[delusional]

> I think the thing a lot of people don't realise when trying to make the next runaway hit game

Okay sure, let's say that. I don't think it's true. I think anyone who has ever made anything creative, which is most people, know that chasing success just make your creative work bad. That doesn't matter though.

Surely the executives at EA should know better. Like it's literally their job to know better. They head an entire organization dedicated to creative production. Surely the board would fire them if they don't know better right?

What is going on?

[SpicyLemonZest]

The key insight into EA behavior is that "runaway hit game" is a subcultural term, not a business analysis. An EA executive would tell you that they published a runaway hit game just last year. You know and I know that they won't be able to get a bunch of Battlefield sales with the lessons they learned from EA Sports College Football 25 - but it's not so easy to explain why to someone who doesn't already agree.

[danaris]

> Surely the executives at EA should know better.

This...

> Like it's literally their job to know better.

...does not follow from this.

And executives get where they are, at least in significant part, because they are good at telling boards what they want to hear. They are also, generally speaking, in the same class as the board members, and together they are very willing to blame failures on those darn workers just doing a bad job at stuff.

"What is going on" is that the executive class in America has been progressively getting more and more divorced from the reality of actual production, and treating their opinions and expertise as if they are somehow definitive on everything related to their domain is very dangerous.

[dcow]

It’s not limited to games either. How many TV shows and movies in the last 10 years have shit the bed because instead of taking a good proven story from society and adapting it for screen, they decided that people actually want to hear a different story and had their “writers” hack up good art and turn it into gloopy strings of virtuous platitudes?