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EA Partners: DeMartini on the 'Renaissance'
Posted by Maggie Greene at 6:40 AM on August 25, 2008
Gamasutra has a nice five page interview up with David DeMartini of EA Partners, the Electronic Arts division that has released games like Rock Band, Crysis, The Orange Box, and, uh, Hellgate: London in the past year. It's a pretty wide ranging chat, from discussions of the challenges the come with working with Japanese studios, to acquiring new titles, to the relative disaster of Hellgate:
We're certainly sad with the results for Flagship and what's happened with Hellgate, because at the time we signed it, we were trying to get involved in a very complicated relationship between Namco and Flagship. We were coming late to the party, and trying to do whatever we could to sprinkle the game magic on the project and get it headed in the right direction.
I think that's an example where all three parties had the best interest of the game in mind, and sometimes the game doesn't work out. Hellgate is still an incredible concept. The guys who worked on it spent thousands of hours trying to make that concept work, and sometimes we just don't see something. Sometimes, we just didn't take enough time. Sometimes, things don't work out the way you expect.
It's kind of like a film with all big stars — on the script, it should be successful, but the movie doesn't turn out as good as everybody hoped. That's why EAP takes a portfolio approach with its games. You have to place a lot of bets, and hope for a lot of hits.
Certainly worth a read through — I always enjoy reading interviews that cover a lot of ground, and this certainly satisfies in that respect.
David DeMartini on the Renaissance of EA Partners [Gamasutra]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
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Kegwen
Posted 7:19 AM 25/8/08
@PapaBear434: I think running out of money had a hand in pushing release. Bill Roper dipped into his 401k to pay employee salaries near the end. Source: [www.1up.com]
I think gamers need to get over hating EA. Activision seems to have picked up all of the practices that people pin on EA, why not hate on them?
Kegwen
adocious
Posted 7:18 AM 25/8/08
@ZetaCrossfire: No, it never had a chance. That game was just plain unfun.
adocious
ZetaCrossfire
Posted 7:09 AM 25/8/08
hellgate... could of been so great...
ZetaCrossfire
PapaBear434
Posted 7:03 AM 25/8/08
I think the biggest issue Hellgate had was it was released to damn soon. They needed another few months to squash some game killing bugs, design some levels other than sewer, subway, and street, and SQUASH SOME GAME KILLING BUGS.
Seriously, the game crashes are what killed it for me.
And somehow, I can't help but think EA had a hand in pushing for a October 31st release.
PapaBear434
TheGuero
Posted 6:57 AM 25/8/08
Interesting, very. An insightful read I must say.
TheGuero
DarkTravesty
Posted 7:45 AM 25/8/08
@Kegwen: because most of activisions ip's are gasp good?
DarkTravesty
MarionBarryHussein
Posted 8:29 AM 25/8/08
@Kegwen: I think it is because EA wasn't just the dominant player in the space for so long, but because they have squandered their lead with such remarkable stupidity, arrogance and poor execution.
Perhaps ATVI will come close to the combination of contempt for shareholders, developers and gamers that EA has exemplified in the past decade at some point in the future, but I doubt it.
MarionBarryHussein
Niric
Posted 2:31 PM 25/8/08
@adocious: Speak for yourself.
I enjoyed Hellgate. Though it didn't blow me away and it had faults - it was still good fun for me. Not an uncommon thing at all for most games. Its rare to find one that will break out of that range. Monster Hunter is one of the few for me. Also, I didn't have all the troubles with the game everyone else had. I had a texture bug that would show up from time to time, but the game would rarely lock up or crash. It may have happened less than most PC games I've played, honestly. So maybe I was lucky or maybe I wasn't, hard to tell.
I plan to go back and play more Hellgate someday. I got a ways in with the Engineer class. But I still have a long ways to go before I even finish a full campaign.
-Niric
Niric
Reedscam
Posted 7:26 AM 25/8/08
@PapaBear434: It actually seemed more that Flagship was running out of money than EA or Namco-Bandai was pushing it out the door.
Reedscam