Star Wars: The EA Exclusivity Disaster

[Skyblade]

http://mp1st.com/news/report-disney-...eal-threatened

Personally, I think this deal has been fairly disastrous from the start. It's been four to five years, IIRC, and EA has produced exactly two games, both from the same series. After the unceremonious axing of Visceral Games (EA: Where Studios Go To Die) and the apparent closure of the game they were working on, and the relatively disastrous releases of the rushed Star Wars Battlefront and controversy plagued Battlefront 2, EA hasn't done a good job of proving that they're worth of anything but contempt, let alone an exclusivity deal for one of the biggest IPs in the world.

Star Wars has had such titles as X-Wing, Jedi Outcast, Knights of the Old Republic, Episode 1 Racer, Galactic Battlegrounds, and many, many more. Games ranging across nearly every genre imaginable, and many of them very well received, now reduced to a single franchise that people are deeply unhappy with.

But, if the deal is cancelled, I'm not sure where Disney would go next. LucasArts collapsed with good reason, and I don't think Disney is nearly ready to be as free with the license as we are accustomed to. There will likely be another exclusivity deal reached with another studio. The question is, who will score it, and what sort of changes will we see?

[Slothy]

I don't want to get into too much detail about the whole visceral thing but I was initially pissed they were shut down. Then my best friend who actually works for ea and is with the studio that was brought in to help visceral try to save that star wars game mentioned to me that the way visceral was being run and behaving behind the scenes kind of justified shutting them down, and ea still offered to relocate almost everyone to other studios or give them time to work on their resumes and demo reels. Knowing what little he told me I'm not really upset they're gone anymore.

If we're lucky though, we'll see the return to the concept they ditched to do the game visceral was making because it sounded like a way better game.

But I generally agree this deal has yet to go well for Disney. Wouldn't blame them if they do take it from ea.