Two weeks on from Activision Blizzard's surprising exile of Brutal Legend, you might be wondering what the state of the game's future is. In short: things are just as cloudy and uncertain as they were right after the news broke.
According to Variety, MTV are definitely not publishing the game as was rumoured. MTV's official statement after being asked directly is that they aren't publishing the game, and that:
"We are big fans of Tim Schafer. We hope the game finds a good home."Meanwhile, rumours are thundering through the internet that Electronic Arts may be taking Brutal Legend on board. This doesn't match up with an insider source's earlier comment saying that the publisher would be an untraditional one, but it's very possible the aforementioned publisher was MTV and negotiations simply fell through.
Once known for dismal working practices and unoriginal release schedules, EA has been working very hard recently to change how they're perceived by generating new, original games. The upcoming Spore and Mirror's Edge are a testament to this, as are recent outputs such as Mass Effect and Crysis.
No other publisher could market Brutal Legend as aggressively as EA, so I'd be very much open to seeing the game join the 'new' EA and its line-up of quality games. It is by far the best chance Brutal Legend has of hitting the kind of widespread exposure it most probably deserves.
Clean image or not, they're the kind who stomp all over "uncommercial" games and would re-do them over. Here come our Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil, Blade Runner. I don't care if they're "aggresively" changing their image, they're the same money-grubbing vampires that destroyed every single franchise worth exploring. They're worse than Lucas.
Hope this isn't true and that the game's a hit anyways.
EA has been supporting good games for a long time now, even going right back to The Sims which — weird as it seems now — was considered an extremely risky game, far too out of the ordinary, and the possibility of it failing catastrophically was very much expected.
I've already named a bunch of recent/upcoming original games being published/developed by EA, with Spore quite possibly being the most ambitious and original game concept ever made. How anyone can say they don't support originality and quality is beyond me, considering the excellent games and developers they've been supporting.
Honestly, I thought this ridiculous EA bashing died out a few years ago. It's amazing what kind of long-lasting impact the media can make. In comparison to other publishers there's nothing wrong with EA. All publishers are eager for money and rely on a few cash cows nowadays — the ones that don't die. Fortunately for us, EA takes the money they get from their cash cows (ie: sports games) and invests it in quality games.
Spore is being made by the creators of The Sims, the best-selling game of all time. The Sims may have been slightly risky when it was released, but that was given a chance because that was off the back of another success story - SimCity, which EA did not originally publish.
I guess I just remember the rise, consumption and excretion of developers like Bullfrog and Westwood still a little too clearly.
However, you ARE correct Thrik, they DO publish a fair number of original and risky games. American McGee's Alice is a perfect example - could you find a quirkier, more original game, and from a developer whose biggest game thus far was an expansion pack? And they do seem to be making a lot more effort to get hold of decent, original games now.
EA, I think, would be a perfectly fine conclusion to this mess.
I would love to be proved wrong on this, but I think this is the reason it was dropped by Activision in the first place.
As for your franchise point, that's not true at all. While franchises are obviously good for publishers, I don't believe EA would refuse to publish it on that basis alone. They've published and developed plenty of games that aren't particularly franchise-orientated. EA also recently said they are intentionally staying away from relying on churned-out sequels and whatnot, and instead focusing on fresh/original IP. You know, like the games I mentioned in the news post.
I also think the fact that Activision Blizzard dropped it because of that is misguided speculation on your part, because they dropped a number of big franchise games too.
EA may say they don't want just to rely on churned out sequels, but original IP is exactly that - possibilities for fresher churned-out sequels. That's an incredibly cynical viewpoint, I know, but this isn't a brand new EA we're talking about. Name me one game EA have published in the last couple of years that hasn't been a license or the first game in a series.
Brutal Legend may get sequels I suppose.
Again, the games I mentioned in my original post — Spore and Mirror's Edge — aren't games with any planned sequels. But could some appear if they do really well? Of course they could!
I have to wonder how many of EA's games you've actually played. I'm guessing it hovers around the 'none at all' end of the scale, because EA don't just churn out rubbish sequels — they've been putting out very good games for a while now, and partnering with solid studios.
As for Activision Blizzard's games, you're wrong. They weren't all new and there were some very obvious sellers amongst them, one of them being a new 50 Cent game. I'm guessing it's your general unfamiliarity with the games that leads to you saying they weren't obvious sellers. Some of them were far bigger sellers than the ones they kept.
You're right, EA don't just churn out rubbish sequels. They once made Clive Barker's Undying. Maybe I deserve to give them some slack for that. But then they never made that sequel I wanted. That's irony for you.
And I bet you Mirror's Edge 2 is already in the pipeline, as is Spore: Ikea Genetic Manipulation Stuff.
Sequels aren't a bad thing in any way - all I'm saying is that it's very unlikely EA will pick up Brutal Legend because it's not as likely to become a marketable franchise.
I will be the first to celebrate being wrong here and if it happens I will accept that EA has changed from the license-regurgitating, talented developer-devouring, three-FIFA-games-in-one-year making, 10-billion-crappy-rip-off Sims-packs producing publisher it once was.
...shocked to realise what I'm typing here 8-o