| EA top people are many things but stupid is not one of them. They know they are hated by gamers, they know they set the standards for the industry as they have been considered to be the first truely professional video game publisher and they know historically they have set these standards poorly (see "buy company with IPs, gut company, keep IPs" techniques, working condition debacle with EA wives and co, sequel galore, game as marchandizing of sports events, etc). But it's bad for the industry as a whole and they know that, so they work toward changing that and we can pretty much trust them with that because it makes business sense to have diversity, quality products and good working conditions if you want your industry to grow and be prosperous.
That's the theory at least. In practice, working conditions are suposed to be significantly better, that's one thing, but EA Japan that was working on several very innovative DS games vanished into thin air after releasing Sim City on DS and we wait on the first batch of new EA IPs, starting with Army of Two, to have a sense of where they are going and if they can keep going that way. |