EA- YOU NEED TO FINISH WHAT YOU START!!!!!!!!!! Or, atleast don't ever tell us about what you are working on until it actually hits the shelves! I would much rather you surprise us that way!

1) What kind of game was Attack Squadron supposed to be. I unfortunately did not hear of it until its untimely demise.

"Attack Squadron Redneck Good Ol' Boys"

It certainly is not Looking Glass, they're gone. It's not Jane's. It must be EA.

What a bunch of Corporate crap!

Would somebody please give me a second shot?

They have made so much money with Sims and other bulls..it games...and they are killing flight sims.

Dali f..ing

The smart thing to do would be to release it, and at least hope you break even with it. How does it make sense to finish a product, spend all the developing money, and then not publish it? That does not make economical sense to me.

There is a point where they fronted a certain level of money and in turn borrowed from other companies to give more money to LGlass. This project seems to have been worked differently then others. In the case of Pixel and Skunkworks, etc. there was marketing galore well before release and there was a hell of a lot more press correspondence on the titles.

There are statements that this title was two month away from release yet to be very honest, I had been in contact with individuals in LGLASS in december (right near the release) and there was only a whisper of dealings with EA and those whisperings were further dealt with a 3rd party PR firm. If thats their idea of closely working on a project then I am a ten foot Pole.

We look up, the developer crumbles due to Eidos's issues (on top of their monetary problems) then everyone wonders: what in the hell does EA have to do with this??? And now they are using the same line "what the hell does EA now have to do with this?"

When you think of it: it is a brilliant.

Something was handled differently with this project which compounded with the problems in eidos and lglass and now we are left wondering if the BONDED program was merely sponsored by SPECTRE (evil jbond orinization) as a subtle ploy to take over the world.

I feel that the bonded nature of the project is what has actually KEPT EA from having more say/worth in completing it or not. Ironically, it is also HELPFUL in getting another publisher to take it on.

Is that movement in process?: god (or SPECTRE) only knows.

thanks for the short,sweet, BS letter though.
now we all feel better about EA and their abandonment of the sim community.

thread

A browse through the forums of www.fatbabies.com will give you an insight
into how this came about .. provided you can pick through the garbage theres
a few people there who know what they're talking about. Alot of others are
lame, childish or very bitter.

The games industry as a whole is going throught a real bad time. Personally
I blame it on the absorption of the small developers by big businesses who
have no interest in games. Obvious ones are Acclaim, Infogrames and now a
french Newspaper who wanted to buy out Mattel (inc. B17II, I don't know the
latest on this). All they see is money and have no understanding of the
games industry. The integrity of the devolopers is being smothered and
quality games will become a rarity.

quote:

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Originally posted by Kurt Plummer:
I would like to read the 'what is was' report but the ogr.com LINK doesn't pop straight to the story and a 'gamesearch' didn't come up with anything that appeared to match either.

Would somebody please give me a second shot?

Thank You- Kurt Plummer

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Unless i misunderstand your `problem`... click flightline (...Denny Atkin's Flightline column..... ) or try clicking this
http://www.cdmag.com/Sponsors/click.html?sponsor=CGO_HOME_06012000&url=/articles/028/057/flightline_117.html

Very Much, though it was a sad article. Stupid of me to miss it right in the middle of the page though.

Planes and terrain looked pretty nifty (only a little 'blockish' and where's the yellow-tipped RDM on that 88 coming from?;-).

I must begin digging my slit trench as I say that B-17 doth not appeal for it's graphical look, however sophisticated the modelled damage/woundings etc. Too blurry-cartoonish for my tastes.

Is there any hope for that 'other cover' article to appear with details of the JAS campaign settings and specific aircraft availabilities etc.? I don't have the original FO so I don't know how add ons or whatever work compared to MSFS.

Especially within an admittedly scripted campaign, I would like to know the depth of a game that manages to include P-38/J/'s in Paris and Ju-88 torpedo busters in the same breath as it talks of tank battles and Me-163's and 'air to air rockets' (does this mean X-4/Hs.298 or are we talking R-4m? What about Rohrblocke and Jagdfaust?)

The database sounds like the biggest loss, FSTK without having to 'buy in' is a Great Idea, but let's say I get my Jumo-213f equipped 190D-11 up in the air, can I also tweak-away the MG-131 humps and fix the lower cowlline and dapple on some new-green camo, or were the plane graphics files crypto-sealed?

But lets say its true.

I would expect then a somewhat buggy game.

So how much is all this going to cost. Do they draw the line now and take there losses or do they pay for:

Finishing it off.$$
Advertising. $$$
Packaging design.$
Mass producing.$$
Buying shelf space at retailers $(yes you do actually have to pay for that too)
A couple programmers for support and bug fixing for at least a couple months. $$

So lets say that ONLY cost them half a mil, Please don't take that as a high guess I have read that it cost ALOT more to release a AAA quality game and have it really take off.

So lets say they make $20 off each copy sold. remember all the middle men making money here too.

So that would mean they would have to sell 25000 copies just to get back the money they spent finishing it.

Now imagine how many copies they would have had to sell to actually make money off it and you would choke. Specialy with IL-2, B17-2 and ww2 online, Rowans BOB all coming out in the fall. Seems like a tight market to penetrate right now.

And you all know that if one little thing was wrong with it you would all drop it right away and tell everyone you know to avoid it like the plague. That sure wouldn't make me want to take a gamble.

And, it is a fact that the game was 2 months away from release. I got that from a direct quote from one of the developers who tried to form a petition to save his work.

Also, I did not say Sell it to make money. I meant, try to break-even. A company like EA has many projects going on and it would be better to get some BVP's and pluses, than a loss. That's what I meant, you know mattbunch, I was trying to make economical sense of it all but I think EA is too inept.

They'll be gone in less than 5 years.

venting again,

quote:

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Originally posted by Lucky_1:
Perhaps you misunderstood. But, I was not accussing the "suits" for this cancellation. What I fail to understand is the real reason why it is cancelled, and who is in control. Since it is quoted in the statement "it's beyond EA's control" then whose control is it?

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According to the lead designer, the sim is now wholly owned by the company that bonded it. I would assume this is the same company that was also willing to fund the rest of its development.

An EA rep on Usenet stated that one of the reasons for EA dropping out was that there would be no after-market support due to LGS's closure. This sounds a little fishy to me, as this is the situation EIDOS is currently faced with regarding Thief 2, and they don't seem to be complaining. Not only that, EA's post-release support is notoriously bad. They could probably ship it with the full complement of bugs, ignore all following tech support pleas, and no one would know the difference, "support"-wise.

Personally, I believe that EA could have published this game and even turned a small profit. And that I think is why they killed it: A small profit, compared to a potentially large profit from milking their other franchise products like The Sims, Simcity, NFS, EA Sports and all the online stuff they are getting into.

quote:

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Also, I did not say Sell it to make money. I meant, try to break-even. A company like EA has many projects going on and it would be better to get some BVP's and pluses, than a loss. That's what I meant, you know mattbunch, I was trying to make economical sense of it all but I think EA is too inept.

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It's hard to find a rational explanation for seeing the development of a sim for 2.5 years and to 80% completion and then suddenly deciding it's not going to be a money-maker, but again, I'm willing to bet the surprising success of "The Sims" which undoubtedly had a much higher return on investment than any flight sim could, had a lot to do with this sudden change in direction.

It would have been nice if they could have just sold it online only and avoided all the costs of distribution, promotion, and packaging, most of which is probably ineffective on simmers anyway. They would have had fewer total sales, but could potentially make a bigger profit per unit.

But now, EA/Janes has washed their hands of it and FC:TOE's future is in the hands of the bonding company. I would like to think that since it is so close to complete and that they were willing to pay to finish it they will try to find *some* way to get it out there and get some money back.. I can't recall anything like this happening before..

Heck you'll probly want it for free too right?

Finishing a game takes money, Money they don't feel like investing cause they don't think they will make a return on it.

When you start a business call me up, I'll be your first customer since you seem to think a business should take a loss just to get the product to the customer.

The online only sale IS a much better option but it would still end up buggy with no end support.

And then you guys would flame it and it would die a quiet death AFTER wasting everyones money.

About someone from the team saying it was 2 months off.

HMM... Is it just me or is that from a somewhat biased source? Isn't in his best interest to quote a short time frame just to get the company to back it? Is there no possiblity at all that he could be saying 2 months but that he is being VERY optomistic with that figure? and hopeing once they do back it for 2 they will countinue with another 1 or 2 on top of that?

I'm not saying he is lying just being overly optomistic.

6/14 New Developer in Town?

They money you wasted not putting something like JAS on the shelves...there are many WW2 simmers out there...who love the sound of Merlins. Just like the historic planes..all fading down due LACK OF.

G'bye EA and may you...........

EAdown