[falcolas]

> EA's quarterly results are down,

And yet they posted pre-tax profits of almost 1.5 billion dollars in 2018 (their highest profit numbers in the last 4 years). That's hardly the mark of a company that's ready to go under.

Growth is not the only measure of a companies health.

[debacle]

EA is really struggling with their Star Wars license. If they put out just 1 good Star Wars game they'd see insane revenue. I haven't purchased an AAA title in years and I would buy an okayish Jedi Knight IV.

[CydeWeys]

My dream is a modern Star Wars/TIE Fighter space shooter. Those were some of my very favorite games back in the late Win 3.1/early Win 95 era.

I suspect it wouldn't have the same widespread appeal as an adventure/shooter/RPG like Jedi Knight, but it could be also be made at a pretty low cost, and it's not like the license restricts how many Star Wars games they can release. May as well go make a space shooter with a smaller team while they still have the license.

Why does everything have to get the AAA treatment these days?

[verisimilidude]

My dream is a modern Star Wars TIE Fighter space shooter...in VR.

But I doubt the VR market is big enough to justify the investment that’s demanded by the Star Wars license. Like you say, AAA is sometimes a straight-jacket.

[dleslie]

Elite Dangerous is as close as you'll get.

[llukas]

VR or non VR, refresh of X-Wing vs TIE Fighter with modern graphics would be epic...

[falcolas]

> Why does everything have to get the AAA treatment these days?

The same thing that causes companies who are making record profits to be considered underperforming: growth at any cost. For EA and Activision/Blizzard (and their big name kin), if a game doesn't have the potential to make significantly more money than its peers, it's not worth making.

[DerDangDerDang]

Which has the knock on effect that championing a smaller project through internal green light is not as good for your career as waiting for the chance to lead a AAA title- I’m guessing

[strictnein]

Some of the space battles in Battlefront 2 approached the fun I had playing X-Wing and TIE Fighter, back in the day.

It's a little too fast paced and frenetic, but dodging between large girders on a huge space station while being chased by an enemy A-Wing is still quite fun. Or looping around the back of a Star Destroyer in an X-Wing.

If they took that engine (which already featured decent enough AI controlled bots), slowed things down a bit, and wrapped a campaign around it all, I'd be sold.

[Thaxll]

Because Disney will never give its licences to a company that ships less than 5m copies per SW game.

That's one of the reason EA is one of the only publisher big enough to have the rights.

[qmarchi]

To follow up on it, EA isn't even terrible on having the studios make relatively great games. A quick look at the skyrocketing success of Apex: Legends, announced _at the EA call_ on Feb 5th, has already surpassed 25M accounts and 2M concurrent users.

They need to focus on what's made them most of their money over the past years, game sales for series games (FIFA, NASCAR, etc.) and great first-party titles that aren't on a rushed release schedule. Apex is a great example of the latter. Nobody knew it was coming, and it ended up being a polished game that will probably make EA a significant portion of money.

Disclaimer:? I play Apex, and legitimately enjoy it. I also play Anthem, which although not the _best_ game in the world, is still of pretty high production value from what I've played.

[pnw_hazor]

Though from what I read, EA allegedly had zero input into Apex. That might be why it is becoming popular. I just tried Apex a few days ago, it was pretty fun.

[grogenaut]

How much input did they have into Titanfall 1&2? Those weren't exactly gangbusters.

[pnw_hazor]

EA gets a lot of the blame for TF 2's failure.

"Of course, Titanfall 2’s disappointing sales aren’t as much to do with the nature of its content as much as it is about timing, and that’s entirely on EA. Sandwiching Titanfall 2 between Battlefield 1 and COD: Infinite Warfare hasn’t helped the game at all. Seriously, what were they thinking? Apparently, even the game’s producers were left in the dark behind the decision-making process."

https://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/poor-titanfall-2-sales-e...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/01/31/eas-anthem-...

[strictnein]

Titanfall 2 had one of the best singleplayer campaigns for an FPS over the past 5 years. Really fun and unique.

It's multiplayer was good too, but it was launched in a really bad spot that was 100% EA's fault.

[a_f]

Whilst the launch window for Titanfall 2 was pretty bad, I have a feeling that the multiplayer and longevity of the game would have suffered regardless. The skill ceiling is too high for most players, and I feel that without the casual audience the playerbase would drop off as it has even without competition from the other shooters.

[qmarchi]

Titanfall 1 was still a decent game, and it garnered a lot of support from fans. I played it, but not the sequel.

[debacle]

Apex is a great game. Throw in some force powers, lightsabres, and holocrons, and you suddenly have a great Star Wars game.

[grawprog]

Just think of how many different colours of lightsabres would be available through microtransactions. I would have said grey area gambling but you did specify okayish.

[falcolas]

Disney's perfectly happy with EA's treatment of the Star Wars license, so what could be wrong? /s

EDIT: Downvote away, but that is Disney's public stance on the topic.