Oddworld Creator Blasts EA

Bang Bang He Shot Me Dead. Bang Bang, I gave him h...

“**** that business. I don’t want to play with that business, because it was a losing business,” he told VG24/7. “I just don’t want to go back and play the old [publisher] game. I’d rather not make games than go fucking be a slave for public companies who care more about their shareholders than they do about their customers.

“Why did Battlefield 4 ship? You know that team was crying. You know that team knew that game wasn’t ready to go. You know that team fucking spent a lot of sleepless nights building that shit out to look as good and play as good, when it was able to be experienced, being played as they were intending it to be played. Someone made a decision that the shareholders are more important than the customer. And we see a lot of that. How do you blow that? How do you take that fucking jewel and ship it with dirt all over it?”

Don't know whether he means it or not, but slamming The Man seems to get positive feedback from consumers that'd like to think they're not so easily manipulated; kind of ironic. I don't care about his politics in the gaming world though, I've thoroughly enjoyed the Oddworld series, and I'd gladly pick up a remake of Abe's Oddysee.

They blamed poor advertising for the commercial failure of those two once Xbox eclusives games: Stranger's Wrath and Munch's Oddysee.

Lorne Lanning is one of the good guys. Always remember that.

I can dig it.

I'm sure a lot of the blame also comes from the Xbox's low userbase and it being an exclusive, and a launch exclusive nonetheless (for Munch's Oddysee), living under Halo's shadow.

While EA should get shit for the state BF4 was in, part of the blame goes to DICE for not being able to make a finished product for the release date.

@JangoWuzHere: Its also possible that the release date that was set for them was unrealistic. Also, with any project, unexpected obstacles always come up and reiterations and changes occur throughout the project. This is why most companies tend to give vague completion dates like "Launching Summer 2014" or in some cases "Launching in 2014". Its impossible to anticipate what complications may arise, and EA as the publisher should have accounted for that. But you do have a point. We don't nearly have enough information to make an informed opinion, perhaps DICE really did just mess around and not get anything done.

Lanning is a blowhard. You can always tell when he has a new project coming out because he starts bad mouthing other companies to get the free press. I like the Oddworld games as much as the next guy, but just because you made some great games over a decade ago doesn't make you god's gift to gaming. He needs to shut the **** up.

Also I'm not defending EA, hell I even made this video a few years ago:

I just don't respect Lanning's attitude.

Instead of wasting time on an uninspired single player campaign, they should have focused their efforts on the part people are actually interested in. They were already making a mistake when they decided that ripping off call of duty again in terms of single player was a good idea. Unexpected obstacles and revisions do happen, but that doesn't mean much in the real world. If you are late on assignment or with a project, you are likely to get layed off and that's simply the harsh truth.

XBOX users only want shooters. Even on the 360 anything remotely creative without guns failed miserably. I'm sorry VIVA PINATA...i loved you though.

Oh my, he's a little salty with the language eh?

I understand release dates and the pressures that come with them. BUT a game should ship when it's READY. At least don't ship a game that has problems. Fix them first. The long term good will is worth more than the short term release date disappointment.

i think he has the right to say whatever he wants about EA.. they are the reason Stranger's Wrath was a failure and almost killed the franchise because of it. so you should probally shut the **** up?

See the difference here is that I'm just some guy on a message board. I can say whatever I like and it doesn't make the front page of dozens of gaming news sites. Lanning is a douche who is using his status as a has been to spout of negative comments to further his own agenda (in this case get free press about his overpriced remake of New & Tasty).

And it isn't just EA. Just do a Google search for "Lorne Lanning Oddworld News" and you'll see he has been talking shit about everyone except who he's in bed with at the moment since day one. It is unprofessional, childish and completely uncalled for.

To stay competitve with Call of Duty, EA had to ship for holiday release. While giving developers all the time in the world to make a game would be great, it makes little to no sense from a business perspective.

releasing a game which is not finished make no sense either.

Pre-ordering games and buying games without reading reviews makes no sense.

I am sorry, but that is just wrong.

Perhaps to stay on top of the gaming media buzz covering the ridiculously silly rivalry between EA and Activision, and the doofy flame wars between BF and CoD fans the game needed to be released to before the holidays. Being competitive on the other hand? Goodness no.

Battlefield and Call of Duty are very different games that scratch very different itches. One is lone wolf or two/three man team arcade run and gun that penalizes cooperation by sacrificing kill streak rewards, while the others is squad based and offers great rewards for focusing on supporting a team, even at the cost of getting a lot of kills in a row. It also offers realistic ballistic physics on top of that. Yeah they are both shooters, but that is a bit like saying NHL and Fifa are both sports games. Battlefield fans would have waited for a finished game. They absolutely would not have just purchased CoD and decided it was good enough while turning their backs on the entire franchise less then a year after spending over a hundred dollars to get BF3 and all it's maps.

I mean come on, people are breathless with anticipation of the HD remake of an HD game that released nine months ago on this very forum. Gamers are not only willing to spend sixty bucks to get an unfinished game the day it releases despite of all the flaws they know it will have, they are perfectly willing to shell out another sixty dollars to play the exact same game a year later with redone textures. There is absolutely zero reason for an entrenched shooter franchise to rush an unplayable game to market. If anything the decision cost them money.

The very best thing that could happen to Battlefield fans is Dice seeing the success of star citizen, ditching EA, and going with crowd funding. I would be astonished if they didn't get fifty million dollars in a month to release, "WarField, Battle of Honor Medals" or some "We can't call it Battlefield because of IP laws but yeah it is totally Battlefield!" nonsense.

Never played any of the Oddworld games but screw EA

They are different mechanically, but both are fast paced first person modern military shooters.They are different games, but you would be crazy to think that EA isn't competing with Call of Duty in the shooter market. Releasing before the holidays has and always will generate more sales then any other part of the year. Not to mention, that early in 2014, Titanfall was scheduled to come out. Releasing both of them in close approximation would only hurt both games.

EA isn't going to delay other games and projects just because DICE couldn't finish their game.

I am sorry, but if you think all those people who scorn CoD would have become Ghost converts (Ghost stealing games? Now that is silly.) if BF4 had released in January, and the fact that the game was unplayable when it was released didn't make lots of gamers wait until then anyway then we just have to agree to disagree.

*edit* For the record, I looked it up, BF4 sold 69% less then BF3 in the same time frame.

Battlefield and CoD are closer to sports franchises then game franchises. Die hard BF fans are not a two month delay away from thinking they were too harsh on CoD, and winning a match with a nuke when your team is down by 20% of the total score limit is actually a super neat idea.