He makes a good point. Johnny R came in saying EA was going to shape up. He put a lot of focus on new IPs and taking chances. Basically all of those things have failed. EA has come out and said that they have.
When a game doesn't sell, it's a game that, at the very least, people didn't want enough to actually go out and buy. Johnny R spends too much times in forums and not enough time analyzing spreadsheets. He hears people saying they want original IP and games that take chances but he didn't look at the spreadsheets and see how in the past those games usually tank regardless of quality. People say that it's what they want but when it's time to put their money where their mouth is they go walk away from Dead Space and pick up Resident Evil. They look at Mirror's Edge and say, "that's not like COD" and pick up COD part 50.
Pachter is correct.
Brutal Legend is a great example. Activision spent like $9million on that game and then Shafer came back asking for like $5 million more and wanted another year. Acti drops it cuz, using reality, the sales of his games don't justify it. EA steps it and does the pro gamer thing. They probably ended up giving the devs more than $5 million. They had to settle with Activision for untold millions. EA spends millions advertising it. Gamers cheer and curse Acti but "reward" EA by completely ignoring the game when it was actually on shelves... proving Activision was correct in their assumption and making EA look like a company that goes out of their way to throw money down the trash can on games that people don't want.
