Quarterly Teasers: Statement from SimGuruKate

"@Archieonic;c-16948488" wrote:

"elelunicy;c-16948434" wrote:

"Archieonic;c-16948407" wrote:

"AshtontoAshton22;c-16948403" wrote:
I think it's the EA people on top that are making em push out stuff we don't want but obviously, since I'm terribly ignorant in matters of business, it's probably not the case.

No no, you are on the right track. While I doubt EA as a publisher tells the studio what to develop (it typically isn't the job of a publisher to do that), they certainly impose time-frames, budgets, expectations. So if you throw in together a couple of patches with bug-fixes and a few items here and there, EPs, GPs, and SPs, and you add on to that a publisher telling you that you HAVE to release X amount of content in X period of time well, might not work out that well for the developers themselves. They might have to go for things that are quicker, cheaper, faster to produce.

But sometimes, I wonder how far EAs policies are when it comes to the dev team itself. I've always blamed EA more than the studio, but sometimes I wonder if the dev studio is actually in agreement with said policies. I.E. those tweets. Say for example, with City Living, that EA pushes the studio to release it in X time-frame, so they get down to working on apartments. But wait, we don't have resources and/or time, how about we cut out the ability to create and place your own apartments? Animations for elevators? Cut that too, we are in a rush. That's quite a possible scenario.

It’s funny that you think there are separate people in EA that impose time-frames, budgets on the studio. The people that impose time-frames, budgets are in the studio and they’re part of the dev team.

People love to think EA and Maxis as two separate entities, when in reality they are one and the same. If EA needs to someone to manage the studio’s budget/time frames, then this person would be working at the studio and they are part of the dev team.

There's a difference between publisher and developers. They are two separate entities, not one. A common practice I've seen is when indie/early access titles launch (without a publisher), then after some time if the project is a success a developer might make an offer. Sometimes it goes well, other times it turns detrimental when a publisher lays its hands on a project.

No, no one from EA will be part of the dev team. They are simply the publisher, Maxis is a subsidiary. A publisher sells a product. EA sells what Maxis makes to put it in simple terms. As a publisher, with their duty being to sell, they typically work on things like marketing, partner management, sales, budget, time-frames. And Maxis does what a game development studio does, develop the game with the resources they are provided.

Again, you only think EA as a publisher, when in fact they are also a developer themselves. The Sims Team is an internal dev team EA has, and they work at EA’s headquarter. They’re not a subsidiary in the same way of what a real subsidiary is. A real subsidiary would function as a company themselves (they just also have a parent company). The Sims team most certainly does not function as a separate entity on its own; instead they’re directly part of EA.

Everyone on the dev team is EA and they directly work for EA. The old Maxis studio is long gone; right now it’s just a name that a group of EA employees choose to call themselves. Making games isn’t the only thing the studio does. They’re also tasked with managing budget and making profits because they’re EA themselves. The head of Maxis for example is also simultaneously an EA Vice President. EA does not need anyone outside the studio to impose budget and time frames because the people in the studio already do that.

SimGuruNinja for instance posted this comment on Reddit.

In regards to us maxis devs being restricted by EA on the number of things and what we can put in the game... totally not true. We control what goes into the game and are restricted by the "normal" things one would expect like time, budget, ESRB concerns, etc. We are EA; they aren't our overlords. :)

This is in agreement with I said. The studio imposes budget/time frames on itself. Why? Because they are EA themselves.