Rage to no longer be published by EA

I just read that Rage (being developed by ID Software) has been thankfully (IMO) relieved of being published by Electronic Arts. It will instead be published by Bethesda . Interesting... Discuss!



Sources: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/12/15/rage-will-be-published-by-bethesda-ea-out-of-the-picture/

http://kotaku.com/5426848/ea-no-longer-a-focus-for-ids-rage

Oh and is anyone else looking forward to this game? I sure am.

 

EA has already announced it is drastically cutting retail games (i.e. games on store shelves) and pushing online. They just spent $300-$400 million on their acquisition of Playfish. So maybe this is inline with their present plan of action. And other than people having a personal biased against EA games, I am not sure why you are thankful for this? It's not like EA is developing the game, they were just set to publish it. :\

 

Digital download of games rock, as you dont need the actual disc to play anymore.
But its just that EA Downloader software is kinda crappy when you compare it to Steam ect.
Only reason i use EA's software is because they tend to sell the games much cheaper than Steam.

But back to the topic, im really looking forward to Rage.
I hope it gets a PS3 port as my current computer struggles with gaming.
May upgrade to a well build Intel mobile i7 quad with a ATI HD 5000 series card.

 

Hard to say how EA is going to address the digital download service, as they do have titles available on Steam. I have never used the EA service as I have heard it is quite poor and I don't need more than one or two digital services imo. So Steam and D2D pretty much cover all the bases for me.

I think EA reducing retail offerings may not necessarily mean they are going to focus on digital downloads like games on Steam or EA Download, I think they are going to reduce their entire product catalogue. They will probably discontinue many big budget AAA projects in favour of creating cheaper games aimed at the casual audience on Facebook etc...

 

game publishers affect game quality, because they provide the funding and may decide to send the game out before its ready in order to get $$

 

True enough but we are talking about id and a game that has already been in dev for many, many years with no hard release date. This isn't some studio that EA Overlord can just push around.

 

Personally I think it's better EA dropped the project since they are no better than the mafia at times in game publishing.

 

Omg is this like Borderlands 2?

 

Glad it wasn't cancelled

That was my first thought

 

wow the graphics look amazing, especially the terrain. Some of those terrain screenshots are very close to real life. Really really cool stuff.

 

Best for the company. EA would just lay them off after the release like pandemic. Plus, Bethesda is awesome

 

YES.
And although I'm no fan of Bethesda, they are miles ahead of the "I'm not an evil gaming conglomerate" that EA is. Same goes for their ex-publishers, Activision.

 

It is unfortunate about the pandemic situation. EA is just a horrible company. If anyone else played The Saboteur you'd see why pandemic should have kept their jobs

 

The saboteur is actually really good , im surprised no one has mentioned anything about it here, but i agree, EA is garbage, except for the EA sports series, they've done nothing good.

 

You are mixing up the role of publisher vs owner/publisher. EA owned Pandemic and a good number of other studios that they seem to find no use for after a project is finished. In this case however id is id, seperate from EA, and there is no bloody way EA could have done anything like lay them off or close their doors at any time. However now that Bethesda is publishing the game, and since they own id, as unlikely as it sounds they could technically do it to them.

It is very sad how EA is laying a path of destruction in this industry with their corporate hardball methods. What a waste. :\