Author Topic: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures! (Read 3920 times)

SysAdmin · « **on:** March 28, 2012, 02:41:58 AM »

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116516-EA-Owes-Its-Success-To-Its-Failures

"There are two real cases in EA where I think we made bad choices, and ended up being brilliant choices," he told Gamasutra.

The first case was the Amiga. EA's Amiga games were almost universally terrible. Only Deluxe Paint managed to make any money, and that's stretching the definition of "game" a little bit.

"And so the Amiga, for us, taught us a whole bunch of new things," said Hilleman. "We had to get good at music, we had to get much better at art, we had to get better animation that wasn't all sprite animation, we had to do 3D for the first time - a whole bunch of things that we had to do."

"But how it paid it off is almost all of that stuff went straight to the [Sega] Genesis. And so really what happened for us is the Amiga was sort of a pre-run of what the Genesis business was for us."

Direct Link to Gamasutra Interview Below.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/167201/Two_of_EAs_best_decisions_were_its_worst_in_disguise_.php

number6 · « **Reply #1 on:** March 28, 2012, 02:51:36 AM »

Quote from: Transition;685760

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116516-EA-Owes-Its-Success-To-Its-Failures

"There are two real cases in EA where I think we made bad choices, and ended up being brilliant choices," he told Gamasutra.

The first case was the Amiga. EA's Amiga games were almost universally terrible. Only Deluxe Paint managed to make any money, and that's stretching the definition of "game" a little bit.

"And so the Amiga, for us, taught us a whole bunch of new things," said Hilleman. "We had to get good at music, we had to get much better at art, we had to get better animation that wasn't all sprite animation, we had to do 3D for the first time - a whole bunch of things that we had to do."

"But how it paid it off is almost all of that stuff went straight to the [Sega] Genesis. And so really what happened for us is the Amiga was sort of a pre-run of what the Genesis business was for us."

Direct Link to Gamasutra Interview Below.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/167201/Two_of_EAs_best_decisions_were_its_worst_in_disguise_.php

"Owes its Success" not
"Blames its Success"

#6

magnetic · « **Reply #2 on:** March 28, 2012, 02:52:34 AM »

Interesting.. Thanks for the link

save2600 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2012, 02:52:55 AM »

Quote from: number6;685763

"Owes its Success" not
"Blames its Success"

#6

Digiman · « **Reply #4 on:** March 28, 2012, 03:37:49 AM »

Quote from: Transition;685760

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116516-EA-Owes-Its-Success-To-Its-Failures

"There are two real cases in EA where I think we made bad choices, and ended up being brilliant choices," he told Gamasutra.

The first case was the Amiga. EA's Amiga games were almost universally terrible. Only Deluxe Paint managed to make any money, and that's stretching the definition of "game" a little bit.

"And so the Amiga, for us, taught us a whole bunch of new things," said Hilleman. "We had to get good at music, we had to get much better at art, we had to get better animation that wasn't all sprite animation, we had to do 3D for the first time - a whole bunch of things that we had to do."

"But how it paid it off is almost all of that stuff went straight to the [Sega] Genesis. And so really what happened for us is the Amiga was sort of a pre-run of what the Genesis business was for us."

Direct Link to Gamasutra Interview Below.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/167201/Two_of_EAs_best_decisions_were_its_worst_in_disguise_.php

So they admit they screwed us? I bought all my C64 games, but pirated most of my Amiga games because of this exact attitude!

(they're one of many)

Trev · « **Reply #5 on:** March 28, 2012, 05:26:40 AM »

Wait, what? One on One, Skate or Die!, Mail Order Monsters, Bards Tale, Populous.... Mostly C64, but I played the heck out of Populous. I think what EA is really saying is that they didn't make real money until they sold their souls to the NFL and John Madden Football was released for the Genesis.

hooligan · « **Reply #6 on:** March 28, 2012, 05:30:06 AM »

Interceptor ftw!

Yasu · « **Reply #7 on:** March 28, 2012, 12:29:22 PM »

Why do they feel the need to tell us who loved their games that it was all crap, a lie? I LOVED Populous! One of my favorite games ever! I can hardly believe that they didn't make any money out of it. Maybe not as much than they got from the Genesis, but that must be because most people didn't yet have home computers.

blakespot · « **Reply #8 on:** March 28, 2012, 12:54:33 PM »

Seriously.

bp

Crisisdog · « **Reply #9 on:** March 28, 2012, 01:20:49 PM »

Interesting that they thought their games were "bad", as many of their Amiga launch titles (Archon, Arctic Fox, Instant Music, Marble Madness) seemed pretty good to me. At least for a new platform that they were just learning how to program...

bloodline · « **Reply #10 on:** March 28, 2012, 01:29:00 PM »

Nah, this is just a bit of revisionist history... Sneaking in a bit of truth, but ultimately trying to make the rather boring tale of a software company sound interesting, the just struggle against all the odds etc...

JimS · « **Reply #11 on:** March 28, 2012, 03:43:39 PM »

They sang a different tune in 1985, in the premier issue of Amiga World. ;-)

fishy_fiz · « **Reply #12 on:** March 28, 2012, 03:52:13 PM »

Seems a lot of people misunderstood this article.
By "bad" theyre talking about sales, not the quality of software.
Both the Amiga, and 3do while not money makers for them did end up as good lessons in producing software for new eras/standards in technology.

bloodline · « **Reply #13 on:** March 28, 2012, 03:55:05 PM »

Quote from: fishy_fiz;685829

Seems a lot of people misunderstood this article.
By "bad" theyre talking about sales, not the quality of software.
Both the Amiga, and 3do while not money makers for them did end up as good lessons in producing software for new eras/standards in technology.

It's hard to take the quote any other way, but you are right there maybe a large context where terrible is referring to sales rather than the software (which is currently implied by the quote).

itix · « **Reply #14 on:** March 28, 2012, 03:56:24 PM »

Why not read article before making your wrong conclusions?

Quote

"When we built Amiga titles for the first time, we were coming out of the 8-bit world; we were building some IBM PC stuff, but for the most part it wasn't high quality, relatively high resolution high color stuff. And so the Amiga, for us, taught us a whole bunch of new things. We had to get good at music, we had to get much better at art, we had to get better animation that wasn't all sprite animation, we had to do 3D for the first time -- a whole bunch of things that we had to do."

Unfortunately, says Hilleman, "None of that paid off except Deluxe Paint, really, in the Amiga world."

Author Topic: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures! (Read 3920 times)

SysAdmin

EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

number6

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

magnetic

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

save2600

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

Digiman

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

Trev

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

hooligan

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

Yasu

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

blakespot

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

Crisisdog

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

bloodline

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

JimS

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

fishy_fiz

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

bloodline

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!

itix

Re: EA Blames its Success on its Amiga Failures!