The numbers are shrinking because EA doesn't put enough development into their games on a yearly cycle. They spend too much time telling us how awesome it is and not making it awesome. I'd guarentee they spend 1.5 to 2x the amount of resources on marketing their average updates.
Back in the early part of the decade it was still a fresh idea to come out every year and the product was able to change much more drastically. No longer this is the case and their games are no longer worth it.
EA reached certain sales figures before their games started to lose interest and in order to grow as a business they need to reach out to other markets to make up for lacking interest in the hardcore market. It's cheaper with resources to spend time working on some two bit casual feature than to raise the bar technically and pull something amazing....like a whole new level of CPU AI as an example.
There's too much risk in developing something like that, than it is for them to put in some half ass easy mode feature which will get the attention of people who don't care, yet pisses off (more than EA realizes) the hardcore fan.
What I don't get about this whole casual movement, is that even if they impress some casual fans this year, casual fans WILL NEVER FEEL THE NEED TO BUY THIS GAME EVERY YEAR. Never. They are CASUAL and always will be. Only nut fucks like us and places like OS, TGL, etc, are coming back even if we hate what we see during development....but that's starting to change as they constantly fuck up their games with super long (broken) feature lists and catering to other audiences.
I'm no market expert, but I'd wager EA sports titles will continue to suck for the next few years until they get back to making football games for football fans and basketball games for basketball fans.....not for everyone.
Call of Duty is for FPS fans, if you're a casual newb, just play on easy.
Uncharted is for action fans, if you're a casual newb, just play on easy.
etc
However EA Sports games? If you're a casual newb, don't worry, we'll change the whole fucking game around just for you, even though you won't be back in 2012 regardless if you like it or not.
I'd rather my video game be really good at being what it is, rather than being a "jack of all trades" when it comes to it's feature list. EA should continue to suck as long as this keeps up.
Back in the early part of the decade it was still a fresh idea to come out every year and the product was able to change much more drastically. No longer this is the case and their games are no longer worth it.
EA reached certain sales figures before their games started to lose interest and in order to grow as a business they need to reach out to other markets to make up for lacking interest in the hardcore market. It's cheaper with resources to spend time working on some two bit casual feature than to raise the bar technically and pull something amazing....like a whole new level of CPU AI as an example.
There's too much risk in developing something like that, than it is for them to put in some half ass easy mode feature which will get the attention of people who don't care, yet pisses off (more than EA realizes) the hardcore fan.
What I don't get about this whole casual movement, is that even if they impress some casual fans this year, casual fans WILL NEVER FEEL THE NEED TO BUY THIS GAME EVERY YEAR. Never. They are CASUAL and always will be. Only nut fucks like us and places like OS, TGL, etc, are coming back even if we hate what we see during development....but that's starting to change as they constantly fuck up their games with super long (broken) feature lists and catering to other audiences.
I'm no market expert, but I'd wager EA sports titles will continue to suck for the next few years until they get back to making football games for football fans and basketball games for basketball fans.....not for everyone.
Call of Duty is for FPS fans, if you're a casual newb, just play on easy.
Uncharted is for action fans, if you're a casual newb, just play on easy.
etc
However EA Sports games? If you're a casual newb, don't worry, we'll change the whole fucking game around just for you, even though you won't be back in 2012 regardless if you like it or not.
I'd rather my video game be really good at being what it is, rather than being a "jack of all trades" when it comes to it's feature list. EA should continue to suck as long as this keeps up.
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