EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis

Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by m_mueller on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @10:33PM (#9149083)

This is pretty much how a deadly virus works, right? Infect a particular game brand (cell) by buying (infecting) it, generate enough new copies of the virus (selling the game), then destroy it and release the virus onto the next cells. If the analogy is correct, the game market will either die, find a cure and eject EA or EA adapts and finds a way to coexist such as not to kill the host cells anymore.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by pkinsky on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @11:45PM (#9149299)

Not really: in this case the games sold by an infected game studio aren't copies of the original entity that go on to infect other game studios. They're more of a waste product. EA consumes game studios for sustenance and excretes a steady stream of sub-par sequels as it slowly digests its prey.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by m_mueller on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @11:56PM (#9149321)

Apparently I haven't been clear enough, so let me rephrase: What DNA is to a virus, money is to EA. Selling games is how they get their money, which is then used to infect more games and destroying them all in the process. Well that's at least how my analogy was supposed to work.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by pkinsky on Thursday March 05, 2015 @01:02AM (#9149495)

I understood you, but your analogy doesn't work. Viruses are replicators, they infect cells to spawn new generations. EA is a monolithic entity that consumes studios to sustain itself, all without creating a single copy of itself. Money is food, not DNA.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by warfangle on Thursday March 05, 2015 @09:08AM (#9150793)

So cancer, then.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by m_mueller on Friday March 06, 2015 @08:54AM (#9156969)

I like how it all just went worse and worse for EA - from virus to a predator shitting out bad games to a cancer of gaming.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by warfangle on Friday March 06, 2015 @01:22PM (#9158556)

To be honest, the virus might actually be more apt, if you change the kind of virus.

Take HIV for example: it attacks the immune system of the host, but is fairly difficult to transmit and relies on insufficient protection for that.

A studio that accepts a buyout from EA is like a person mainlining heroin using a needle that's been passed around a hundred different HIV+ heroin addicts. It gets the bug.

Sometimes it takes years for symptoms of illness to show. Some studios last decades before they waste away - and they last longer if they have proper treatment (in the case of Maxis, this was having Will Wright stay on board). But in the end it's incurable and terminal once treatment ceases, and the studio becomes weaker and skeletal before finally passing.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by neolefty on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @11:29PM (#9149260)

Except when a company dies, no people actually die. They can go on and create new games and new companies.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by serf on Thursday March 05, 2015 @12:31AM (#9149415)

>Except when a company dies, no people actually die.

except that isn't always true. [0]

Suicide Rates Rising for Older U.S. Adults - Rates for 40-64 year-olds may be increasing due to financial circumstances, according to American Journal of Preventive Medicine

[0] : http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-jo...

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by louhike on Thursday March 05, 2015 @03:57AM (#9149823)

Are we really talking about suicide in a discussion about a company unsurprisingly shutting down? It is not because it is EA, which have a really bad reputation (which they partly deserve), than we should have a discussion of such a low quality.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by AndyKelley on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @11:04PM (#9149176)

this is nonsense

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by hueving on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @11:23PM (#9149245)

Excellent rebuttal. I like how you clearly outlined and explained your counterpoints.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by fragsworth on Thursday March 05, 2015 @03:17AM (#9149743)

There isn't much to outline or explain, because the original comment (creating an analogy between EA and a virus?) simply doesn't make any sense...

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by KhalilK on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @11:25PM (#9149248)

Care to elaborate?

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by spiritplumber on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @11:08PM (#9149191)

Yeah, you nailed it.

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Re:EA Shuts Down ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ Developer Maxis by Lordo on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @10:48PM (#9149127)

Hahah excellent analogy.

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