Opinion

Five Things EA Needs to To do Improve its Image

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It’s no great secret that Electronic Arts holds the dubious honor of being the most hated organization in the games industry – perhaps even in North America. Most of you probably have your own gripes about how EA tends to do business. You’ve seen what they’re doing to so many of the great developers they acquire, you’ve witnessed how their short-term, profit-driven outlook is steadily corroding all their best franchises. Yet you can’t help but watch – like you’re seeing a train-wreck in slow motion.

Critical Thinking: Creative Control in Game Development

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The controversy over Mass Effect 3’s ending is long-since dead and gone, but the lessons learned from it – both by fans and by developers – still resonate within the community even now, more than a full year after the fact. For those of you who need a bit of a refresher, things kind of went something like this: Mass Effect 3’s ending was rushed and awful. Fans expressed outrage that it was rushed and awful, and demanded that Bioware changed it. After one of the biggest media frenzies seen in the games industry, Bioware eventually acceded to its players.

Critical Thinking: Player Agency and the Illusion of Choice

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Last week, I examined the concept of branching narrative in the context of gaming. Working from an interview with TellTale Games and using The Walking Dead as an example, I came to the conclusion that, ultimately, the choices themselves don’t matter. What’s truly important is that you make your players invest themselves in the dilemmas you’ve presented them; make them think and feel and agonize over which choice is the right one. If you can’t do this, it doesn’t matter how many different paths your story gives the players – they aren’t going to care.

Emotional investment is only part of the equation, however. Once you’ve got the players caring about their choices, you have to show them that those choices actually made a difference. Perhaps even more vital to any good narrative is player agency: essentially, allowing the player’s actions to have a real, noticeable impact on the world around them – and demonstrating to them that impact.

Do You Grow Out Of MMO Games?

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As I enter the lesser exciting part of my 20s I find myself straying from genres I once held so dear. I’m not sure if this is due to the lack of innovation in those particular areas, or if my tastes have changed in the years gone by