The new Dungeon Keeper for mobile platforms is a free to play nightmare. The game asks players to spend vast amounts of real world money to speed up the game’s laboriously long timers. The game has been the near universal target of derision. EA’s Frank Gibeau has it figured out. He reckons the reason it wasn’t well received is that EA tried to innovate too much.
Dungeon Keeper suffered from a few things,” Gibeau told GamesIndustry (via Escapist). “I don’t think we did a particularly good job marketing it or talking to fans about their expectations for what Dungeon Keeper was going to be or ultimately should be.”
Gibeau says EA is keen on bringing up old licences and expressing them in new ways, but admits that the publisher may have faltered a bit. Not by admitting they’re greedy though; he says EA has innovated too much.
“Brands ultimately have a certain amount of permission that you can make changes to, and I think we might have innovated too much or tried some different things that people just weren’t ready for,” he said. “Or, frankly, were not in tune with what the brand would have allowed us to do.”
Dungeon Keeper will continue as is, and they’re probably not going to repeat that mistake.
“Are we going to sequel it? Probably not,” Gibeau said. “But we don’t want to just shut stuff off and walk away. You can’t do that in a live service environment.”
Essentially, with this “tried some different things that people just weren’t ready for”, Gibeau implies that they’ll do the same thing – but they’ll easy you in to it. Genius.
Last Updated: July 10, 2014
Sith JJ
July 10, 2014 at 16:20
Sounds like they’re trying to convince themselves more than they’re trying to convince their customers.
Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)
July 10, 2014 at 16:24
I get the impression that they don’t particularly care, since their eye is on those Chinese billions…. :/
Alien Emperor Trevor
July 10, 2014 at 16:23
Oh I don’t know, you managed to exceed my expectations at how badly you could fuck something up. Good job!
Hammersteyn
July 14, 2014 at 07:50
Oh i dunno, maybe this was a warm up for Syndicate that may or may not come to mobile
Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)
July 10, 2014 at 16:23
But it’s like Peter Moore said… it’s just because you guys are too old, and unwilling to accept the future…. /s
Sigh! EA, I’m now officially boycotting all your games. Much like with Bethesda, I will only buy your titles if they’re in second hand bins.
Alien Emperor Trevor
July 10, 2014 at 16:26
I love the way they communicate their expectations of me & I feel the need to apologise for disappointing them. PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY SHINIES AWAY! O_O
Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)
July 10, 2014 at 16:33
“We just don’t understand why those dirty gamer scum don’t want to fill our coffers with even more money. They’re so ENTITLED, you know. Why won’t they just do what’s right and give us all their money?”
Brian Murphy
July 10, 2014 at 16:52
Well, it is innovation, it’s simply innovation in revenue streaming, and it looks like from the feedback they’re getting it won’t float. Which is encouraging.
Devs/Pubs/Hardware manufacturers are in it to make money, bottom line. It’s our job as intelligent thoughtful consumers to police them, and show them through our buying practices what we will and will not tolerate.
The issue is, gamer’s as a whole are really really bad at that, and even worse at working together to ensure something doesn’t get accepted as the norm. The industry is rife with things we hate, right now, and I’d argue that people are getting tired of allot of it. But, we made this bed through our inaction.
Games aren’t just a hobby anymore, they’re as much a part of life as your cell phone or your refrigerator. And we should be just as discerning and thoughtful when buying them/buying into the hardware as we would any other major tech device.
Grant [_G_] Hancock
July 10, 2014 at 16:36
I can’t think of a single EA game that I own…
Ryanza
July 10, 2014 at 16:24
free to play – pay to play – EA innovation.
Spaffy
July 10, 2014 at 16:30
No surprises here. It is EA after all.
*spits
Sageville
July 10, 2014 at 16:30
I’ll translate this response into People talk “We put in microtransactions and strangely the players told us to fuck off”.
Grant [_G_] Hancock
July 10, 2014 at 16:38
EA reminds me of that doosh in Waynes World that owned the arcade company and tried to cash in on the WW brand … totally out of touch with his market, but so big that he will make money regardless.
Grant [_G_] Hancock
July 10, 2014 at 16:49
Kinda like this…
Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)
July 10, 2014 at 17:23
No Longer SIR Twakkus
July 11, 2014 at 08:21
Loved it!!!! Epic!!!
Greylingad
July 11, 2014 at 10:27
Bwaaahaaaa!!! Here’s another beatiful one!
Umar Reborn XIV
July 10, 2014 at 16:58
They’ve innovated too much..wow..well I cant blame EA. People buy this stuff. What else is there to be expected…
konfab aka derp
July 10, 2014 at 16:59
To be honest: if they take the money they make from the freemium market and push it towards their other products *cough* ME4 *cough* I would regard it as a good thing as I don’t really care for freemium anyway.
J_Joestar
July 10, 2014 at 17:35
if anything, if they find their “innovation” works that well, they may instead try to turn those genius minds of theirs to innovate ME4 in a similar manner as well.
MichaelMatusowsky
July 10, 2014 at 16:59
How does EA consistently manage to fuck up PR so much and still make money?
Umar Reborn XIV
July 10, 2014 at 17:00
Consumers are idiots. The knowledgeable are in the minority
ToshZA
July 10, 2014 at 17:54
So basically next time they’ll use lube.
Weanerdog
July 10, 2014 at 18:04
No they are just saying they will.
ToshZA
July 10, 2014 at 18:04
That makes more sense.
Hermann Schwindt
July 10, 2014 at 17:57
F**** them, Im going to boycott their games. So tired of seeing them trying to milk gamers.
Brian Murphy
July 10, 2014 at 18:15
As I said in a reponse above, we’re really looking at this from the wrong perspective. If you go into it knowing each company exists to make money, it makes being objective about what a company is doing pretty simple. There’s no need or reason to get all pissed, just don’t buy it.
The problem is, gamer’s are too focused on defending or damning hardware or IP they feel is inferior to the choice they’ve made. Console, PC, and I’m sure yes, even tablets and smartphones have their fanboy arguments (though I’d imagine it’s a much smaller scale).
Gaming is no longer ‘just a hobby’, it’s one of the largest entertainment industries in the world, and as such isn’t beyond nefarious practices or cheap cash grabs. We, as gamer’s, ALL gamer’s, need to recognize that we are the only ones who can really influence the direction the industry takes. If that means not buying a game you really want, or some hardware you really want, for fucks sake, do it. You didn’t pause for concern because everything about the situation sat well with you. You paused because your principles say, this isn’t right.
These actions we take, have very real and damning consequences down the line. We all know it. Once a system has been introduced AND proven profitable, every company adopts that practice as industry standard, and they then move on to the next evolution in bending us over. If we stop it, when we first have that moment of pause…maybe we wouldn’t be in the position we are now.
Wake up folks, all the ‘warring’ between each other does is act as an opiate to the masses, while our entertainment begins to turn itself into nothing more than an expensive telephone booth (insert X for 5 more minutes).
Brady miaau
July 11, 2014 at 09:16
That is a reasoned and well though out argument.
Ultimately it boils down to: “If you go into it knowing each company exists to make money”.
I work to make money, the company does better, ultimately I do better.
Sir Rants A Lot Llew
July 10, 2014 at 18:49
Asshats. Didn’t they say a few weeks back that Dungeon Keeper was a mistake? Now they claim that we the consumer are just full of it?
Piss of EA. Take your new Dragon Age and shove it. My support for you is DONE. You’ve gone too far
Consumer of Little Rabbits
July 11, 2014 at 10:38
DAMN US ENTITLED GAMERS! WE’RE SUCH SCUM!
Greylingad
July 11, 2014 at 11:01
Yeah well…I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, it is EA after all…At the top of my “not supported” list, what a bunch of greedy, self entitled, uninovated, penny pinching, bombastic, will forced idiots… Almost as if they have meetings daily where the words “More” “Money” “Squeezed” “out” “of” “our” “customers” (not necessarily in that order) is their main priority, I’m all for each person gets what they deserve but this is absolutely ridiculous, usually in trial and error you do a once off market bump with an idea, if it doesn’t work, then scrap it, don’t reintroduce the same over priced idea…. Anyway…Still just a “NO” from me….
Hammersteyn
July 14, 2014 at 07:55
This is why I will only buy secondhand games from now on, this way I pass my cash onto BT games or ensure that a fellow gamer gets his cash back. Hows that for innovation?