EA On Movie Games And Original IP

In the first part of an interview with Develop, EA Games boss Frank Gibeau has talked about how things have changed at the label since he took over two year’s ago, as well as the company’s attitude with regard to games based on movie licences, and original IPs.

“Two years ago, when I took over the organisation, quality was in the low-70s, we had a lot of franchises and many of them weren’t healthy,” says Gibeau. “Need For Speed was sliding in quality, Medal Of Honor barely existed, and when I came in, it was apparent to me that the best studios in the world have their own cultures, and not a lot of ours had that…we have to foster that. We have to decentralise the studios – creating what we call city-states, where developers have their own creative autonomy and their own business. And we have to give developers more time to put the polish into games to make them great.” Two years on, and this year has seen a rebooted Medal of Honor, and fresh and exciting new Need for Speed both score 8/10’s here at TSA and positive reviews elsewhere on the web, so it looks like that policy paid off.

He also had the following to say on the subject of rushed licenced games versus original and polished titles: “We’re now releasing some pretty great games, and I think that this is down to our new philosophy. That’s exactly what’s happened with Crysis 2, which hasn’t been pushed for a Christmas release. If you want to make a hit, you have to give a game time to get to quality. The days of licensed-based, 75-rated games copies are dead like the dinosaur.” Asked if that meant EA would be steering clear of their heavily-movie game-based old portfolio, including Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, James Bond and more, Gibeau confirmed that is indeed the case: “Considering the total amount of money we have to spend on those types of James Bond games, and the total amount of man-hours we had to put into them, we thought; hell, let’s work on our own IP. The guys who made James Bond games for us, well yeah, they went on and made Dead Space. And look where we are now; what would you rather publish, retail and play – the latest James Bond or Dead Space 2?”

However, Gibeau was quick to note that the new-IP strategy hadn’t been an immediate success, noting that both Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge had “some degree of success” but didn’t meet EA’s “expectations” for different reasons. “First-person parkour across buildings is fun, but to be blunt, Mirror’s Edge’s’ execution fell short,” he says. “There were issues with the learning curve, the difficulty, the narrative, and then there was no multiplayer either. The key learning from us was that if you’re going to be bold with that kind of concept, you need to take it as far as it can go in development.”

Dead Space on the other hand “made money” and the company felt like the IP “struck a chord”, but an online mode and “more engrossing” story was a must for the sequel. But for those (like me) still holding out for a Mirror’s Edge sequel, there’s a glint of hope: “One thing I will say is that we won’t give up on those IPs. A new idea obviously has a lot of risk attached to it, but if you get it all right it can be huge.”

Here’s hoping, then.

Source: Develop