EA purchases rights to publish Star Wars games

http://www.gamespot.com/news/ea-and-disney-team-up-for-star-wars-games-6407982?tag=Topslot;Slot4

Dice making Battlefront 3? Bioware making KOTOR 3? I'm happy EA will be making some more Star Wars games.

A Battlefront by DICE would be unspeakably epic....

However I worry because EA has been on a steak of ruining good titles lately.

I don't mind EA. They tend to get a lot of the major things right with a few minor hiccups.

Bioware, Dice, and Visceral are all top notch developers and I think that in the next generation we could see the revival of AAA Star Wars IPs like we saw with the Original Xbox and PS2.

Simply put, EA knows how to appeal to broad audiences and I think that will create a lot of interest in possibly adapting other mediums of entertainment into video games. If EA creates quality Star Wars games that sell well we could almost certainly see something similar in LotR games.

Say what you will about EA but they can control the ebb and flow of the market and this might not be an awful change from the way that things are now.

Since their are new movies coming out we'll see a renewed interest in Star Wars games.

I'm just hoping they aren't all following the movies.

As much as a Battlefield game by DICE sounds good, I'd rather not with Star Wars again.


And I would want my KotOR 3 made by obsidian not bioware.

Agreed, I liked Kotor 2(with restored content) much better than the first(despite the first being totally fucking awesome).

Do keep in mind EA helped Develop TOR and claimed that it would be Kotor 3, 4, 5 whatever number they named it till. Hopefully they go back on that statement since Tor flew for about Five seconds before barreling into the dirt at full speed.

Nothing wrong with ToR if you play it like KoToR. All the story segments and characters played the same as the other KoToR games from what I experienced. Just a bit watered down for MMO reasons. Was still good with the single player elements.

I, personally, do not like the idea of EA handling the new titles. The devs are great, but EA has a habit of trying to make everything Call of Duty.

KoToR, Battlefront, and Republic Commandos are all great titles because of their unique mechanics and great storytelling. They're also prime candidates for EA to homogenize and sell for a quick buck.

DICE and BioWare aren't perfect devs but I trust them enough that I am not uneasy about them working on any of those titles. It's EA I'm concerned about.

I'm in the group that has mixed feelings about this. If EA let's the devs do their things with limited interference, it could be great. However... since when has EA done that?

I know it's the cool thing to bash EA, because yeah some of their decisions of late have been pretty gross, but let's be fair here.

Lucasarts, while having one of the strongest back catalogues of any company, over the last few yeas haven't been making anything great. Force Unleashed 2 was the last game I recall them making and that game was awful.

I'd be interested to see what they do with the license, as they do have a lot of talented studios under their disposal, but after the colossal misstep of The Old Republic, I'd be a bit wary.

Escape from Monkey Island 2000
Star Wars: Racer Arcade 2000
Star Wars: Demolition 2000
Star Wars: Episode I: Battle for Naboo 2000
Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles 2000
Star Wars: Force Commander 2000
Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader 2001
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds 2001
Star Wars: Obi-Wan 2001
Star Wars: Starfighter 2001
Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing 2001
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter 2002
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter 2002
Star Wars Racer Revenge 2002
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2002
Armed and Dangerous 2003
Gladius 2003
Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb 2003 T
RTX Red Rock 2003
Secret Weapons Over Normandy 2003
Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike 2003
Star Wars Galaxies 2003
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy 2003
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2003
Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed 2004
Star Wars: Battlefront 2004
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords 2004
Wrath Unleashed 2004
Lego Star Wars: The Video Game 2005
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction 2005 Pandemic Studios
Star Wars Galaxies: Episode III Rage of the Wookiees 2005 Sony Online Entertainment
Star Wars: Battlefront II 2005 Pandemic Studios, Savage Entertainment
Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith 2005 The Collective, Inc., Ubisoft Montreal
Star Wars: Republic Commando 2005 LucasArts
Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy 2006 Traveller's Tales, Robosoft Technologies
Star Wars: Empire at War 2006 Petroglyph Games
Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption 2006 Petroglyph Games
Star Wars: Lethal Alliance 2006 Ubisoft Montreal
Thrillville 2006 Frontier Developments
Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron 2007 Rebellion Developments
Thrillville: Off the Rails 2007 Frontier Developments
Fracture 2008 Day 1 Studios
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures 2008 Traveller's Tales, Feral Interactive, Open Planet Software N
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Jedi Alliance 2008 Lucasfilm Animation Singapore
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Lightsaber Duels 2008 Krome Studios
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2008 LucasArts, Krome Studios, N-Space, Universomo, Aspyr Media
Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings 2009 Artificial Mind and Movement, Amaze Entertainment
Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues 2009 Traveller's Tales, Feral Interactive, Open Planet Software
Lucidity 2009 LucasArts
Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron 2009 Rebellion Developments, N-Space
Star Wars Battlefront: Mobile Squadrons 2009 THQ Wireless
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes 2009 Krome Studios, Lucasfilm Animation Singapore
Tales of Monkey Island 2009 Telltale Games
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II 2010 LucasArts, Aspyr Media, Red Fly Studio
Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars 2011 Traveller's Tales
Star Wars: The Old Republic 2011 BioWare
Angry Birds Star Wars 2012 Rovio Entertainment


Here is all the games they have made since the year 2000 (with who actually MADE them next to the year but I didn't do a few of em cause I can't really be bothered. Check this link if you really want the info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LucasArts_games) and the last good game they made would be in 2005 with Republic Commando. If a company that has made this many games hasn't made an original or good thing in eight years then I see no reason to mourn their passing.

I have no problems with Lucas Arts retiring and I think the three devs are great.... I just still don't trust EA to publish anything of even passing interest. I hope their new CEO and recent mistakes will push EA in a better direction, but I still don't trust them.

Unlike most people who hate EA, I simply don't trust them. I don't think they're evil... just unbelievably stupid. From what I can gather, EA is just really bad at what it tries to do.

For instance, Origin is not a bad PC gaming platform. It's just not great. Origin functions well and their market even offers deep discounts similar to those of Steam. Origin's problem is that, even though it's a decent platform on its own, its only competitive edge is that EA has made a number of their titles exclusive for Origin. Aside from that, they haven't offered anything which Steam hasn't and they are missing many features which Steam has.

The exclusives have caused millions of gamers to install the thing right next to steam because, well, they have no choice. EA, meanwhile, attributes the millions of Origin installs to the success of the platform. They mistakenly assume that high install numbers mean high customer satisfaction when that is simply not the case. This kind of reasoning does not come from an evil company, but a stupid one. Origin could be a great game platform (Steam could stand to have some competition), but EA is too naively complacent to see the potential; instead they choose to team up with Activision to get more non-steam 'Exclusive' titles. Ironically, the exclusivity of games tends to make gamers frustrated and actually lowers customer satisfaction. How could an evil company not put that together on their own?

Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yah, Star Wars games. Yah, I think DICE is a great candidate for Battlefront 3 and 1313. Visceral would be great for Republic Commandos 3 (seems like their style to me) and might even take a shot at 1313 if DICE doesn't bite. Bioware is a prime candidate for KoToR 3 or perhaps a new Star Wars RPG. They all have decent enough reputations, but I'm still cautious about the capability of the publisher. With a track record like EAs, how can you not be?

Pretty much my thoughts exactly Civ. EA just needs to stay smart with this an let the devs do what they do best. Also, you know... not releasing these as Origin exclusive would be pretty top...

Lego Starwars was awesome, don't know what your talking about. And Empire at War isn't a 'Bad' Game nor have i heard such from anyone.

The first Lego Star Wars came out before Republic Commando and it was good. The rest of them are the same thing as the first one so I don't regard it as a "new" game unless you want to split hairs between NFL 2K12 and NFL 2K13 being completely different things.


I have Empire at War and it was meh at best.


And even then you are pulling out examples saying "well these games were good" from 2005 and 2006. That's 7-8 YEARS since their last good game.

So I guess I'm going to be the guy who has to say that Force Unleased was pretty fun. The second one was underwhelming but the first one was the most fun that I had with a star wars game in years.

Avenged wrote:So I guess I'm going to be the guy who has to say that Force Unleased was pretty fun. The second one was underwhelming but the first one was the most fun that I had with a star wars game in years.

I enjoyed the first game. Absolutely hated the second one though.

Vigil wrote:

Avenged wrote:So I guess I'm going to be the guy who has to say that Force Unleased was pretty fun. The second one was underwhelming but the first one was the most fun that I had with a star wars game in years.

I enjoyed the first game. Absolutely hated the second one though.

I don't think there was anything about the game worth hating, just a lot of stuff that was meh.

Avenged wrote:

Vigil wrote:

Avenged wrote:So I guess I'm going to be the guy who has to say that Force Unleased was pretty fun. The second one was underwhelming but the first one was the most fun that I had with a star wars game in years.

I enjoyed the first game. Absolutely hated the second one though.

I don't think there was anything about the game worth hating, just a lot of stuff that was meh.

Hate is probably the incorrect word, Apathy is probably more accurate, with a healthy dose of exasperation and frustration. Why?

It's so uninspired and lazy.

The storyline is a joke (even for star wars standards) you only have a grand total of about 4-5 enemy types that get reused through the entire game (With the majority requiring the same quick time move to finish off). It's horrendously short and reuses levels (mainly Kamino) and also has redundant ones (WTF is the point of the Dagobah level? It's jump of your ship walk forward enter cutscene, finish level.)

The boss fights are incredibly dull, with the final confrontation with Vader being the worst as it's three stages of tedium.

Oh and lets not forget that it adds absolutely nothing new into the gameplay from the previous game, in fact it plays much like a poor version of that original game.

It's such a depressing waste of time/money/resources that really showed how dead everybody was at Lucasarts to this whole premise. They took what could of been an interesting new physics engine and explored it further after the first game showed what it go do and go wild with it and then went on to make such an uninspired mess of a game.

I had already gotten pretty tired of Star Wars prior to this but the Force Unleashed 2 was it for me. Now all I feel for this game and the franchise in general is Apathy.

Vigil wrote:

Avenged wrote:

Vigil wrote:

Avenged wrote:So I guess I'm going to be the guy who has to say that Force Unleased was pretty fun. The second one was underwhelming but the first one was the most fun that I had with a star wars game in years.

I enjoyed the first game. Absolutely hated the second one though.

I don't think there was anything about the game worth hating, just a lot of stuff that was meh.

Hate is probably the incorrect word, Apathy is probably more accurate, with a healthy dose of exasperation and frustration. Why?

It's so uninspired and lazy.

The storyline is a joke (even for star wars standards) you only have a grand total of about 4-5 enemy types that get reused through the entire game (With the majority requiring the same quick time move to finish off). It's horrendously short and reuses levels (mainly Kamino) and also has redundant ones (WTF is the point of the Dagobah level? It's jump of your ship walk forward enter cutscene, finish level.)

The boss fights are incredibly dull, with the final confrontation with Vader being the worst as it's three stages of tedium.

Oh and lets not forget that it adds absolutely nothing new into the gameplay from the previous game, in fact it plays much like a poor version of that original game.

It's such a depressing waste of time/money/resources that really showed how dead everybody was at Lucasarts to this whole premise. They took what could of been an interesting new physics engine and explored it further after the first game showed what it go do and go wild with it and then went on to make such an uninspired mess of a game.

I had already gotten pretty tired of Star Wars prior to this but the Force Unleashed 2 was it for me. Now all I feel for this game and the franchise in general is Apathy.

I can agree with that.

IIRC, the DICE we all know wasn't the one handed a Star Wars IP. It's DICE LA, which is responsible for such "hits" as C&C4, and since Danger Close was shifted into DICE LA, they have the MoH series reboot under their belt as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICE_Los_Angeles

I would take the news of them developing a Star Wars game with a grain of salt, based purely on their recent works. But then again, I suppose they could potentially surprise everyone.

Well, DICE is making a new Battlefront.

Angatar wrote:Well, DICE is making a new Battlefront.

The leaked gameplay footage doesn't look all that battlefront-y to me

Elabajaba wrote:

Angatar wrote:Well, DICE is making a new Battlefront.

The leaked gameplay footage doesn't look all that battlefront-y to me

I think these are two different games we're talking about. That video was released months ago, and this was announced today.