EA: Dungeon Keeper Failed by "Innovating Too Much"

People just weren't ready for the mobile game, according to EA exec.

EA's free-to-play reboot of the classic Dungeon Keepercould have gone better, to say the least. It used the beloved franchise as a skinsuit for a sleazy cash grab. Not only was it panned, but it also sank its developer, Mythic. Six months later, the company is still dealing with the fallout. While EA CEO Andrew WIlson recently apologized for the whole thing, saying it was wrong, Frank Gibeau, EA's head of mobile, has gone the other direction and speculated that audiences just weren't ready for it yet.

"Dungeon Keeper suffered from a few things," Gibeau told Games Industry. "I think we might have innovated too much or tried some different things that people just weren't ready for... I don't think we did a particularly good job marketing it or talking to fans about their expectations for what Dungeon Keeper was going to be or ultimately should be."

While Dungeon Keeper ended up killing veteran developer Mythic, EA will still maintain the game because of its commitment to players. As Gibeau said, "[W]hen you bring in a group of people to Dungeon Keeper and you serve them, create a live service, a relationship and a connection, you just can't pull the rug out from under them. That's just not fair."

It should be noted that EA can no longer legally market the game as free in Europe, due to its crazy amount of in-app purchases. At this point, it's likely best if EA just stops talking about Dungeon Keeper all together and moves on.

This is just sad, even by EA standards. They are clearly delusional.

An 8 year old could do better PR spin.

"ready for"

Implying they will attempt to continue doing it.

I wish I could break into EA and steal all of their IP.

They obviously don't know how to handle them anymore.

EA's mobile games are just some of the crappiest games ever made. I guess you could call that innovation.

Good Jim Sterling video on the subject

@uninspiredcup: I hope BF: Hardline doesn't do so hot and forces change at EA.

Edit: But it'll probably still sells loads and nothing will change.

More than a few, but even I don't think he would of expected EA to defend DK with the excuse they innovated too much.

The developer who ruined Dungeon Keeper also ruined Ultima.

I don't like celebrating someone's downfall all that much but a change in direction is needed. You want to steal from people do it with a new franchise not one of our precious ones. Ultima wasn't yours to ruin.

They ruin far more than Ultima..............

Sounds like MS and their DRM console.
Kick the whale in the knees till it bends over?

@Shielder7: Was talking specifically about Mythic. EA are a real cancer on the industry obviously. Whilst they publish some of my favourite games, I'd gladly sacrifice their sequels in order to see the back of EA.

Completely relevant to the thread. And no false information either. Brilliant post.

Was Dungeon Keeper fun at all? Doesn't sound like it was.

The original was a classic. When games use to be creative and full of substance as opposed to barely playable movie games designed by marketers rather than artists.

That's some sick ****.

This is why I laugh when people claim "mobile gaming is taking over", that's not gonna happen anytime soon, not when crap like this keeps happening and no one in the mobile userbase does jack about it

"We just think that's the way the future's gonna go," he said. "We may have been right. What we were wrong about was that it's just too soon. People just weren't ready to make that leap right away."

I had read somewhere that DK was raking in the money. Good to know otherwise. Not that it's going to do anything to help drag its rotting corpse off of EA's huge pile of ruined IPs and developers.

No EA I think Greed made Dungeon Keeper unplayable, one block a day and that pricing was so bad, awful company at the moment EA except from Fifa and maybe a couple of other games, there not even bothered about quality anymore it's more about get as much money as we can no matter what.

EA should fire the team of monkeys responsible for making the design of this game. Innovation, my ass.

Fvck you EA for ruining a classic game series that hasn't had a real spiritual successor or sequel since DK2.. This is what is wrong with the gaming industry, we have a bunch of executive hacks who have little clue about gaming and run it off of reading charts of the successful games out there and trying to copy it to push forward immediate profits to keep shareholders appeased. They don't care if the game is successful even if they were to make it.. They are specifically looking for the biggest cash grab out there and they will rape and pillage any franchise to do it.. What is going to happen with these companies doing this is people are not going to buy into it any more and we are going to see the industry crash.. I miss the days when selling a few hundred thousand copies of a good game was considered a big success for a dev, in which they cultivated this niche market for years to come.. Now all of a sudden a game must sell millions upon millions of copies to be deemed successful.. This is going to destroy the main market.

I still laugh when people claim that mobile gaming is a legitimate medium. Sure, there are a couple gems floating below the surface... but in an ocean of trash.

Mobile gaming will never be a serious form of gaming until developers stop with the microtransactions.

Too much innovation does have an element of truth. Broken microtransactions and listening to shareholders can count for innovation.

@foxhound_fox: At one point, it looked like it might be. It had a vibe like the early 80s spectrum and c64. Plenty of tiny developer games which were small, barking mad, innovative and cheap. Even the lamented angry birds was in this category. 69p for that. Decent versions of classic puzzle games too. It changed.

It's where the most obnoxious practises in the industry have taken over the swiftest. Just one look on the app store is like staring into a trash can. Free to play, free to play, free to play, scam, free to play. Where free is, bloody expensive, continuously, for **** all. A cash grab forcing you to pay over and over just to make progress.

It wasn't always this way, but it started to creep in and now, there really isn't any point even visiting any app stores.

The practises are like going to a cinema, and having to pay £5 every ten minutes to carry on watching. The audiences wouldn't stand for it.

It seems to almost lay purely with publishers attempting to take people for a ride. Games like Baldurs Gate are proof we can have deep, complex hardcore games (more hardcore than any home console title) on tablet and mobiles.

Whatever possibilities exist for actual good gaming is just being shat away by a bunch of chancing cunts.

Both were quite fun although I prefer DK2 over the first. It's one of the few games that finally tore me away from Quake 2 MP.

Your argument is contradicted by the fact there are games just as bad as this on Steam and EA will undoubtedly try this on main stream gaming. It's only a matter of time.

@Shielder7: And yet no one truly plays those games, the only exception to the rule has been War Z/infestation, after that, any other shitty mobile/indie/p2w game has been documented to be either not sold or have no one play it at all, making them effective flops

Meanwhile the mobile market is stacking with those games and with no other alternatives but cheap knock offs of well known titles

There are bad games everywhere, the consoles are just as infested with shitty indie games and pay 2 win ripoffs as the PC is, trying to claim there's shitty games in one platform contradicts nothing from my argument

Dungeon Keeper failed because EA touched it. The game is nowhere near the original from what i've seen. 24hours to build a room, spend actual money to do it quicker. Hell no!, it's a rip off!

No EA, it failed, because you used microtransactions ala Square Enix.

Between cash grabs and "appealing to a wider audience" EA surely must be under fire from the bosses up top to fix the situation, they own enough IPs to appeal to everyone except they just don't realize they can't appeal everyone for every IP. Get a grip EA because blaming the gamers can't always be your get out card "weren't ready for".

Gimme a break.

Hilarious. At least with the Xbox One when they said people weren't ready I could sort of see where they were coming from, a digital future is inevitable they were just too early with it and they didn't explain family sharing and that stuff properly.

With Dungeon Keeper where was the innovation? The fact that you get to play 10 minutes of gameplay over the course of a week whilst you wait for all your shitty gems or whatever to come back? What is that people weren't understanding? Nothing. This is just another example of an idiotic higher up at a big company who is completely out of touch with what normal people want.

People just weren't ready to be fucked in the ass quite yet.

I'm sure (like with DLC, preorder items and DRM) when they spam it enough, and enough of their greedybrethren on board, we will be ready.

This seems to be partly what next generation consoles was about. Not new exciting games but rather an attempt to push micro-transactions as standard by simply implementing them in as many anticipated IP's as possible at the worlds largest game event.

Yeah I don't understand it, what is with companies trying to get me to buy their stuff for inflated prices? It's like they do it on purpose knowing I'm paying them more money than it costs to create and the maintain the product. It's quite uncanny.

"free to play"

"Innovating too much."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, truly made me LOL on the inside. This will make me smile for the next hour. EA should go into stand up comedy.

"It's late, go to bed!"

DK and DK2 were awesome games that gave players hours of fun and entertainment, unfortunately this mobile travesty ruins what came before it. EA, and most large publishers, are only interested in fleecing potential customers at the expense of interesting IP's and good developers. However nothing will change as long as gamers are willing to pay for annual rehashes, DLC (map packs not proper expansions) and micro-transactions where none are necessary or warranted.

F2P games do need micro-transactions as the game development and support need to be paid for and profit made but I only agree with these where they do not create a pay 2 win situation or you cannot progress with a game without hitting a pay wall.

Lulz, EA go **** yourselves. No sale!

Yeah. Guess Jordan Belfort also failed by innovating too much.

This is a rather silly billy qeastion but... does the game actually need to be free2play in the first place?

That's probably something only a developer or publisher can answer but the most popular games in world, at the moment, are free to play. Oddly they also don't have a pay wall or are regarded as pay to win. The micro-transactions that fund them are for cosmetic fluff. (DoTA2 and LoL)

EA: "People just weren't ready for the 3rd Reich."

Are you seeing this(what's happened to our posts)?

Nice, I'm glad people like you exist so when civilization falls people like me can sit back and watch idiots like you eat each other.