@chinnyreckon trouble with the public companies is that they have to answer to shareholders and investors for any profit loss. If some of those shareholders and investors are okay with certain amount of risk, most of them are not comfortable with the notion. So such a company has to play it as safe as they can and maximize the profit, most of the time the result being the public outrage and a lot of time the outrage is directed towards the people that had no say in how the final product will be. Devs have to stay into the budget, middle management has to keep the devs into the budget and the timeframe allocated for developing and the big guys have to answer to the shareholders and investors for any missteps. It's a vicious circle, in which the ones that are getting the flak are the devs and the mid management, the people that have the least power in the whole development process.
The sad part in this, is the fact that the game actually gives that SW vibe. Something that i didn't see since the KOTOR series, the old Battlefront series and the old Dark Forces series. EA still has a lot of talents, but they really need to start using them properly. And they really need to start taking some risks. Baby steps. AAA development today has the budget of a Hollywood blockbuster movie, so they should deliver something mind blowing. And we are again at the risk part of the problem....And, yet, the americans said the famous "No pain, no gain". That was the principle on which the american economy was built, after all. Taking insane risks, hoping for the best. The big fortunes where built upon that. And there is also the famous "The customer is always right" (even when he isn't, but that is a different story). I am not saying that the gaming companies should always listen to the customers. But they should actually consider what most of them would like to see in their games. I rememberthe times when those companies were making market surveys really often, surveys with well-thought questions, that would help them to deliver hit games on the market. Sadly, this happens all too rare in our days.
Ah, well...got carried again. Maybe because i love games too much. And SW (and science-fiction, in general).
