EA purchases Mythic

Umbras · Post by **Umbras** » 2006-06-22 02:54am

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) -- Still reeling from a challenging year, video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. said Tuesday it will buy Virginia-based Mythic Entertainment for an undisclosed sum.

Mythic Entertainment was founded in 1995 under the name Interworld Productions, and changed its name to Mythic Entertainment in 1997. The company focuses on developing online multiplayer role-playing games, including "Dark Age of Camelot."

Mythic Entertainment will operate as a wholly owned studio dedicated to developing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs).

News of the acquisition comes over a month after the company reported a fourth-quarter net loss and issued guidance below Wall Street expectations.

Electronic Arts, along with other video game publishers, have felt the pinch of consumers holding off on video game purchases until next-generation game consoles from Sony and Nintendo are released.

"The addition of Mythic to the EA family reflects our deep commitment to the online gaming market worldwide," Paul Lee, president of EA Studios, said in a statement.

Hopefully G.W. will keep Warhammer online development under tight control and not let EA fuck it up.

Stormin · Post by **Stormin** » 2006-06-22 03:33am

As I said in venting, if they add samurai or ninja crap I am moving to WoW (or hopefully Age of Conan).
From the outside it looks completely retarded. Even if they needed the money to create and properly advertise Warhammer, they could have gotten it through a publishing deal. The DAoC forums are filled with tens of thousands of anguished screams while the top people of Mythic spare no effort to try to calm the people on the Warhammer alliance boards.
So far, mythics attempt at reassuring the PAYING DAoC population is limited to Sanya making 6 posts on the VN boards and a short note put on the herald long after the official announcement of the sellout.

Umbras · Post by **Umbras** » 2006-06-22 04:16am

Well here isa bit more info I found from Mark Jacobs President and CEO of Mythic.

Mark Jacobs comments:
1) Nothing is changing with WAR or the WAR design. The game's goals are the same goals as they were before.
2) EA is not buying Mythic to interfere with the management or the game design of WAR.
3) EA has never, ever said that they want to change the deal with GW (Games Workshop) and to the contrary have reaffirmed their commitment to the same deal that we made with them. They are incredibly excited about WAR especially after what they saw at E3.
4) I know many are going to find this hard to believe but we have spent a lot of time with the key guys at EA and we find their passion for doing great games and what they think is great, dovetails nicely with our current vision. We wouldn't have done this deal if EA had said to us, we want you to turn WAR into WoW 1.5.

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2006-06-22 09:16am

EA bought Mythic?

Mythic is making Warhammer Online

Let's look at EA's track record with Online MMOG's. Thier only successful one is UO, and even that is taking a nose dive with the stupid shit they throw into it. They CANCELED two promissing MMORPG's in the Ultima Universe (Ulima Worlds Online and Ultima X: Odessey) for the same PoS RPG.

I suppose I'm going to have to stay away from Warhammer Online now....

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2006-06-22 11:23am

And Blizzard/NCSoft/SOE all break open a beer and party. Anyone care to take bets how many players will be leaving DAoC for WoW/CoH/EQwhatever and such soon?

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2006-06-22 12:47pm

I dunno if I could make such a bet. From what the posting body of players have said over the years they only stay with DAOC because it offers the best PvP in its class. Kill DAOC without a replacement and there will be a great many pissed off (as in, more than they are now) players.

I couldn't tell you how many posts I've seen on the various camelot boards detailing the hows and whys of players' returns from EQ 2 and WOW because they simply cannot offer the PvP DAOC does. For many, WAR was supposed to be the next good PvP game, and now EA has it

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2006-06-22 01:21pm

While EA is hardly the kiss of death that SOE is, they are capable of screwing things. I'll take a back seat because the concepts are sound but I am very curious of the execution.

Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2006-06-22 05:21pm

It's going to be a repeat of WoW, WAR will ship with it's original features, then EA will change things and most of the original dev team will quit, enter WoW 2.0. Still going to try it because no MMO has been as good since the DAOC experience. Age of Conan has Funcom though so the next two big MMOs have caution flags up for me.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-06-22 05:37pm

Why would EA necessarily fuck over the live team and/or ongoing game design? I have no love for EA, but Games Workshop keeps a very tight leash on their IP - they completely annihilated the first studio and development of a Warhammer MMO, for the simple reason it wasn't Warhammer-y enough. I'm not sure how EA and GW stack up head to head, but the latter certainly has plenty of money and weight to throw around when it wants to.

Umbras · Post by **Umbras** » 2006-06-22 05:38pm

Games Workshop still has creative control which is a good thing, I think EA will be smart and let the game run its course without interfering like they did with other games, hopefully they have learned from previouse mistakes.

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2006-06-22 09:37pm

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Why would EA necessarily fuck over the live team and/or ongoing game design? I have no love for EA, but Games Workshop keeps a very tight leash on their IP - they completely annihilated the first studio and development of a Warhammer MMO, for the simple reason it wasn't Warhammer-y enough. I'm not sure how EA and GW stack up head to head, but the latter certainly has plenty of money and weight to throw around when it wants to.

I point to thier most recent (to my knowledge) fuck up, Ultima X: Odessey.

I was on the lead end of this cluster fuck, running one of the more up to date and active fansites for it.

EA had a good strong development team who spoke with the fanbase, worked hard on the code, and had a playable build ready for a special press event that EA shelled out to fly press out to for a weekend in San Fran. Highly acclaimed as something which could give WoW a nice little run. I played it there, I enjoyed the ever living fuck out of it.

Three months later: EA decides it wants to consolidate thier design studio's at it's Redwood Shores location. Instead of actually offering a decent compensation package to allow the dev team move to continue work on thier baby, they gave them a insulting compensation package.

All but one of the developers quit, the only one who stayed was a DB tech.

They gave the job of developing the game to the people who helped develope the "Space, Above and Beyond" MMOG, more specifically, the Executive Producer of that game, who had a grudge against the game because his got canned.

He ran UXO into the ground, and EA did nothing to stop him.

If EA had at least TRIED to keep the original team, then maybe I could be playing that MMOG, instead of having to shut my site down in disgust and being in eternal hate of Electronic Arts...

Stormin · Post by **Stormin** » 2006-06-22 10:12pm

The only thing mythic could have done worse was to sell out to SOE or re-hire Makey