EA has closed down Visceral Games

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

The thing is milk, if an EA executive read your entire post, the only thing that would sink in is "AllwaysOnline-OpenWorld-Microtransaction-Only."

 

[milk]

The thing is milk, if an EA executive read your entire post, the only thing that would sink in is "AllwaysOnline-OpenWorld-Microtransaction-Only."

"See, it's what all the kids are talking about online!" "Sindy, get me on the phone with those fruits at the indie division, will make 'em gamers buy every next inch of wool on the next Unravel and whatever that crazy Arab at Hazelight is making is gonna be open world and play just like DoTA. And like Fortnite. And like Pokemon Go!"

 

[Jupiter]

I can understand them wanting to milk that trend. That's one thing I understand well, in fact.
But not going all-in for a single race horse is just basic healthy business practice. Specially in entertainment. You don't wanna be the AllwaysOnline-OpenWorld-Microtransaction-Only games company when that market segment crashes.
A company the size of EA, of all places, should have a wealth of studios making different types of games from the one trend that happens to be popular right now. Even if the majority of studios is still going for the easy cash, leave some different stuff going on, just in case. It's a contingency measured if nothing else. It's not like single player story driven games are a dead genre anyway. Sony has been making a killing with them. They sold millions with Spiderman just now, on a single platform, a game commissioned by Marvel (read Disney) because I assume they were tired of seeing that IP being associated with crap cash-grab products. I would also assume that same Disney does not want that same thing to happen to their other recently acquired Star Wars IP.
Sure successful lootboxey games print EA lot's of money, but how much can you saturate that market? How many people who are of the type that will actually buy these games and fall for the micro-transaction trap actually are there. Can you keep making more games that operate that way and new consumers for them will keep popping up out of nowhere? Or are they just investing millions in making more games to compete for the same pool of idiots? Not that smart of an investment if that's the case. Specially if by insisting on certain market trends you suck out all appeal out of titles and they end up disappointing in sales and online playerbase like it already happened other recent EA releases, including a Star Fucking Wars one. A successful single player title makes more money than a always online microtransaction flop.
Beside the wasted money, one could even argue more of these titles just accelerates the process of government wanting to regulate that madness, and their consumer themselves realizing they are being played with.
Sounds like they'll just waste even more money than they already did with this thing. Tarnish yet more their reputation, drag Star Wars along with it, and shine a light on how shit EA and loot boxes are for a potential new group of people who didn't hate either of these things yet (casual gamer Star Wars fans) all while straining their relationship with Disney, who they must have spent top dollar to lure into partnering up with them.
But what do I know, I'm not an executive taking partners to strip clubs and telling my creators to stick whatever the new market trend is inside their damn product because I saw some graphs that tell me they make money.

I would have played a good linear Star Wars singleplayer game for a few hours and I would not have touched it again. It would be long forgotten. In a good executed Anthem type of game I can dig in for hundreds of top-class hours and therefore its clear that this type of game is the better one (also for your wallet). Since the release of Battlefront II I play it permanently. Battlefront II is the best Star Wars game ever made (only two maps are bad). Especially the newly added Geonosis is first class. I've never seen anything better in Star Wars since it is pure bombast with excellent gameplay.

I don't care about these lootboxes and micro-transaction (they are even a good idea because of them there are no map DLCs which would split the player community). Unfortunately those lootboxes were abolished in Star Wars Battlefront II and therefore players will get fewer new maps. Those who complained about the lootboxes the most didn't buy the game anyway after they were removed.