbers are nowhere near as high as UO, AC, Everquest, Anarchy Online, or even Shadowbane or EVE: Second Genesis.

Given how much time they spent pushing this game with its point-and-click combat... well, let's just say it's disappointing given that online games make money by their subscriber base. Given the one this game has, and how much it cost to produce it and maintain it... it's a failure, in MMO terms.
 
psych said:
I would have wanted to see a remake of WC1 on the GBA. Shame those guys who made the WCP GBA conversion couldn't get the rights to it.
Click to expand...
Just out of curosity, why couldn't they get the rights?
 
I think EA is not very sure themself what rights to WC1 the have.
Oldiez still owns the music I think and Roberts also owns parts of it. So they probably just avoid the whole hassle and concentrate on the stuff they definitely own - WCP
 
Oldziey's music is firmly in EA's hands - it's the Fatman/Dave Govett stuff in WC1 and 2 that's questionable.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
No, it isn't. Retail is the bottom line for a publishing company. I am not judging the *quality* of Earth and Beyond -- it may be the greatest thing since sliced bread -- but EA will (and already has) base everything on comparative sales figures.

They looked at their first week and first month sales and said "Oh, Ultima Online - the title we're basing our sales model on - shipped a hundred times as many units as this game did. This game is a failure." That's why they very promptly closed Westwood -- a cost cutting measure to make up for all the money they blew on E&B.
Click to expand...

Um....then why move half of the Westwood team and Pasific team to LA?! If E&B was really a failure why still support it with an expansion pack? Why bring in the Westwood team to help make Zero Hour? The way I see it EA is spending more money in the LA unit than maintaining seperate studios in Las Vegas and Pasific!
 
Karthik@KANE said:
Um....then why move half of the Westwood team and Pasific team to LA?! If E&B was really a failure why still support it with an expansion pack? Why bring in the Westwood team to help make Zero Hour? The way I see it EA is spending more money in the LA unit than maintaining seperate studios in Las Vegas and Pasific!
Click to expand...

Except that, by keeping everyone in one area in LA, they save the costs on infrastructure and communications, plus they can keep tighter control over expenditures and schedules.

Besides, E&B isn't a project to be so easily abandoned, even if the game's pulling in less money than UO, EQ, or AO... hell, they're still continuing with The Sims Online, despite the utter catastrophe it's proven to be so far. They can't just abandon the project.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top