Interview: EA: We haven't forgotten about Road Rash, Magic Carpet
- Thread starter Evan
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Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
BOOM, Magic Carpet fans just got BOBBED.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I hate to be the guy who says things that people don't want to hear, but in a bunch of cases there's no reason to bring back these old IPs.
You don't *need* Burnout, Need for Speed and Road Rash--you need one racing IP, whichever one is the most recognizable (probably NFS).
Similarly, Ultima and Dungeon Keeper are amazing worlds and I've love to see them again but I just don't see it happening when EA is building the Dragon Age franchise. There's room in the market for both but I don't see how there's room in EA's budget for multiple D&D-derived AAA RPGs.
(It reminds me of Ultima Online 2--it very quickly became clear to everyone except the people developing Ultima Online 2 that there wasn't an audience for the game and that they were just spending money on a project that would only end up taking subscribers away from a game they already made.)
You don't *need* Burnout, Need for Speed and Road Rash--you need one racing IP, whichever one is the most recognizable (probably NFS).
Similarly, Ultima and Dungeon Keeper are amazing worlds and I've love to see them again but I just don't see it happening when EA is building the Dragon Age franchise. There's room in the market for both but I don't see how there's room in EA's budget for multiple D&D-derived AAA RPGs.
(It reminds me of Ultima Online 2--it very quickly became clear to everyone except the people developing Ultima Online 2 that there wasn't an audience for the game and that they were just spending money on a project that would only end up taking subscribers away from a game they already made.)
t.c.cgi
Vice Admiral
I don't see the point, from the creative angle. The original teams for all those games have moved on. And then moved on two more times.
So you have a scenario where either you bring in a new team and tell them they need to neuter their creativity to adhere to the last thread the franchise was on, or they let the dev team do whatever they like and use the name for market appeal only. I've never been impressed with the results of either.
Bob McDob
Better Health Through Less Flavor
Hehe, I didn't mean for that to come off as derogatory, but I've never heard anybody even mention Magic Carpet, let alone talk about it.
I actually remember playing it, or the sequel, - it was the mid-90s and a couple of kids in a computer class brought it in - but I barely remember anything of it, and I probably wouldn't even have remembered the name if I hadn't essentially devoted that period of my life to playing computer games and reading PC Gamer.
I was actually surprised to follow up on the "EA Games CEO" part of the article and realize that EA and EA Games are two distinct entities; I'd always assumed that it was just a branding thing.
Hmm, not sure I entirely agree with you there, simply because I don't see dungeon keeper and ultima as competitors, dungeon siege and ultima maybe, but i always saw dungeon keeper as a theme-park genre game (the genre that evil genius and the like have entered)
Anyway, I'd rather see a dungeon siege or ultima sequel to dragon age, i've not been impressed with dragon age that much.
Road Rash is kind of an exception because it wasn't all about the racing, I really don't care for racing games but RR on the Amiga provided me with hours of entertainment as a kid. Obviously it was about racing really...if you want to win/upgrade bike, a lot of it was about the blast, and humour (at the time) of suddenly being beaten off your bike by a competitor with a bat, or hitting a pedestrian and being flung 75 feet through the air and down the road.
Yeah, there's probably not such a market for that these days...
Iceblade
Admiral
Yeah, Road Rash sounds like a precursor for Grand Theft Auto. Any new game in that series might end up competing with Grand Theft since they both focus on violence. (I say might since I've never played either game series nor care to)
Dungeon Keeper might sell, but it would probably only do as well as Evil Genius or the Dungeon Keeper inspired Dungeons (which I hear is actually pretty poor, so probably better than this game).
Ultima, while it sounds like it would do great (based on the extreme amount of attention Aiera's recent articles have received), I really can't see it as having much room to grow. The essence of Ultima IMO has been Britannia, Lord British, the Avatar, and the virtues. Would be really hard to re-capture that in a sequel. Heck look at the Ultima fan projects, most of them have been remakes (some of them really good, but still limited in creative scope).
On the other hand, as we all know Wing commander has enormous potential for stories. You could pretty much fit anything in this franchise, though it would be questionable if the fan base would like some of these possibilities.
And unfortunately, a WC RTS would probably feel too much like Starcraft, but most genres would probably fit pretty seamless.
Just my thoughts.
Dungeon Keeper might sell, but it would probably only do as well as Evil Genius or the Dungeon Keeper inspired Dungeons (which I hear is actually pretty poor, so probably better than this game).
Ultima, while it sounds like it would do great (based on the extreme amount of attention Aiera's recent articles have received), I really can't see it as having much room to grow. The essence of Ultima IMO has been Britannia, Lord British, the Avatar, and the virtues. Would be really hard to re-capture that in a sequel. Heck look at the Ultima fan projects, most of them have been remakes (some of them really good, but still limited in creative scope).
On the other hand, as we all know Wing commander has enormous potential for stories. You could pretty much fit anything in this franchise, though it would be questionable if the fan base would like some of these possibilities.
And unfortunately, a WC RTS would probably feel too much like Starcraft, but most genres would probably fit pretty seamless.
Just my thoughts.
criticalmass
Vice Admiral
Game companies have a lot on their hands today: The gaming community is getting bigger (and older), the number of platforms is increasing, development cycles are getting shorter,and game quality does not get better with all that.
So having a bunch of old franchise names in the basement is a good thing - and it isn't.
With any old franchise you have, the question to ask is: "Is it worth the trouble?"
And this question depends on a number of other factors, like:
There are titles that you look at, and you get an easy business plan in one glance (Ultima for facebook? Deal.). There are others that lead to long boardroom discussions and blathering CxOs, like Populous. Yeah, great name, anyone bought the DS version?
And there's Wing Commander-like games: Huge expectations everywhere. To push that, there needs to be a massive new market. Since WC usually was used to push new hardware, this could be an avenue: If suddenly VR helmets get promoted as the next big thing, Wing Commander would be a great title to support that initiative.
So having a bunch of old franchise names in the basement is a good thing - and it isn't.
With any old franchise you have, the question to ask is: "Is it worth the trouble?"
And this question depends on a number of other factors, like:
- Which market may be interested in a reboot of the franchise?
- Which platform (PC, Console, Mobile, Online, Social Network..) "fits" to the game concept?
- Will younger gamers remember that there was a great old game, and be interested in the new one?
- Will the blogosphere accept changes, or discredit the game before it is even announced?
- Optionally: Can we make money with it?
- Optionally: Can we do it cheap?
There are titles that you look at, and you get an easy business plan in one glance (Ultima for facebook? Deal.). There are others that lead to long boardroom discussions and blathering CxOs, like Populous. Yeah, great name, anyone bought the DS version?
And there's Wing Commander-like games: Huge expectations everywhere. To push that, there needs to be a massive new market. Since WC usually was used to push new hardware, this could be an avenue: If suddenly VR helmets get promoted as the next big thing, Wing Commander would be a great title to support that initiative.
it'd be nice if EA would get WC3/4 onto PSN Europe/Australia. The PS1 ports were released on cd in those countries on the original PSX and there is a pretty bad shortage of titles in Australia at least of decent non shooter/racer/rpg games. Having to create 6 PSN accounts to import games from other countries is lame. They should just let you use the same account details to access every PSN store.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I seem to recall that there are complicating factors. For the PSOne re-releases it's up to the regional Sony entity to decide what releases they want to pursue... and then once they do that it's based on other factors we don't normally think about (who owns the publishing rights in the area, availability of localized versions, etc.)
I don't think we'll ever see Wing Commander 3 available on PSN. It's known (to Sony) to have problems emulating properly on later systems.
ChrisReid
Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
I wouldn't call them distinct so much as different. There are four major divisions within the global EA entity: EA Games, EA Sports, EA Play & EA Interactive: http://aboutus.ea.com/companylabels.action
A lot of companies have very different structures for how they organize their various business units, and you can have CEOs, COOs, Presidents, Vice Presidents, etc at any/all levels.
LeHah
212 Squadron - "The Old Man's Eyes And Ears"
Thats really unfortunate. Thankfully, I still have my PSOne discs in a drawer next to my PS3.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Thinking this sort of thing makes sense to regular people does much to explain Origin's Ultima Worlds Online: Origin.
Ilanin
Captain
If you did it right, a WC RTS ought to be far more Homeworld than Starcraft.
And there'd probably be a market for such a game - the Homeworld series stopped existing primarily because Relic and Sierra split. 3D is the in thing at the moment, so a fully 3D RTS is probably a good game to be developing.
Of course I'd expect such a game to tell the story of the height of the Nephilim War and the origins of the Terran-Kilrathi Alliance. Which is...well, it's the appropriate large-scale story for an RTS, but as a storyline, two formerly warring nations joining to take on a larger threat is a very, very tired plot, especially for space games, thanks to Freespace. A pre-WC1 storyline, or even a campaign something like End Run would be my preference.