We See Farther - EA

Over on Gamasutra they have and article entitled "We See Farther - A History of Electronic Arts".  Great, great article about one of the biggest publishers in the video game business.  When most people think EA, they think Madden {insert year here} or NCAA Football {insert year here}.  Actually, they have a game for just about every sport going these days....NASCAR....Golf....Arena Football.  Where is the lacrosse game?  Curling cannot be far off.  But what EA does best is franchises.  That's why people, or maybe it's just me, always think Madden. 

One thing that kept EA around during the lean times of the console wars was the fact that they publish games to everything.  Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox....Console, handheld, PC.  They have their fingers in about every pot.  Since I haven't been following EA that closely recently though, I have one question about one of my favorite franchises.  What is up with the splitting on the Medal of Honor series?  You can get Medal of Honor: Vanguard on the Playstation 2 and the Wii, but not the Xbox 360?  But then on the 360 you can get Medal of Honor: Airborne.  Actually, it looks like a generational difference.  Airborne is for the 360, Playstation 3 and PC.  The only other Medal of Honor games that I have played have all been on the PC, and they were killer.

Anyway, this whole rambling post started after I read Jeff Atwood's post over on Coding Horror about that very same Gamasutra article.  His question "What happened to the grandiose sentiments expressed in the We See Farther" ad.  I think the visionary element in video games started to go out the window as the games got more and more complex, visually amazing, and all in all just started costing more to make.  Instead of a bunch of different guys each coming up with their own game that they think is cool, you now have a couple of guys driving the whole game with a staff of artists, programmers, and whoever else behind them. 

Try to find something really unique.  It's kind of hard.  Def Jam Icon sounds like kind of a new idea with new game play.  But for the most part EA is about their franchises.  Then again, maybe that's not a bad thing.  Right now I need to run out and see if I can find that Medal of Honor: Airborne game.