Jane's A-10 Warthog

Origin Shifts Focus
At the time that A-10 was cancelled, Origin was predicting the game would sell 40,000 copies. According to a former employee of Origin, "The decision to move to massively multiplayer projects was at the Origin level. Origin had stumbled onto the success of Ultima Online. It was not planned. UO was forecast at 15,000 subscribers and two shards. I think those numbers are ten times greater, still, two years later. It makes about $1.5 million a month."

	Click to enlarge

The success of Ultima Online had made Origin eager to capitalize on its success. Furthermore, Origin's management had changed in the summer of 1999, with Jack Heistand, formerly of TEN and EA Sports, taking over as CEO. In the words of Andy Hollis, "With the change of leadership at Origin, everything was looked at again in a new light." This change in priorities did not go unnoticed by the development team, as a source from the team reveals, "The first inkling I got was in September '98 when it became obvious that A-10 and Origin's online strategy did not mix. It was obvious that we had the best team in the building, and we should be doing online stuff! When we approached Lucas for the Star Wars license, that was the first step. That fell through, so [we] started to design Wing Commander Online. This was after the entire Wing Commander Prophecy team left for Bootprint. We asked for a decision to be made about A-10's future - with expectations that it would be supported, marketed, and sold well, or dropped right then - so we could work on the more important, more strategic, and much cooler Wing Commander Online. For some reason, Electronic Arts (not Origin) management said 'no.' They wanted the short-term A-10 money."

	Click to enlarge

Andy Hollis denies that Origin asked that A-10 be scrapped in favor of Wing Commander Online (or any other online project), although he confirms that this was an idea that was "considered by management." There was no formal cancellation request though, says Hollis, because "things never got that far. At Origin, just as at any company, the status of ongoing projects is under constant evaluation, and there were certainly thoughts that the assets being used on A-10 could be better allocated elsewhere. But there was never a time when a formal proposal was made to Electronic Arts that A-10 be cancelled, so Wing Commander Online could be done and Electronic Arts said 'no.'" The reason that the team was not assigned to an online sim project, Hollis says, was that "even a team as talented as the one working on A-10 couldn't just pick up and start doing a massively multiplayer game. There is a big learning curve." But the signs were there: The game was in danger of being cancelled.

While there was no formal announcement of the game's cancellation yet, A-10 was conspicuous in its absence from E3, the Electronics Entertainment Expo held annually in Los Angeles. The show is traditionally the time for companies to show off their upcoming products, and Electronic Arts raised some eyebrows at the show by displaying only F/A-18 and U.S.A.F.

Next: The changing marketplace