Moving away from Agile Methodology to a more DevOps mindset...

Hello fellow Battlefielder's,

I am writing this because like all of you we are experienced gamers, and even those that are brand new to the gaming community, who understand one fundamental concept: Quality games rule the domain and stick with you for years. In the 2000's, Electronic Arts was once the leader of AAA games that came out with major title franchises like Need for Speed, 007, Battlefield, Sims, and Star Wars Battlefront. However, a cultural change in the software market seems to have changed this company's mindset of game releases and product development. Activision's Call of Duty Franchise stole market share from many different publishers and since they followed more of an agile approach of development, were able to produce and get games out within a year's cycle. Unfortunately, EA's response to this was to also adapt to a more agile methodology and to start developing their games in shorter cycles to maintain competitive with the video game marketplace.

Personally, I understand the change and I understand where EA is coming from, but I think they struggled with product development using the Agile approach. As gamers, we all have experienced what a half-baked video game looks like when it releases, and it is not pretty. I vote that EA change their methodology from an Agile development to more DevOps and start focusing on quality. I say screw the deadlines and start to focus on making sure the product comes out as a good game with plenty of content. Battlefront was just proof that the game was missing so much, and today there was SO much potential the relaunch of the franchise could have done...

The video game community, will always be patient for a quality product than one that is not fully complete. In my opinion, I believe a Take-Two Interactive does this extremely well, particularly their Rockstar division. Some of the game titles they have released have been amazing out of the "virtual box." But, these game titles don't get released for years, and I think we all wait patiently for their next releases when they do come out. I believe they are definitely worth the wait though. I don't think that EA's bottom line always struggles though, because we end up buying the games when they are released and then find out its not exactly what were expecting... Then, we are left hoping that the next game they come out with is better, where they have listened to consumer feedback or learned from previous releases. We end up buying the another half baked product again on the next release. Then that game is completed over a one or two year dev cycle with a season pass. Rinse and repeat for the last 10 years and here we are.

This post is not to "bash" EA or DICE, I think they made some decisions that did not work out the way they thought it would and ultimately it impacted consumers. My loyalty to Dice, their franchises and dev teams is to suggest they change their methodology to a more DevOps practice and do something different. They do absolutely amazing work with their Frostbite engine, but if only the content of the product could be matched to that level of detail and quality, there would be no stopping the potential these products could bring. EA, this is your opportunity to be the industry leader and have even more pride in the quality of your products. I invite all of you in this community to please leave your feedback and thoughts on their development approach. Have a nice day!