The bigger they are...

...the faster they downsize.

Want to know why EA's suddenly having a tough time of it? They're too big. That, and they think it's alright to penalize people who actually pay for their games.

Maybe if they spent less money on "managing" their "digital rights," and even less money on fucking sports titles, the company wouldn't be having to lay off their actual useful assets (namely their large collection of talented game developers).

What really got me was this little snippet from the article:

'"EA needs to stop investing in things that are speculative and don't have a proven business model," said Michael Pachter, a financial analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities who tracks the video game industry.'

Financial analyst? Tracks the video game industry? Newsflash: EA's in this boat precisely because they've only been sticking to titles with a proven business model. Dead Space was one of the first and original titles I've seen come out of those doors in the last five years. I don't want Command & Conquer 63. I don't want NHL 2012: Post Apocalypse Now Edition. I don't fucking want regurgitated and rehashed and revomited (revomited, is that even a word?) games.

Take a cue from the publishing industry. Unless you've got a real good thing going, they want new and fresh. Nobody wants to read what comes after the Lord of the Rings. Especially if it's not even written by the same fucking author as the original. -see that's a subtle reference to what happened to CnC after EA ate Westwood.

Also, the key to success in today's market is quite simple. Stop turning established franchises into MMORPG's. It won't work. Unless you're somehow going to create an entirely functional architecture from the ground up that not only competes with Goliath, but even surpasses it, it's not even worth the effort. It's like trying to tempt people away from their crack addiction by offering them sugar cubes.

The only silver lining I can see in the near future will be the sequel to Mass Effect. Not to sink my own ship, but those of you who played Mass Effect know what kind of ambitious shit they pulled to make that game work. Not all of it was appreciated by the media at large, but this is what happens when guys in suits mingle with paranoid schizophrenics. Suddenly there's all madness and everything's owned by two companies and the nuclear apocalypse follows shortly after.

In afterthought, why couldn't it be more like coke and pepsi? I've never, ever gone to enjoy a cold one and had the bottle let me only take five sips, in case I'm sharing with other people. I've never heard of Pepsi buying out smaller sodas and then promptly closing their doors as a tax write-off.

Anyway. For those of you who couldn't give two rats' asses about videogames, or the cretins like me that play them, allow me to fill in the evolutionary gap.
See, when shit in my world spills over into yours, guys like this pick it up and you suffer as a result. You've been warned.