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> This classic passive-aggressive apology — “I felt awful that I had let down so many people in my effort to be loyal and learn from EA” doesn’t exactly ring ou

> This classic passive-aggressive apology — “I felt awful that I had let down so many people in my effort to be loyal and learn from EA” doesn’t exactly ring out with contrition — isn’t even internally consistent; if the development team loved their game so much, why was Origin’s management forced to devise stratagems to keep them from going home out of the fear that they wouldn’t come back? Nevertheless, it does contain a fair amount of truth alongside its self-serving omissions Ugh - those omissions are not self-serving. The reality (which we all see) is that the dev team f*cking hated the game, probably gave up on quality, and everyone knows it. But saying so is an attack on the people Garriott screwed when he screwed up; the omissions are of other people's contributions to his faults, not his faults themselves. The apology was _incredibly_ well-written: it highlights all of garriott's mistakes, in detail, and places the blame squarely on his own shoulders: he could say "EA is evil because they enforce business discipline," but instead said "they did their job as a business, and I didn't so mine as a creator." If anything, this was probably _too_ self-blaming (we all know EA would just replace him if he didn't bow down, accomplishing nothing). But don't criticize him for failing to throw his team under the bus. Knowing very little, I'd love work for this guy, based on that apology alone.

tubularhells 6y ago
EA also killed Nox and Westwood, and we have some bits and pieces of anecdote about how that went, so I tend to believe what Garriot had to say about that.
- m463 6y ago
  I don't know, I think when someone is acquired, there are two things going on: - people have finally cashed out so motivations are changing - an investment has been made, so people start accepting business goals are important. So reading this story I wonder if EA is the villain here, or human nature. Now I do blame EA for popcap. I'll never forgive Plants vs Zombies 2 with literal pricetags in dollars on all the plants.
  - groby_b 6y ago
    Having been part of a company acquired by EA: It's EA. Nobody "cashed out", because the stock options turned into so much hot air. You couldn't have pried business goals out of EA with a autopsy kit. They were interested in IP, and in "leadership". They deliberately drove the rest of the business into the ground to get rid of most of the devs. And, talking to other people acquired by EA, that was far from the exception. In general, anybody who worked for EA in a non-exec role can tell you: If you wonder who the villain is, you could do worse than guess it's EA "leaders"
- georgeecollins 6y ago
  And Pandemic, and many others. I think Bobby Kotick once said something like, if you want to see your game studio shut down, sell it to EA. It's true that founders want to cash out but you can be sure that in all these places there were many people who wanted to keep making games.
- egeozcan 6y ago
  Westwood was one of a kind, it still hurts to this day to think how great C&C series could be. Signed: A person who still thinks of the Red Alert expansion and not the Half-Life mod, when he hears "Counterstrike".
  - IntelMiner 6y ago
    I've been re-playing the Red Alert 2 campaign this week and my god this comment hits hard
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      Red alert is still the best RTS I’ve played. The only thing that comes close is Supreme Commander, and that’s a completely different type of game. I want a new RA2 :/
      - IntelMiner 6y ago
        I donated $500 to the OpenRA project back in 2013 to add support for Tiberian Sun and RA2, and they're still working on it At this rate I'll just learn C# and join the project I think
        tubularhells 6y ago
        You should, that would speed things up.
jboog 6y ago
I know EA is the evil empire and whatever else but it doesn't seem obvious to me that Garriott threatening to resign means he would just get replaced. I'd say more likely they would give them more time. The Ultima fanbase has always had a cultish love of RG for many good reasons, sure. Firing the guy would not be a smart business decision. We're also only hearing his side of it. I tend to think EA was in the wrong, but also know that it's almost always the case one side of a story is biased, even if unintentionally.
- anonymousab 6y ago
  Despite a poor modern track record, EA back then is not the same company as EA today. The decision makers directly above him could have easily replaced him without actually replacing him, but I don't think they would have cared about the bad PR from cutting him at all. Acquiring a studio or rockstar is both good pr and good for business, but firing be a bad employee or cutting a failing studio is also good for business as far as shareholders and execs were concerned.
  - jboog 6y ago
    In what world do shareholders believe that firing the principal talent, creative director, and founder of a new acquisition--within a YEAR of acquiring the company!--is "good for business"? Only if you believe businesses are run by mustachio-twirling villains who sit around trying to ruin games for fun.
    - HenryBemis 6y ago
      I don't play games (as much) and have never played any of the Ultima franchise. To answer your business-management-related question though, I am looking at the price of their stock over since 1990. https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/EA/financials https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/EA/financials 1990: $0.xxx 2000: $20 2010: $17 (valley between 2008-2013)(the global financial crisis?) 2015: $55 2021: $145 (there is a drop between 2018-2020 down to 100) Whatever these guys are doing, judging from their stock price, it works. Shareholders like them. Sales/Revenue filed: 2016: 4.37B 2017: 4.81B 2018: 5.16B 2019: 4.93B 2020: 5.47N Cash cow...
nkoren 6y ago
If you need another data point, I worked on a (non-software) project for Garriott. He was awesome and I'd do it again in a second.
- Minor49er 6y ago
  By my guess, you must either be an astronaut or a knight
  - nickt 6y ago
    Or perhaps an explorer? Richard Garriott was recently elected president of the Explorers Club. https://explorers.org/news/news_detail/richard-garriott-elected-45th-president-of-the-explorers-club https://explorers.org/news/news_detail/richard-garriott-elec...
    - silexia 6y ago
      I think the fact the commenter here said he would work for Garriott again in a heartbeat, shows the incredible damage that mergers and acquisitions do to businesses. I am a finance guy, and I think we need to find a way to rework the system to reduce or end a lot of finances excesses. Especially VC pressures, mergers and acquisitions that remove founders, and other issues like that.
  - nkoren 6y ago
    Sadly, neither. Transport planner working in this Garriott-funded project: https://web.archive.org/web/20150508071259/http://www.austinprt.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150508071259/http://www.austin...
    - Minor49er 6y ago
      That is really cool. I would be interested in hearing more about what happened with this project
ALittleLight 6y ago
I read the part about how they regularly brought in dinner and had to work weekends. His may have been a good apology but I'd prefer to work for even a poor apologizer if it meant a better work life balance.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  The video game industry probably isn't the place for you, then. All my previous colleagues with that background had horror stories. It's like Hollywood. There is always a multitude of starstruck 20 year-olds who would happily do the job for free, just for a chance to "make it big". Larger employers count on it and it distorts the salary/work-life balance economics of all the junior and mid-level employees in the industry. The video game industry is a tournament. I have nothing but respect for the talent it attracts, but you have to be a little bit crazy to enter it.
  - egfx 6y ago
    Okay I worked in games and Hollywood and I loved ultima8. :/ but on ultima8 sure the bar is sky high to follow up the greatest single player masterpiece and expansion set of all time but it’s also not utterly broken, lost and incomplete like the next game in the series Ascension.
    - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
      You are one of the crazy ones. The world needs you! Ultima IV holds a special place in my heart that I'll never forget. I played it as a kid and then played it again, finally beating it just three years ago. I haven't actually played through more than the first couple of hours of VIII, but probably will eventually. I did really try to get through IX, though and it was really frustrating both how buggy it was and that the hardware requirements were so far ahead of my machine.
      - egfx 6y ago
        > and that the hardware requirements were so far ahead of my machine. and everyone's. I actually tried playing it with a ton of video cards because buying video cards was my biggest hobby at the time. I think the Matrox Mystique handled it best overall from what I remember.
daniel-cussen 6y ago
After reading reactions to this over-apology and the BackBlaze over-apology a while back, I think... There's no such thing as an exact apology. There's a discontinuity between under-apologizing and overapologizing, there's no point where it's neither an under- or over-apology.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  I think the key is to just be sincere and honest. Different people will interpret the apology one way or another, good or bad, under/over apologized. But if you're sincere and honest, you've done your job.
hmwhy 6y ago
The apology is well-written, but I'm not sure it "it highlights all of garriott's mistakes, in detail, and places the blame squarely on his own shoulders". That was the first time I read the apology, and the apology immediately raised red flags for being one that was only half of the whole picture and engineered to put blames on others; the self-criticism is simply there to induce sympathy. In my opinion, the fact that there is nothing in that apology that directly addresses the departure of Ultima VIII from everything(?) that fans were expecting then is one of those, and the biggest, red flags. I would have some sympathy for getting a burnt pizza from a pizza kitchen that's under lots of pressure and the staff are being worked to their bones; but I would not have any sympathy for the manager's apology for giving me a burnt toast made with sliced bread. I have not played the Ultima games and I don't like EA much. Edit: missing "to".
- giantDinosaur 6y ago
  If they'd created burnt toast (how does one do toast with non-sliced bread?) because the managing company had declared that the pizza must be shipped before the pizza dough was ready, you'd have some sympathy, no? The jury has been in on EA for a long, long time: they milk franchises ruthlessly and eliminate talent and entire acquisitions the second it fails to meet their terrifyingly all-consuming goal of gigantic profits.
  - Rerarom 6y ago
    People say "sliced bread" for "bread sold pre-sliced".
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    > you'd have some sympathy, no? Not if I were paying for pizza, no. They need to have some pride as creators and not serve me bread as if it’s pizza.

tubularhells 6y ago

EA also killed Nox and Westwood, and we have some bits and pieces of anecdote about how that went, so I tend to believe what Garriot had to say about that.

m463 6y ago
I don't know, I think when someone is acquired, there are two things going on: - people have finally cashed out so motivations are changing - an investment has been made, so people start accepting business goals are important. So reading this story I wonder if EA is the villain here, or human nature. Now I do blame EA for popcap. I'll never forgive Plants vs Zombies 2 with literal pricetags in dollars on all the plants.
- groby_b 6y ago
  Having been part of a company acquired by EA: It's EA. Nobody "cashed out", because the stock options turned into so much hot air. You couldn't have pried business goals out of EA with a autopsy kit. They were interested in IP, and in "leadership". They deliberately drove the rest of the business into the ground to get rid of most of the devs. And, talking to other people acquired by EA, that was far from the exception. In general, anybody who worked for EA in a non-exec role can tell you: If you wonder who the villain is, you could do worse than guess it's EA "leaders"
georgeecollins 6y ago
And Pandemic, and many others. I think Bobby Kotick once said something like, if you want to see your game studio shut down, sell it to EA. It's true that founders want to cash out but you can be sure that in all these places there were many people who wanted to keep making games.
egeozcan 6y ago
Westwood was one of a kind, it still hurts to this day to think how great C&C series could be. Signed: A person who still thinks of the Red Alert expansion and not the Half-Life mod, when he hears "Counterstrike".
- IntelMiner 6y ago
  I've been re-playing the Red Alert 2 campaign this week and my god this comment hits hard
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    Red alert is still the best RTS I’ve played. The only thing that comes close is Supreme Commander, and that’s a completely different type of game. I want a new RA2 :/
    - IntelMiner 6y ago
      I donated $500 to the OpenRA project back in 2013 to add support for Tiberian Sun and RA2, and they're still working on it At this rate I'll just learn C# and join the project I think
      - tubularhells 6y ago
        You should, that would speed things up.

jboog 6y ago

I know EA is the evil empire and whatever else but it doesn't seem obvious to me that Garriott threatening to resign means he would just get replaced. I'd say more likely they would give them more time. The Ultima fanbase has always had a cultish love of RG for many good reasons, sure. Firing the guy would not be a smart business decision. We're also only hearing his side of it. I tend to think EA was in the wrong, but also know that it's almost always the case one side of a story is biased, even if unintentionally.

anonymousab 6y ago
Despite a poor modern track record, EA back then is not the same company as EA today. The decision makers directly above him could have easily replaced him without actually replacing him, but I don't think they would have cared about the bad PR from cutting him at all. Acquiring a studio or rockstar is both good pr and good for business, but firing be a bad employee or cutting a failing studio is also good for business as far as shareholders and execs were concerned.
- jboog 6y ago
  In what world do shareholders believe that firing the principal talent, creative director, and founder of a new acquisition--within a YEAR of acquiring the company!--is "good for business"? Only if you believe businesses are run by mustachio-twirling villains who sit around trying to ruin games for fun.
  - HenryBemis 6y ago
    I don't play games (as much) and have never played any of the Ultima franchise. To answer your business-management-related question though, I am looking at the price of their stock over since 1990. https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/EA/financials https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/EA/financials 1990: $0.xxx 2000: $20 2010: $17 (valley between 2008-2013)(the global financial crisis?) 2015: $55 2021: $145 (there is a drop between 2018-2020 down to 100) Whatever these guys are doing, judging from their stock price, it works. Shareholders like them. Sales/Revenue filed: 2016: 4.37B 2017: 4.81B 2018: 5.16B 2019: 4.93B 2020: 5.47N Cash cow...

nkoren 6y ago

If you need another data point, I worked on a (non-software) project for Garriott. He was awesome and I'd do it again in a second.

Minor49er 6y ago
By my guess, you must either be an astronaut or a knight
- nickt 6y ago
  Or perhaps an explorer? Richard Garriott was recently elected president of the Explorers Club. https://explorers.org/news/news_detail/richard-garriott-elected-45th-president-of-the-explorers-club https://explorers.org/news/news_detail/richard-garriott-elec...
  - silexia 6y ago
    I think the fact the commenter here said he would work for Garriott again in a heartbeat, shows the incredible damage that mergers and acquisitions do to businesses. I am a finance guy, and I think we need to find a way to rework the system to reduce or end a lot of finances excesses. Especially VC pressures, mergers and acquisitions that remove founders, and other issues like that.
- nkoren 6y ago
  Sadly, neither. Transport planner working in this Garriott-funded project: https://web.archive.org/web/20150508071259/http://www.austinprt.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150508071259/http://www.austin...
  - Minor49er 6y ago
    That is really cool. I would be interested in hearing more about what happened with this project

ALittleLight 6y ago

I read the part about how they regularly brought in dinner and had to work weekends. His may have been a good apology but I'd prefer to work for even a poor apologizer if it meant a better work life balance.

AlchemistCamp 6y ago
The video game industry probably isn't the place for you, then. All my previous colleagues with that background had horror stories. It's like Hollywood. There is always a multitude of starstruck 20 year-olds who would happily do the job for free, just for a chance to "make it big". Larger employers count on it and it distorts the salary/work-life balance economics of all the junior and mid-level employees in the industry. The video game industry is a tournament. I have nothing but respect for the talent it attracts, but you have to be a little bit crazy to enter it.
- egfx 6y ago
  Okay I worked in games and Hollywood and I loved ultima8. :/ but on ultima8 sure the bar is sky high to follow up the greatest single player masterpiece and expansion set of all time but it’s also not utterly broken, lost and incomplete like the next game in the series Ascension.
  - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
    You are one of the crazy ones. The world needs you! Ultima IV holds a special place in my heart that I'll never forget. I played it as a kid and then played it again, finally beating it just three years ago. I haven't actually played through more than the first couple of hours of VIII, but probably will eventually. I did really try to get through IX, though and it was really frustrating both how buggy it was and that the hardware requirements were so far ahead of my machine.
    - egfx 6y ago
      > and that the hardware requirements were so far ahead of my machine. and everyone's. I actually tried playing it with a ton of video cards because buying video cards was my biggest hobby at the time. I think the Matrox Mystique handled it best overall from what I remember.

daniel-cussen 6y ago

After reading reactions to this over-apology and the BackBlaze over-apology a while back, I think... There's no such thing as an exact apology. There's a discontinuity between under-apologizing and overapologizing, there's no point where it's neither an under- or over-apology.

ineedasername 6y ago
I think the key is to just be sincere and honest. Different people will interpret the apology one way or another, good or bad, under/over apologized. But if you're sincere and honest, you've done your job.

hmwhy 6y ago

The apology is well-written, but I'm not sure it "it highlights all of garriott's mistakes, in detail, and places the blame squarely on his own shoulders". That was the first time I read the apology, and the apology immediately raised red flags for being one that was only half of the whole picture and engineered to put blames on others; the self-criticism is simply there to induce sympathy. In my opinion, the fact that there is nothing in that apology that directly addresses the departure of Ultima VIII from everything(?) that fans were expecting then is one of those, and the biggest, red flags. I would have some sympathy for getting a burnt pizza from a pizza kitchen that's under lots of pressure and the staff are being worked to their bones; but I would not have any sympathy for the manager's apology for giving me a burnt toast made with sliced bread. I have not played the Ultima games and I don't like EA much. Edit: missing "to".

giantDinosaur 6y ago
If they'd created burnt toast (how does one do toast with non-sliced bread?) because the managing company had declared that the pizza must be shipped before the pizza dough was ready, you'd have some sympathy, no? The jury has been in on EA for a long, long time: they milk franchises ruthlessly and eliminate talent and entire acquisitions the second it fails to meet their terrifyingly all-consuming goal of gigantic profits.
- Rerarom 6y ago
  People say "sliced bread" for "bread sold pre-sliced".
- Aeolun 6y ago
  > you'd have some sympathy, no? Not if I were paying for pizza, no. They need to have some pride as creators and not serve me bread as if it’s pizza.