Rasta-GR

Read this interesting article from EDGE magazine.

EA: Quality Overrides Ship Time

A miracle of just CEO crap?

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DrakenViator

CEO crap...

You can't have both better quality and better ship dates, without giving up something else, like cost. And guess who gets to pay the higher the cost?

On the flip side if EA switched to pay for play like they have been they will be able to do this no problem. (Read with HUGE SARCASM) That way they only have to finish half the game on time, then they will make you have to pay for the rest of it a piece at a time...

For an example of great games look at Nintendo. Those guys have delayed almost every single title of theirs by sometimes a year or more... But guess what, I still love them, I still spend money on them, I still will spend money on them without question as long as they continue to make good games.

Now I'll admit for EA this is going to be a harder issue because games like well any sports game in history are very time sensitive. Good thing for them there is a huge thriving fan base, and all they really need to do is cookie-cutter out another one each year.

[/rant]

Look I have a few issues with EA, I'm sure everyone does. I'll give them credit that they are acknowledging their need to improve. They used to seem to have the mentality of 'people will love it because we said so...' I'm glad they are willing to push (if even only a little bit) to improve game play, hopefully they stick to that.

~ Draken

MasterEditorInChief

For every blockbuster EA releases, there's a clunker that comes out a week later. Corporate sweet-talking; no more, no less.

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jazy2

What he said was they will sacrafice ship dates for quality!

We'll have to see....but don't hold your breath

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Shurikane

Fixed.

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Thesleeper01

There’s a saying that came from military contractors that often applies to computer games.

"I can make it Cheep, Good, Fast ..... Pick only 2."

Zhohar

Honestly, can any of you tell me how you would, as a game studio manager, transform a completely unrealistic and bogus goal such as "3% metascore increase over 3 years" into a better quality game?

The article is the standard CEO "goals and the timeline for achieving them" dance. It says nothing, it means nothing, and most everyone who works for EA knows it.

Had John Riccitiello meant to actually improve the quality of EA's games, he would not have made the eighth page of a tiny gamer site. He would have made the front page of the Times by pissing off 3/4s of his shareholders and board of directors.

He would have said the following:

1. The time and money alloted for testing a game before it ships will be increased five fold.
The testing team will have constant face-to-face contact with the development team, and the testers will outnumber the developers at least 3 to 1.
The testing will start earlier in the game development cycle and will last longer after the game is "complete" from the developer point of view.

2. Once the game is released, the entire staff will be employed for at least 6 months after the launch date. The play testers will become community managers, and they will report the audience's yays and nays to the developers.
The testers will read forum threads, will scoure IRC logs, will keenly pay attention to review comments and will give those over to the developers who will make changes and churn out weekly if not daily patches to address bugs, exploits, and game balance issues.


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Now, had John Riccitiello said those two things, I would have believed him about the increase in game quality. The 3% over 3 years is a silly little dance to please shareholders. It means nothing.

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Gamidragon

+1

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