True, EA did pay the bills, but if it hadn't been for EA's rigid deadline, WC4 could have had a new flight engine. And we do owe EA a lot for putting up loads of dough for the cinematics in WC4. And I think it is an awesome game, regardless.
I'm not saying EA is evil. WC owes a lot to them. However, WC would owe even more to EA if the corporation's priorities were a little different. I see the making of computer games as an art, whereas I tend to think EA sees them as potential revenue. Not that it's EA fault. The entire entertainment industry seems to have the same perception. Instead of being ambitious and doing new things, they tend to push sequels of mediocre movies and mindless action flicks that tend to generate constant profits. It seems like everytime I go to a movie, I see the same thing I've seen countless times before. Same thing on TV, every sitcom seems to just rehash the material of prior sitcoms. People don't dare to be ambitious, because doing so is time consuming, and time is money. The computer gaming industry didn't have these problems ten years ago, but now that the cost of putting together a game rivals that of the other forms of media, you don't get the same kind of inovation coming out of nowhere that happened back 'in the early days.' So, I don't mean to place all of the blame on EA. I think the real culprit is our entire society, but its just so much easier to use a scapegoat, don't ya think?
And true, maybe Microsoft will prove to be just as bad. I stay busy and haven't done much gaming for the past few years, so I haven't played nor can I comment on the release of Starlancer. But, in my understanding, DA isn't owned by Microsoft, the two just have a strategic alliance, whatever that means. If DA was under EA, I believe Freelancer would have been delivered on the original schedule, ready or not, in the mold of Ultima Ascension.
And Freelancer is indeed a space sim, just not a sim like we've come to expect. Whether that will be good or bad will depend on our expectations, which is why I am keeping my mind open. If its like they describe, slower paced and strategy based, I think it could be very interesting. Great games are almost always revolutionary in scope, and that is what DA is attempting to do. In any case, it won't play like WC, and while I love WC, I'm not neccessarily sure that that is a bad thing.
