Missed Web free your inner fez

In my previous article, I detailed the rapid rise and fall of one game, BattleTech 3025, which was being developed by Electronic Arts. It took a grand total of fourteen days for BattleTech 3025 to officially die. And it happened quietly: the servers were shut down for the last time; then the official message boards -- the heart and soul of the BattleTech 3025 community was closed forever.

The death of a product is never pretty. Developers spend countless hours trying to get the components to work correctly, make the best gameplay options a reality, and lines of code to work in conjunction with each other. When the game dies, you see nothing but, "I'll never buy another [insert developer here] product again!" messages filling up message boards and mail lists causing your head to spin wondering when the bumpy ride will end.

Unfortunately, this is becoming more and more common with Electronic Arts, one of this country's leading game producers, if not the world's.

Let's move back a bit and look at some of EA's history when it comes to the MMOG market. It hasn't been pretty.

The Legend Falls

Legends of Kesmai, a popular online role-playing game was cancelled not long after EA purchased the Kesmai Corp. Kesmai was later dubbed EA: Charlotte (VA), and they were later rumored to be working on… BattleTech 3025. Unfortunately a double-axe fell when Kesmai became part of the EA family. Not only did Legends of Kesmai get cancelled, but slew of layoffs followed in March, 2000 under the guise of cost-cutting measures to improve profitability and limit redundancy.

An Ultimate Failure

Here are a few titles I'm going to toss out at you. Let's see if you can find the common thread:

• Privateer Online
• Harry Potter Online
• Ultima Online 2

Yep. Origin Systems, Inc., also known as EA: Austin. All three titles were being developed by OSI during 1999. Privateer Online was given Ultima Online's top talent, including Raph Koster and Anthony Castoro, better known in the Ultima Online community as "Designer Dragon" and "Sunsword." Privateer Online was going to be the online version of the popular Privateer series, which Origin had developed.

Origin didn't say much about Privateer Online, and rightly so. That is, until the plug was pulled and the entire team was laid off. What was cut in the mix? Privateer Online, Harry Potter Online (not much was known about the title), Raph Koster, Rich Vogel (Privateer Online's lead producer) and Richard "Lord British" Garriott, arguably one of the rare visionaries in the gaming industry, and father of both the Ultima series and Ultima Online.

Koster and a number of Origin rejects were quickly hired by Verant (makers of the popular EverQuest and a division of Sony Entertainment) and began work on Star Wars Galaxies in the newly created Verant Austin studio. Castoro left Origin to join the Star Wars Galaxies team not long after the Origin layoffs.

Richard Garriott later formed Destination Games with his brother (another EA veteran) and Rich Vogel. Destination Games was bought out by NC Soft (Lineage: The Blood Pledge) shortly after the new company was announced. On top of snagging some of the best gaming talent from the Origin layoffs, and grabbing a few choice staffers who resigned from Origin around the same time Destination Games was announced, Richard, a year after he left EA, had some choice things to say. Namely: EA was pushing Origin to develop Java games for its EA.com service. EA vehemently denied the claim in a Salon.com article, however, Harry Potter Online, which Origin was originally developing, is rumored to have been a Java-based game. (Harry Potter Online is now Hogwart's Online, and is still in the EA family, however, its developer is currently unknown).

Of course, there's also the Ultima Online 2 cancellation. Ultima Online 2, which was said to be in the late stages of development and was very close to beta testing, was unceremoniously axed by EA. The cancellation of Ultima Online 2 was highly unfortunate; it promised to not only strengthen and extend the Ultima history, but was highly anticipated by gamers. PC Gamer listed Ultima Online 2 as one of the most highly anticipated games in a several monthly reader's polls. When Ultima Online 2 was cancelled it finally hit the number 1 spot for the first time. A bit ironic, no?
EA Dot Bomb

Officially, Privateer Online, Harry Potter Online, and Ultima Online 2 were cancelled in order to enhance Origin's focus on Ultima Online, which was, and still is, EA's flagship online game property. But EA's true pride and joy was to be EA.com. Think MSN's The Zone, but better. Well, that's what the plan was.

EA.com was to showcase a variety of online games, both Java and PC-based including multiplayer and massively multiplayer. Several games were available for free, however, subscription to its platinum service would include such titles as the highly anticipated Majestic, and later BattleTech 3025 and Motor City Online pending their release. Platinum accounts did not include Ultima Online access, however.
EA.com featured quite a number of games from its other online game company acquisition: Pogo.com. Pogo.com was a hot online gaming property and was extremely popular amongst casual gamers who would like to spend their lunch breaks or avoid real work by playing the games they developed. EA took a huge risk in this venture, eventually firing around 200 people, many of who worked either at Origin on Ultima Online 2 or at Kesmai.

The idea was to compete with the big companies, such as Sony Station and Microsoft's Zone properties, both of which had a large share of the online pie and extensive experience in the dot com business. In retrospect, it seems a bit silly. Gamers are more familiar with EA's PC and console titles and not as an online gaming conglomerate. However, its huge share in the market and the success of Ultima Online dictated the move towards such an online venture.

And it did seem successful. Shortly before the most recent round of layoffs in October of last year, EA issued a press release stating that it was the number one destination for online gamers, with around 25 million registered users. Yet, despite this success, EA dropped the bomb on its dot com, along with BattleTech 3025. EA stated that it was refocusing its efforts on its current properties, PC titles, console games, and MMOGs. Ultima Online, Motor City Online, The Sims Online and other titles would continue to be supported.

Many people, including myself, partially see EA.com's failure as being caused by Majestic. An interesting concept that ultimately failed in its delivery, Majestic became a bit of a joke in the gaming community. The word on the street was "avoid." Paying $9.95 a month for 15 minutes of play or less does not make a game, even for casual gamers. Sales reportedly dropped quickly as accounts were cancelled. Not even retail sales could save this disappointing title. EA announced the cancellation of this episodic title less than two weeks after it officially closed EA.com and BattleTech 3025.

The Future of EA Online

Without a doubt, Electronic Arts has made a ton of MMOG industry blunders, however, the future of EA's online ventures don't look as bleak as one may gather. Motor City Online has turned out to be a rather solid product, a niche product, but solid nonetheless. Ultima Online continues to be popular and will get another expansion called Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge shortly. Word on the street is EA Vegas/Westwood has a solid product in Earth and Beyond, and will probably grab a nice market share if it's released before Verant/Sony's similarly themed Planetside. And then there's the juggernaut of the PC gaming world: The Sims Online.

While EA's mistakes have alienated a sizeable chunk of the online gaming player-base, the market continues to grow in leaps and bounds if you believe the trade reports and the number of MMOG titles that are currently in development. Perhaps EA will learn the error of its ways. Or not. Time will tell.

[Special thanks to Ce'Nedra Willow and Teich Dragon for their assistance with this article.]

Originally published on GameSpy 1/5/02