Post by Morreion on Oct 14, 2010 9:36:07 GMT -5
Blogger claims to be Mythic employee, tells "Why Warhammer Failed" (Massively)
Why Warhammer Failed (EA Louse)
Worth reading.
Yes, I Saw The Louse Blog (Eating Bees - Sanya Weathers Blog)
A Short Programming Note (Broken Toys - Scott Jennings Blog)
You're Just Telling Us What We Already Know, Louse. (Keen & Graev's Gaming Blog)
Wow.
'EA Louse' has supposedly got a pink slip from EA/Mythic, and decided to post what really went wrong with WAR. They name names and use impolite language.
Assuming this is true, it gives you insight in the gaming business world, which looks like it can be pretty nasty.
The poster also said that SWTOR will cost up to 300 million and that they are in a near-panic about it not being successful. This has caused more comments than anything they said about Mythic.
Thoughts...
Mythic should have made DAoC 2. The end. They had a license to print money and they tried to make WoW again.
If MMOs are truly full of backbiting and people claiming other people's ideas and if they often don't quite know why they succeed (or fail)- anyone would be crazy to invest in such a business. Maybe failure is the norm.
When big megastudios buy out smaller creative successful companies- Mythic and Bioware, for example- I fully expect those little formerly independent studios to go downhill. Money, big bosses, a change in attitude, orders to push games out the door all combine to sabotage a once-great company.
If SWTOR is not successful- if they blow that huge amount of money they have on a failure- then I have a feeling that major studio titles are done. That's it. It's over. Welcome to little indie games, F2P, and browser games.
More posts are going up at EA Louse's blog- you can keep an eye on them here.
Edit: apparently EA Louse's blog got hacked! *laughs* Drama!
If you don't want to wade through 700 comments on the original thread, here's a 'best of' thread pulling out significant comments:
And another thing(s)…
Why Warhammer Failed (EA Louse)
We sold more than a million boxes, and only had 300k subs a month later. Going down every since. It’s “stable” now, but guess what? Even Dark Age and Ultima have more subs than we have. How great is that? Games almost a decade make more money than our biggest project.
So there it is. Rewarding the incompetent. Firing the competent.
I say it anonymously so I can keep my next few paychecks coming.
So I’m a louse. A big fat EA louse.
Want some more questions answered? Ask away.
So there it is. Rewarding the incompetent. Firing the competent.
I say it anonymously so I can keep my next few paychecks coming.
So I’m a louse. A big fat EA louse.
Want some more questions answered? Ask away.
Worth reading.
Yes, I Saw The Louse Blog (Eating Bees - Sanya Weathers Blog)
A Short Programming Note (Broken Toys - Scott Jennings Blog)
You're Just Telling Us What We Already Know, Louse. (Keen & Graev's Gaming Blog)
Wow.
'EA Louse' has supposedly got a pink slip from EA/Mythic, and decided to post what really went wrong with WAR. They name names and use impolite language.
Assuming this is true, it gives you insight in the gaming business world, which looks like it can be pretty nasty.
The poster also said that SWTOR will cost up to 300 million and that they are in a near-panic about it not being successful. This has caused more comments than anything they said about Mythic.
Thoughts...
Mythic should have made DAoC 2. The end. They had a license to print money and they tried to make WoW again.
If MMOs are truly full of backbiting and people claiming other people's ideas and if they often don't quite know why they succeed (or fail)- anyone would be crazy to invest in such a business. Maybe failure is the norm.
When big megastudios buy out smaller creative successful companies- Mythic and Bioware, for example- I fully expect those little formerly independent studios to go downhill. Money, big bosses, a change in attitude, orders to push games out the door all combine to sabotage a once-great company.
If SWTOR is not successful- if they blow that huge amount of money they have on a failure- then I have a feeling that major studio titles are done. That's it. It's over. Welcome to little indie games, F2P, and browser games.
More posts are going up at EA Louse's blog- you can keep an eye on them here.
Edit: apparently EA Louse's blog got hacked! *laughs* Drama!
If you don't want to wade through 700 comments on the original thread, here's a 'best of' thread pulling out significant comments:
And another thing(s)…
Ex-Mythic Working Retail says:
October 13, 2010 at 2:52 am
I hear through the grapevine that the sh*t is hitting the fan over this, hope things turn out well enough for you. I know many people who want to shake your hand, after dealing with this.
While I do not know about the more recent events described, sounds like what was going on when I was there.
You didn’t even get into the Tool Support for devs, or the lack there of!
The items team had to manually make the items before the release (spread sheet, cell by cell) until it was clear they were not going to be done by the 3rd (or was it the 4th?) attempt at release. The guy they had to make a tool to help had 1 month to make it, and after that month, it was crashing, and making broken items.
I, on my own time off the clock, wrote a replacement tool in less than 12 hours (over 3 days after work) The day I finished the tool, I was fired for ‘not being early’ because of the same management BS you described.
They were still using MY tool a year later.
October 13, 2010 at 2:52 am
I hear through the grapevine that the sh*t is hitting the fan over this, hope things turn out well enough for you. I know many people who want to shake your hand, after dealing with this.
While I do not know about the more recent events described, sounds like what was going on when I was there.
You didn’t even get into the Tool Support for devs, or the lack there of!
The items team had to manually make the items before the release (spread sheet, cell by cell) until it was clear they were not going to be done by the 3rd (or was it the 4th?) attempt at release. The guy they had to make a tool to help had 1 month to make it, and after that month, it was crashing, and making broken items.
I, on my own time off the clock, wrote a replacement tool in less than 12 hours (over 3 days after work) The day I finished the tool, I was fired for ‘not being early’ because of the same management BS you described.
They were still using MY tool a year later.
Bob says:
October 13, 2010 at 11:25 am
What about using EA Shanghai for art work?
What about Paul’s girlfriend’s job?
What about all the crazy promotions?
What about switching offices every 4-5 months?
What about firing people on donut day.
(Haha. Awesome. EA Shanghai stealing our jobs. The girl who we also didn’t know how she still had a job or what she did. The crazy promotions. Mythic Musical Chairs. The Day Donut Day Died.)
October 13, 2010 at 11:25 am
What about using EA Shanghai for art work?
What about Paul’s girlfriend’s job?
What about all the crazy promotions?
What about switching offices every 4-5 months?
What about firing people on donut day.
(Haha. Awesome. EA Shanghai stealing our jobs. The girl who we also didn’t know how she still had a job or what she did. The crazy promotions. Mythic Musical Chairs. The Day Donut Day Died.)
Another ex-Mythic employee says:
October 13, 2010 at 8:43 pm
I was laid off back in November of ’09 and I can pretty much confirm everything EA Louse has said. I have since moved to another AAA studio and things are just as bad. The whole industry is a goddamn mess.
My advice for anyone looking to enter the industry: don’t. You won’t be making the games you’ve been dreaming of. You will just be an expendable drone, slaving away 12+ hours a day under incompetent upper management.
October 13, 2010 at 8:43 pm
I was laid off back in November of ’09 and I can pretty much confirm everything EA Louse has said. I have since moved to another AAA studio and things are just as bad. The whole industry is a goddamn mess.
My advice for anyone looking to enter the industry: don’t. You won’t be making the games you’ve been dreaming of. You will just be an expendable drone, slaving away 12+ hours a day under incompetent upper management.
