I’ve been part of million dollar fuckups before. I can’t imagine adding three zeroes to that.
“And, I am trembling sat in front of Steve [Ballmer], who I love to death, but he can be an intimidating human being. Steve said, ‘okay, talk me through this.’ I said, ‘if we don’t do this, this brand is dead.’ … He said, ‘what’s it going to cost?’ I remember taking a deep breath, looking at Robbie [Bach], and saying, ‘we think it’s $1.15bn, Steve.’ He said, ‘do it.’ There was no hesitation.”
Did they have any other choice with the RROD?
It was a hardware failure that they couldn’t ignore if they wanted to retain any brand credibility.
Can the same be said about software failures?
I hate to think what the budget is for chasing down the bugs on a game, especially now that this bug fixing is supposed to carry on for a lengthy period after release, in the case of MMOs I guess this is a large part of running costs as new bugs are introduced along with the fixes to previous content.
Would games developers gain more respect from their players if they were more open to the Q&A process, or just said flat out some elements of perceived failure were not high enough priority to fix.
Or are gamers so easily distracted it’s enough to throw a few shiny trailers and screen shots of the next new game to make them forget?
Speaking of EA (as Peter Moore now works there,) I’ve picked up bits and pieces that suggest EA used to expect a feature-list and release date to be set in stone, so developers wouldn’t be able to delay or change things if they encounter unexpected difficulties or realise a feature isn’t very fun. The late release of Battlefield: Cops & Robbers and recent comments about the new Star Wars: Battlefront game make it seem like they’re giving a bit more flexibility to make sure things are right.
I’d like to know how your thoughts on this as a former EA employee, if you can give them out without annoying former colleagues and employers.