My Time at Portia is a game about neglect.
EA canceled it's Star Wars open world game. Probably a good move, considering how the latest Star Wars film franchise is doing and how they shat on Amy's vision for the game. Sucks for the relationship between EA and the house of the mouse though. EA bought the rights to Star Wars in 2013 for a ten-year stretch. It's been six years and all to show for it is two wack games.
How did the once great house, Electronic Arts, get to this humble place? Let's head back to the start and find out.
Electronic Arts is a video game company, the second largest gaming company in America and Europe. The number one company is Activision Blizzard, the third and fourth largest are Take-Two Interactive and Ubisoft.
Trip Hawkins left Apple to start Electronic Arts in 1982. Trip's vision was to have the company be the Hollywood of computer games and to make Developers rock stars. Trip pitched his vision to Don Valentine at Sequoia Capital, who he had met from his time at Apple because Sequoia Capital had been early investors in Apple but backed out in 1979 like fuckin' idiots.
I guess Don didn't want to make the same mistake twice so he set Trip up in an empty space in some Sequoia Capital office space, gave him some money, and told him to do the thing. So Trip got right to it, built a business plan for a developer/publisher gaming model that literally did not exist before he made it, poached a bunch of good people to help him do the things he was not good at and made up a kickass name for the company. Amazin' Software.
Literally, every single person ever hated the name "Amazin' Software," so it was changed to Electronic Arts, because everyone in the company believed what the developers were making was art, a controversal stance, at the time.
Once the company got off the ground Trip started making good on his idea to turn game developers into rockstars. Back in the day, EA games cover packaging used to look like album covers. Each game had an art style that reflected the energy the game was putting out. The credits showed pictures of the developers sitting on those akward looking ass wooden stools smiling into the camera like they was in the mall getting their yearbook photo taken. The whole production really conveyed the care and respect the company had for the creators.
Trip left the company in the 90's to start 3DO (wamp-wamp). He was replaced as CEO by Larry Probst. Larry jumped ship from Activision to Electronic Arts in the 80's, coming on as VP of Sales. He got bumped to CEO of in the early nineties and got right to work doing what he did best, making sales.
The first thing he did was drop the artsy fartsy album cover packaging and visual developer credits. That shit didn't make no money. Next EA bought the licenses for most professional sports leagues and outright purchased every popular development studio they could bribe. Bullfrog, Westwood, etc... Larry figured, "Why take a chance on making something, why not just buy something people already like?" Most of the stuff he bought is gone now, he was gone as CEO soon after but stayed on EA's board of directors.
Then came John Riccitiello, he was a product guy from Clorox, PepsiCo, and Sara Lee. He saw all the sales shenanigans going on and how unhappy the public was at said shanans and said, "Guys, we have made a lot of money and own a bunch of stuff, let's just focus on making good products for now." John made a lot of sense, the problem was EA was traded on NASDAQ by now and the board of directors, Larry included, Larry especially, was hearing none of the anti-YoY + nonsense and they got him right the fuck out of there.
The new guy is Andrew Wilson. He seems nice, not much of a history, he was VP of EA Sports and I think he did some stuff with Intel. He inherited quite the shitshow, I will say that. I do not see EA being able to make good on a solid game in the four years they have left on the Disney contract.
Disney will bounce, The sports licenses will get spooked and bounce, the AAA's will somehow sell worse than they already are YoY, EA has to jettison a ton of underperforming projects and studios, company and IP's go up for sale in about ten years. GG, thanks for playing. John tossed Andrew that hot potato in 2013 on his way out the door knowing this, but I think John is just as heartbroken about it as anyone, the product guys usually care way more than they should.
A company is a reflection of the people running it, and that is how EA got here, through the linear decisions of its leaders. The visionary, the salesman, the product guy, and the kid protagonist. I don't see a long life for the publishing model EA brought to life. The floodgates are open and top-heavy companies cannot rest on the yearly iteration of their AAA IP's anymore. It was time to change the 60 dollar micro-model years ago, the ship was sinking then, and EA just kept taking on water thinking it could transform into a Submarine.
Such is life. Anyway, stop thinking My Time at Portia is just Stardew Valley which is just Animal Crossing which is just Harvest Moon which is just Seabeard which is just Farming Simulator which is just Fantasy Life which is just ok I'll stop. It's fuckin' good. Stop being like that. Also, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is cool, hatred is a pretty fucked up way to be. Do great things, you bet your dumb ass I believe in you. Also Jobz.
The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: People: Binding
