<story><title>Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues</title><url>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VTVRFA?ie=UTF8&amp;force-full-site=1&amp;ref_=aw_bottom_links</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roc</author><text>&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;&quot;Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios...&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Further to this point: Maxis, makers of Sim City, were notable for a long time as being the &lt;i&gt;glaring exception&lt;/i&gt; when it came to EA&apos;s habit of buying and squeezing studios to death.&lt;p&gt;But the writing was on the wall when THE SIMS hit so big and was.. &quot;exploited&quot;[1] so heavily.&lt;p&gt;And when Will left... well, it&apos;s just flat-out inconceivable that anyone remained naive about what EA was going to get up to.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>Irregardless</author><text>EA has a reputation for being more akin to a sweatshop than a place where passionate people work on things they love, and it&apos;s been that way for many years now.&lt;p&gt;I do feel bad for anyone who works in that type of environment, but I don&apos;t think many (if any) of their employees are under the impression that their work will be lauded by adoring fans. Gamers resent everything that EA stands for -- especially their constant profiteering and manipulation -- and begrudgingly buy their games because they&apos;re one of the few companies with the budget to create AAA titles.&lt;p&gt;Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios...</text></item><item><author>kevinalexbrown</author><text>I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don&apos;t intend.&lt;p&gt;I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small firms, startups, indie shops, etc. &quot;Don&apos;t want this[&lt;a href=&quot;http://amazon-pulls-sim-city&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://amazon-pulls-sim-city&lt;/a&gt;] to happen? Work for our small team. We won&apos;t destroy your work.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I know it&apos;s standard to say &quot;you get a part in the decisionmaking process!&quot; That&apos;s part of it. But a lot of people are willing to let go of the big decisions if they get to be a part of something great. But they have to trust that it will come out well in the end.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sshumaker</author><text>That&apos;s slightly revisionist history. EA bought Maxis when they weren&apos;t in great financial shape (it didn&apos;t help that basically every Friday was spent at the bar). It&apos;s true that the Sims was a huge success that EA didn&apos;t anticipate (they repeatedly tried to kill the project), but the jury is still out if Maxis would have survived long enough to release it without EA&apos;s funding and support.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues</title><url>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VTVRFA?ie=UTF8&amp;force-full-site=1&amp;ref_=aw_bottom_links</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roc</author><text>&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;&quot;Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios...&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Further to this point: Maxis, makers of Sim City, were notable for a long time as being the &lt;i&gt;glaring exception&lt;/i&gt; when it came to EA&apos;s habit of buying and squeezing studios to death.&lt;p&gt;But the writing was on the wall when THE SIMS hit so big and was.. &quot;exploited&quot;[1] so heavily.&lt;p&gt;And when Will left... well, it&apos;s just flat-out inconceivable that anyone remained naive about what EA was going to get up to.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>Irregardless</author><text>EA has a reputation for being more akin to a sweatshop than a place where passionate people work on things they love, and it&apos;s been that way for many years now.&lt;p&gt;I do feel bad for anyone who works in that type of environment, but I don&apos;t think many (if any) of their employees are under the impression that their work will be lauded by adoring fans. Gamers resent everything that EA stands for -- especially their constant profiteering and manipulation -- and begrudgingly buy their games because they&apos;re one of the few companies with the budget to create AAA titles.&lt;p&gt;Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios...</text></item><item><author>kevinalexbrown</author><text>I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don&apos;t intend.&lt;p&gt;I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small firms, startups, indie shops, etc. &quot;Don&apos;t want this[&lt;a href=&quot;http://amazon-pulls-sim-city&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://amazon-pulls-sim-city&lt;/a&gt;] to happen? Work for our small team. We won&apos;t destroy your work.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I know it&apos;s standard to say &quot;you get a part in the decisionmaking process!&quot; That&apos;s part of it. But a lot of people are willing to let go of the big decisions if they get to be a part of something great. But they have to trust that it will come out well in the end.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MartinCron</author><text>I remember when The Sims was first announced, where Maxis was saying &quot;And most of the game isn&apos;t even done yet. We&apos;ve got loads of new stuff we&apos;ll release for free online!&quot; which turned into dozens of boxed expansion packs.&lt;p&gt;Yuck.</text></comment>