EA has made a note of promoting smaller indie games during their press conferences at E3, putting games like Unravel and Fe on the same stage as its major franchises.
But some developers are sceptical about how much of an effort EA wants to make in the indie space, as one Psyonix member cheekily pointed out this morning.
Psyonix were the makers of last year’s biggest indie hit, Rocket League, and they’re also leading the charge in getting cross-play working across all major platforms at the same time. But instead of launching under Sony’s PlayStation Plus, it could have been a massive cash cow for EA instead.
Corey Davis, a design director at Psynoix, tweeted that the studio pitched the game to EA’s Partners program five years ago but the publisher supposedly wasn’t interested.
We actually pitched the game to EA Partners in 2011, so I’m not sure what would be different this time around! https://t.co/FF59BS3Z6N
— Corey Davis (@mrcoreydavis) June 16, 2016
It’s even more curious given that he was indirectly responding to a remark made by EA executive vice president Patrick Soderlund, who told IGN that he wanted to be the person who found Rocket League.
“Yes. Would I want [Rocket League] to be an EA property? Of course I would like to. That’s [the idea behind EA Originals]. For us to be able to find these people and help understand what they’re building and help push it to market. For us to find something else.” Soderlund has only been in his current role at EA since 2013. Before that, he was an executive vice president of EA Labels, which was later broken down and merged into EA Studios.
But things have worked out pretty well for Psyonix, as Apogee and 3D Realms co-founder George Broussard pointed out.
@georgeb3dr indeed
— Corey Davis (@mrcoreydavis) June 16, 2016
Comments
7 responses to “EA Could Have Published Rocket League”
Well, it’s a good thing that they didn’t, otherwise it may not have been as big as it is now.
The real tragedy here is all the micro-transaction DLC we missed out on
Origin exclusive!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/p6weqG2bhmU/hqdefault.jpg
Things change in 5 years. Getting the shittest company awards twice changed EA.
IF EA had it I dont have a doubt in my mind it would not be as big as it is now.
This! Let’s review the other games that came they the partner program back then
Bulletstorm – failed
Crysis games – I reckon 2 was a success but 3 tanked
Kingdoms of Amalur – possible ripped of taxpayers in the US