Another reason to hate EA: DICE axes Desert Combat dev team

Looks like EA/DICE decided today to shutdown Trauma Studios (makers of the kickass Desert Combat mod for BF1942) after acquiring them last year. Hmmmm, what a coincidence... Battlefield 2 just goes gold and the team that was performing R&D work and laid the foundation for it gets laid off weeks before its release.

I know there's going to be a diehard following here for BF2 but I don't think I'll be purchasing it. (Of course I'll inevitably buckle once it's released)

DICE Press Release
http://global.dice.se/press/pressrel...

More on Trauma Studios Closing
http://www.gamecloud.com/article.php...

These tactics do more to kill the PC gaming market than the consoles ever will.

This sucks but really who didn't see this coming? EA shuts down nearly every single studio they buy.

Wow they did this to avoid having to pay the guys money owed...

Digital Illusions will not pay the supplement payment of 200,000 USD as agreed upon at the time of the acquisition of Trauma Studios. The total payment is thereby 300,000 USD. Following the adjustment for the default of payment of the additional supplement payment, the SEK 1.3m remainder of the value of goodwill is written down during the second quarter of 2005. Other costs of liquidation are diminutive.
fangblackbone wrote:

These tactics do more to kill the PC gaming market than the consoles ever will.

Funny, I was just saying in the other thread that the biggest enemy of PC gaming is the bad practices of PC game makers.

But I don't see how much it will actually hurt PC gaming or even sales of BF2. Many people will be upset, but even the loudest protesters will likely buy the game. That's why companies like EA can get away with this stuff.

After you've worked for a few evil empires, you get used to this kind of stuff.

At the time of the studio’s closing, Trauma had been working on R&D for DICE’s newly completed Battlefield 2 game along with early work on an all new game. That new game’s development will now be moved to DICE’s Swedish studios. DeLise told Gamecloud that everyone at Trauma will receive severance packages. While they are also all being given the chance to relocate to DICE’s Swedish studios, DeLise told us he does not plan to do so.

Sounds about right, buy out the talent, use them and dissolve them into the main EA-branded work collectives. Standard stuff.

It makes sense, what with so many DICE studios, to shut down the smallest/newest. Bummer that it had to be the New York studio though. Just remember that the Canadian studio is the one that gave us BF:V. Also, everyone was offered a job at DICE Sweden, so it's not like they completely kicked them out. Although Sweden is definitely not New York. While it bums me out that Trauma is no longer in existence, it was able to get a few folks through the door into the game design industry.

Hats off to them. And I'll be keeping an eye on Frank Delise. Who knows where he'll surface, but I'm sure it will involve "Fun" in some way shape or form.

Digital Illusions will not pay the supplement payment of 200,000 USD as agreed upon at the time of the acquisition of Trauma Studios. The total payment is thereby 300,000 USD.

That is why you ask for all the money up front.

But to be fair, they did offer them other positions. Out of the 3 offices I am sure the NYC office had the highest overhead and was the most logical one to close. Plus think about it, the guys that made the Desert Combat mod were doing it for free before and got paid for 2+ years + a buyout of their IP. That is not bad if you are in the modding community.

So let them go and make a WWII mod for BF2 now and cash in again

If I was young and single I'd relocate to Sweden in a heartbeat. Surely some of those guys took the offer.

I wonder who takes over the xbox/ps2 game as Traumu was handeling them if not mistaken.

Botswana wrote:

If I was young and single I'd relocate to Sweden in a heartbeat. Surely some of those guys took the offer.

Not to work in the EA collective game farm.

Digital Illusions will not pay the supplement payment of 200,000 USD as agreed upon at the time of the acquisition of Trauma Studios. The total payment is thereby 300,000 USD.

The Trauma guys must have had pretty poor lawyers unless there is more to the story.

Digital Illusions will not pay the supplement payment of 200,000 USD as agreed upon at the time of the acquisition of Trauma Studios. The total payment is thereby 300,000 USD.

The Trauma guys must have had pretty poor lawyers unless there is more to the story.

Sweden? I would not move to Sweden, besides the babe reputation, look at the location. It's freakin COLD there man!

That's because you use the babes as insulation. Haven't you been paying attention?

JohnnyMoJo wrote:
Digital Illusions will not pay the supplement payment of 200,000 USD as agreed upon at the time of the acquisition of Trauma Studios. The total payment is thereby 300,000 USD.

The Trauma guys must have had pretty poor lawyers unless there is more to the story.

My thoughts exactly. Good contracts (at least for the payee) do not say, "You get $500,000! Unless we decide to pay you $300,000."

By the way, if the "Death of PC Gaming" - bum bum bummm - means companies like EA stop making games for the PC and instead cede that market to smaller design and publishing houses ... well could someone explain to me how that's bad again?

Elysium wrote:

By the way, if the "Death of PC Gaming" - bum bum bummm - means companies like EA stop making games for the PC and instead cede that market to smaller design and publishing houses ... well could someone explain to me how that's bad again?

Thats based on the assumption that there are such "smaller" design and publishers available...

Its cheaper to build PC games in some ways but in the end the budget required to get a title to market thats got enough visibilty to be profitable is beyond the scope of many of these said smaller companies..

If your talking about games like Fate then yeah...by all means thats a good example... but dont expect games like Battlefield 2 or World of Warcraft to be created on VC money... because it aint going to happen IF the PC market continues to shrink...those types of games require big teams and big budgets...something that wont happen without a major Publisher willing to take the risk.

Mount & Blade looks promising. Looking at companies like that, I'm beginning to think that PC gaming does need to essentially die as it is now and then rise from the ashes as a more viable piece of the market. As it exists now, I don't think it is sustainable.

What we need is another Sierra. Not the company that got bought out by Vivendi, but rather the company it was when it got started. A team of people looking to simply make and design games for the sake of making games and making a living making games. I think when everything became a piece of some larger conglomerate is when it started getting bad out there.

Botswana wrote:

Mount & Blade looks promising. Looking at companies like that, I'm beginning to think that PC gaming does need to essentially die as it is now and then rise from the ashes as a more viable piece of the market. As it exists now, I don't think it is sustainable.

What we need is another Sierra. Not the company that got bought out by Vivendi, but rather the company it was when it got started. A team of people looking to simply make and design games for the sake of making games and making a living making games. I think when everything became a piece of some larger conglomerate is when it started getting bad out there.

That "could" happen... but so many times these so called innovative PC only games simply are not profitable.. it takes only a few misses and boom your sunk..

I'm ok with certain companies surviving without a major Publisher.. say for instance Valve using Steam as their primary source of distribution with a smaller publishing deal. Lets face it with the "major" videogame chains placing less emphasis on PC games your box units are more important in Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Circuit City.

I'm sure Blizzard could (if contracts allow) remove themselves from a major publisher and distribute digitally or through a smaller publisher/online sales. I have no clue on the deal between them and Vivendi as to how much cash they are exactly pocketing from WoW though..and I would guess they're pretty much stuck for all their major IP's.

Your right though...as it stands right now its a vicious cycle.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Sweden? I would not move to Sweden, besides the babe reputation, look at the location. It's freakin COLD there man!

Thanks to the Gulf Stream, southern and central Sweden where most people live are considerably more temperate than much of the northern United States, most definitely Minnesota and upstate New York. The lack of daylight in winter can be a real pisser, but the weather is not bad. Until global warming shuts down the Gulf Stream, of course.

That "could" happen... but so many times these so called innovative PC only games simply are not profitable.. it takes only a few misses and boom your sunk..

He didn't say necissarily innovative though. There's nothing wrong with a good solid bread and butter FPS, it's just having it cost $4 million for what is essentially nothing special.

Though I'm fully on board with "the 'EA model' PC gaming industry needs to go away". Not EA specifically, just the gargantuan publisher shenanigans (such as the topic of the post). PC games need to be cheaper and quicker to develop and get to gamers quicker and easier for cheaper. I think the best shot for that scenario is the hobbyists. Fundamentally, the publishers just don't operate that way.

Pyroman[FO wrote:

]

That "could" happen... but so many times these so called innovative PC only games simply are not profitable.. it takes only a few misses and boom your sunk..

He didn't say necissarily innovative though. There's nothing wrong with a good solid bread and butter FPS, it's just having it cost $4 million for what is essentially nothing special.

Though I'm fully on board with "the 'EA model' PC gaming industry needs to go away". Not EA specifically, just the gargantuan publisher shenanigans (such as the topic of the post). PC games need to be cheaper and quicker to develop and get to gamers quicker and easier for cheaper. I think the best shot for that scenario is the hobbyists. Fundamentally, the publishers just don't operate that way.

yeah but you and I know that for any FPS to succeed these days its going to take some major money... unless your talking games like Serious Sam... which I'm 100% behind you...that level of FPS at a $19.99 from a relatively small team is and will have a decent chance of success...

Mods on existing products will also be a good source..PROVIDED that the original product to mod still gets made.

The problems for PC gaming though really lie beyond "us" and more along the lines of newer generations.. many of my friends with kids dont even for one second consider the PC as a "gaming" machine...

And that idea will only get further propigated by the new consoles.

How much did Fate make, anyone know? That's the new paradigm for PC gaming. $20 buys you a fun little game.
$25, maybe, for a downloadable adventure game like Monkey Island? I'd be all over that.

edit:
Small team, doing a nifty little game. How did we find out about it? How many of us bought it?
Say 50 of us did. 50*20 = $1000 from ONE customer who liked it and told his friends about it.

PC gaming is far from dead. Let EA control the idiot masses, but down where Fate lives, there's more than enough to finance a resurgence of the garage developers of yore.

Azure Chicken wrote:

How much did Fate make, anyone know? That's the new paradigm for PC gaming. $20 buys you a fun little game.
$25, maybe, for a downloadable adventure game like Monkey Island? I'd be all over that.

edit:
Small team, doing a nifty little game. How did we find out about it? How many of us bought it?
Say 50 of us did. 50*20 = $1000 from ONE customer who liked it and told his friends about it.

PC gaming is far from dead. Let EA control the idiot masses, but down where Fate lives, there's more than enough to finance a resurgence of the garage developers of yore.

Though to be fair, I think he said he spent 6 months making Fate. So presumably, to break even (and I'm not even offsetting overhead by revenue, publisher costs (because he is using a publisher in Wild Tangent, they'll take a pretty healthy cut, etc.) at a "normal" salary for that 6 months, you need to do what you just did about 20-30 more times over.

And there is a lot of presumption in there that he literally did it alone, spent no money on it, did not have to pay for any libraries, license rights, etc. (of course you could also counter by asking whether he really spent a full working day per work day for 6 months doing it; I also don't have the answer to that).

SlyFrog wrote:
Azure Chicken wrote:

How much did Fate make, anyone know? That's the new paradigm for PC gaming. $20 buys you a fun little game.
$25, maybe, for a downloadable adventure game like Monkey Island? I'd be all over that.

edit:
Small team, doing a nifty little game. How did we find out about it? How many of us bought it?
Say 50 of us did. 50*20 = $1000 from ONE customer who liked it and told his friends about it.

PC gaming is far from dead. Let EA control the idiot masses, but down where Fate lives, there's more than enough to finance a resurgence of the garage developers of yore.

Though to be fair, I think he said he spent 6 months making Fate. So presumably, to break even (and I'm not even offsetting overhead by revenue, publisher costs (because he is using a publisher in Wild Tangent, they'll take a pretty healthy cut, etc.) at a "normal" salary for that 6 months, you need to do what you just did about 20-30 more times over.

And there is a lot of presumption in there that he literally did it alone, spent no money on it, did not have to pay for any libraries, license rights, etc. (of course you could also counter by asking whether he really spent a full working day per work day for 6 months doing it; I also don't have the answer to that).

6 months of dev time, over, say, 4 or 5 people. Not that many models or textures. Say about $500,000 to make it, my guesstimate is that they've made over that already. And they're pushing it out to more portals (like Yahoo!). It doesn't have to be an awesome seller tocover costs.

Hell, you could put together a 2d game with three people now, all on LGPL-licensed software (IE free), in 5-6 months. Something like Monkey Island, or a cool sidescroller. 1 programmer, 1 artist, 1 tweener type. Sound effects can be pulled off one of those royalty-free discsets.
$20 a crack, and you're golden. And it's even cheaper after that, since your pipeline and engine are working nicely.

Covering costs is one thing. Making a job of it is another.

Covering costs is one thing. Making a job of it is another.

exactly...while I love Fate (and in re: Wild Tangent) and would encourage more of these types of games... its not like the means to do these kind of games hasnt been around for years in the PC market..

if Fate sells 40,000 copies I'd be stunned.

These types of casual low priced games are all fine and dandy but I'm pretty sure none of us would be that thrilled if the PC market degenerated into just that.

TheGameguru wrote:

These types of casual low priced games are all fine and dandy but I'm pretty sure none of us would be that thrilled if the PC market degenerated into just that.

Interestingly, this is where Nintendo is going.

and I would prefer, to be honest, buying these $20 budget games that are GOOD, over a $60 glitzfest that is the same old retread. Innovation might flow down into those cheap little games.

Pay $10-$20 for each episode.. or each act.. or whatever. Say 8 or 9 levels, make a continuing series out of it. Each new release of the game brings in more gamers, who go back and buy the entire set, so each new release would be more and more income.

An RPG could be done like this, too. 1 chapter, $20. You could make for some truly epic gameplay like that, more in the D&D vein.

The problem is, once you actual get into the small niche market, each installment is $50. See the HPS strategy games. Any of the hardcore strategy games, with the brilliant exception of Bull Run ($20), run $50. They have to, given the small number of units sold. And the graphics suck. Really suck, but you're paying for design not glitz. Glitz requires big staff=big $.

I just want to say I had never read much about Fate, but this thread sounds like people enjoyed it, so I did a google search on "Wild Tangent Fate" and GWJ is the first link!