It seems the days of EA's well-oiled licensed game machine could be numbered, as The Godfather joins James Bond, Lord of the Rings and Batman in the publisher's recently dropped brand names.
After confirming that EA is "not going to do another" Godfather game, Games boss Frank Gibeau suggested that licensed games will play less of a role in EA's strategy for the future.
"The bloom is really off the rose for licensed games," Gibeau told the Los Angeles Times.
Godfather II
Official trailer
1:58Walkthrough movie
Godfather II
Official trailer
1:58Walkthrough movie
Age Restricted Content Please enter your date of birth below in order to verify your age before watching this video
You must be at least 18 years of age.
Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again..
Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular
Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page
An EA spokesperson later rushed to deliver the publication the official line that "nothing has been decided as to future [Godfather] sequels". Though it sounds like it has.
The comments could have interesting repercussions for the development of the upcoming Harry Potter games and Starbreeze-developed Jason Bourne. Will these get the traditional marketing bang EA's typically put behind its licensed games?
Either way, more Dead Space and less 007 Racing can only be a good thing.
"The bloom is really off the rose for licensed games,"
b******s..its just EA have put out some right s**t recently...Godfather 2 wasnt anywhere near as good as the first,and the least said about Lord of the Rings Conquest the better
you make a good Licensed game and then we will see if the bloom really is off the rose,but you can't judge now on the crap you have released
Most licenced games are a huge pile of crap and have been for as long as I can remember.
Occasionally the odd game slips through the net, when by some fluke the developers/publishers actually bother making a decent game and don't just expect sales off the back of the licence.
When they had LOTR license there was endless possibilities and they wasted them. Project Gray Company was very promising but they scrapped it, unbelievable.
I think what is actually happening is that the licensed titles are becoming more and more expensive to get hold of. Movie industry is thinking "wow look at all the money these games companies make... we should charge more for our license". In reality film titles are a nightmare to produce... short dev times, nightmare movie studios wanting approval on everything, not giving out enough details of story or plot etc etc and the result is usually a very poor game. Regardless of developer there are very few movie tie ins that without the license you would either buy or think about buying.
I think you will see a shift from EA mainly because those sort of tie ups produce very little money. Naturally the licenses EA have aren't just film but sport and many of those sell big numbers and deals are done for a period of time 5-10 years for example so those are here to stay... unless they make no money in which case at the end of the contract period they won't renew... All those moaning about EA and franchised rubbish... who produced the last Bond game? That was awful too. As I say difficult to do well.
Good move by EA. I think licenses in some ways are bad because they decree you must do certain things in the game in order to keep the license holder and buyers of the games happy and up to the right standard. This therefore reduces the amount of creativity EA or any developer could put into the game.
Let us hope EA continue with their current streak.
boycotted ea games a long long time ago, fifa 2001 time...
was recently worried about fight nigh round 4 takng over, however after playing the ufc demo and fnr4 demo, ufc takes it easily,
which to be honest im glad about, and mildly suprised. dont get me wrong, both are good, but ufc does boxing and everyhting else, it really is in its own league.
developed by the same people wh did ufc on the dreamcast its excelent and thq need a bit of support, after dropping loads of games and green lighting such titles as 50 cent blood on the sand, ufc, red faction and wwe ledgends of wreslemania.
all of which all top titles and need supporting.
ea games really need to drop off a cliff and die. on the other hand, ea big (freestylee) ssx sonwboarding is my fav game ever. respect for mirrors edge,(& i strongly believe this should ahve released under the ea big banner., ohh but its not sport, so they cant do that..dang stpuid stupid ea.)
& not so much the other horror based games, as thats been done 1762 millin times before.
basicaly ea big needs to re-open. ea sport needs to close. pes needs to take fifa, sonys own teams need to make nba live inside and mlb live inside, then theres only fotball left , sure 2k wil hapily take it to the next level.
ea is good for the industry and drives competition. but those monopolising basturds need to be taken down a peg, seriosly, help me by boycotting them, theres so many other deserving developers hat need your help, dont just buy ea cos' theres shoved in your face or on the top rack/shelf at walmart. get reading reviews and buy the games that score best / take your fancy.
Purple...you are a very sad man. Perhaps your time would be better spent learning to write in a coherent manner than just dumping your entire thoughts on here like a verbally incontinent school boy.
As for boycotting ... yeah that makes really good sense... why would you support good product? Good grief... by all means ignore rubbish but just behaving like a petulant child who cries because "the big boys don't play fair" is pretty pathetic. I think you could go down as my "moron of the day"... congratulations.
Purple...you are a very sad man. Perhaps your time would be better spent learning to write in a coherent manner than just dumping your entire thoughts on here like a verbally incontinent school boy.
As for boycotting ... yeah that makes really good sense... why would you support good product? Good grief... by all means ignore rubbish but just behaving like a petulant child who cries because "the big boys don't play fair" is pretty pathetic. I think you could go down as my "moron of the day"... congratulations.
That said it better than me, why these people boycott a company because they produced some s**te (which company hasn't), or sequel number 4578 with 1 changed team is something of a mystery to me. After all it is all about the games innit?
boycotted ea games a long long time ago, fifa 2001 time...
....
ea is good for the industry and drives competition. but those monopolising basturds need to be taken down a peg, seriosly, help me by boycotting them, theres so many other deserving developers hat need your help, dont just buy ea cos' theres shoved in your face or on the top rack/shelf at walmart. get reading reviews and buy the games that score best / take your fancy.
So you boycotted EA games. You missed out on some games that got pretty good reviews and were actually pretty fun to play. Some may disagree... but games like Mirrors Edge, Dead Space and Skate have shown that EA are willing to explore genres they didn't care about before and attempt to give them a chance at being decent. I think it's best to keep an open mind on these things and if a company shows improvement, why not see for yourself if they've truely started to put effort into making quality products?
Secondly, I bet you're happy to boycott the "monopolising bastards" that EA apparently are, and happy to purchase the new Activision video game? Oh, didn't you hear? Activision are currently the biggest third-party publisher, after buying up as many companies and picking up assets for companies that have gone down the pan. I wonder if you'd ever label them as monopolising bastards? Considering that they seem to be following the gameplan EA ran by about 5 or so years ago, I'd certainly say that backs up the claims that Activision are "The New EA".
However, I'm kind of acting on double standards here (by badmouthing Activision) - At the end of the day all of these companies aren't here to pander to artistic taste and fulfill fan expectations, they're here to make MONEY. They've not dropped licenses for artistic integrity, fan reaction or anything sincere, it's all about money. If you're gonna boycott a company like EA, you'll have to boycott the whole games industry because every publisher is only in this thing for the cash. Publishers aren't your friends, they don't see you and say "Oh, here are some gamers, let's make this game because they'll f**king love it!". They look at us and see "What do these guys really, really, really like and how can we exploit it to get rich?". The sooner you realise that the sooner you'll realise that boycotting any publisher's product is futile.
boycotted ea games a long long time ago, fifa 2001 time...
....
ea is good for the industry and drives competition. but those monopolising basturds need to be taken down a peg, seriosly, help me by boycotting them, theres so many other deserving developers hat need your help, dont just buy ea cos' theres shoved in your face or on the top rack/shelf at walmart. get reading reviews and buy the games that score best / take your fancy.
So you boycotted EA games. You missed out on some games that got pretty good reviews and were actually pretty fun to play. Some may disagree... but games like Mirrors Edge, Dead Space and Skate have shown that EA are willing to explore genres they didn't care about before and attempt to give them a chance at being decent. I think it's best to keep an open mind on these things and if a company shows improvement, why not see for yourself if they've truely started to put effort into making quality products?
Secondly, I bet you're happy to boycott the "monopolising bastards" that EA apparently are, and happy to purchase the new Activision video game? Oh, didn't you hear? Activision are currently the biggest third-party publisher, after buying up as many companies and picking up assets for companies that have gone down the pan. I wonder if you'd ever label them as monopolising bastards? Considering that they seem to be following the gameplan EA ran by about 5 or so years ago, I'd certainly say that backs up the claims that Activision are "The New EA".
However, I'm kind of acting on double standards here (by badmouthing Activision) - At the end of the day all of these companies aren't here to pander to artistic taste and fulfill fan expectations, they're here to make MONEY. They've not dropped licenses for artistic integrity, fan reaction or anything sincere, it's all about money. If you're gonna boycott a company like EA, you'll have to boycott the whole games industry because every publisher is only in this thing for the cash. Publishers aren't your friends, they don't see you and say "Oh, here are some gamers, let's make this game because they'll f**king love it!". They look at us and see "What do these guys really, really, really like and how can we exploit it to get rich?". The sooner you realise that the sooner you'll realise that boycotting any publisher's product is futile.
That is the most sensible post I've read in a long time. I must admit I'd lost faith with EA but they have definitely turned a corner in recent years.. their latest Wii efforts are massively superior to a few years ago.. games like Boom Blox, Tiger Woods 10, Grand Slam Tennis, Dead Space Extraction make use of the Wii's online, Motion Plus and/or utilise the Wii's graphical capabilities!
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
