EA Secures Exclusive Rights to Make Star Wars Games

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Electronic Arts has signed a deal with Walt Disney to be the the exclusive publisher of Star Wars games. The deal comes off the heels of Disney's decision to shut down LucasArts. Both DICE and Visceral will make new Star Wars games, while BioWare will continue to produce titles for the genre. EA refused to comment if they would pick up Star Wars 1313 or First Assault which were all but dead projects with the former studio closing shop, but this move should excite fans with the possibility of a Star Wars themed Battlefield and the possibility of KOTOR3.

Checkout Kotaku for more: http://kotaku.com/ea...games-493178983.

I personally would love to see a KOTOR 3 done on the Mass Effect engine.

Click here to view the article

[Sledgstone 8,672]

"Battlefield: Star Wars" would be epic!

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Yea, could news for Star Wars get anymore depressing? /sigh, I fear for the future of Star Wars games.

[Myk JL 1,731]

This is horrible news for anyone who doesn't want to use EA's Origin but likes Star Wars when it comes to PC Games.

 

I also expect this to damage PS Home when it comes to Star Wars items if & when EA removes said Star Wars items.

 

Which now leaves me question should I buy Star Wars items now just in case.

 

I've gotten back into buying PS Home items but so far only when it comes to Motorcycle Locomotions. I had over $40 (later to be over $50 because of a reward code) left on my PSN account. And I haven't bought a new PSN Card since. Though I probably will have to once I need to renew my PS Plus Membership.

 

And no I didn't save any money when I quit PS Home. If anything I might have spent more filling in the void that use to be PS Home. And I gained 30 Lbs onto the already 40 Lbs I was hoping to lose. So hooray for the PS Home Noob logic that doesn't work.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I didn't care much for Origin.. but I suppose all future Star Wars games for PC will require it now.

 

I doubt they'll remove any previously released items on PS home. Even when EA created Origin and started releasing their games exclusively on it, they never demanded Steam to stop selling Battlefield 2 or any of its previously released products. I would assume that like with EA and Steam, Disney probably signed agreements with Sony and those products probably won't go anywhere. That and EA is going to be the publisher of all new games, that may not include all digital products. Those PS home items may not even be related to this deal at all. At least thats my guess.

 

Yea, could news for Star Wars get anymore depressing? /sigh, I fear for the future of Star Wars games.

 

It could have been worse. Disney could have signed with Zynga and all future Star Wars games would have been facebook only.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Despite being EA, you have to admit there are just as many shitty Star Wars games out  there as good ones... actually probably more shitty than good. With Triple A title developers working on these games there is some hope.

The whole Origin and Steam thing really cant be avoided anymore for brand new computer games... We only have the 90s and early 00s to blame for the mass piracy. Not saying its a good thing, but it is what it is.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

 

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

I won't deny that there are a lot of crap Star Wars games out there (Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles anyone) but EA is the worst company to let pick it up. With what they have done to TOR (and yes just about everything bad and wrong with TOR can be linked back to EA fucking up what Bioware had planned not to mention them rushing the game in the end) I just don't see anything good coming of this. Thank god TOR doesn't require an Origin account, otherwise I wouldn't play it (when I can play it ).

 

Honestly I'm just mostly pissed because 1313 was cancelled. That was the one game I was actually really looking forward to.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Strider Hiryu

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Yeah I was following 1313, and I fail to see why it won't be picked up. Visceral/DICE/BioWare have different styles of development. they'd have to find another dev to complete the game.

[Kite 3,263]

$1.99 to change your Lightsaber hilt. 1.99 for blade colour, 3.79 for both 

 

EA 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I forgot that TOR was made by EA/Bioware. I tend to stay away from many MMOs because of either monthly fees or ridiculous micro transactions. The major downside I see with EA making Star Wars games is the fact that at least 1 new game will most likely come out per year to match up with the movie releases:

 

http://screenrant.com/new-star-wars-movies-episode-7-summer-release-date-2015/

 

If 1 new game comes out per year, then we should expect more rushed games.

 

$1.99 to change your Lightsaber hilt. 1.99 for blade colour, 3.79 for both 

 

EA 

 

Damn that seems costly. Do you only have the one lightsaber in the game? Or can you get better ones that will also need an extra $2 just to maintain your character's look?

Edited May 8, 2013 by Sledgstone
Forgot to add a line..

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I could see DICE taking Battlefield and rotating it out  with Battlefront. Medal of Honor gets kicked to the curb. 

 

I think Visceral will handle the half assed movie B titles

 

BioWare could develop a mass effect type game with a bounty hunter minus the senseless element harvesting/planet scanning/planet probing.  I doubt BioWare delves into currents character portrayed in any film or book. They do a damn fine job of crafting their own stories, and I doubt they'll want to be bound by any of the films past or present.

 

Maybe Obsidian pitches their Obi-Wan game to EA now?

[Sledgstone 8,672]

That Obi-Wan game sounded decent. They should.

 

Looks like we won't see any new Star Wars games for at least a year from now:

 

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/05/07/no-star-wars-games-in-fy-2014-ea-says/

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I figured as much. I'd be worried if they could make a game that fast... it certainly would not be good.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Damn that seems costly. Do you only have the one lightsaber in the game? Or can you get better ones that will also need an extra $2 just to maintain your character's look?

 

Like any MMO you pick up new weapons as you fight mobs and finish quests/defeat boss mobs. Certain weapons and armor can be modded to make them better then the normal green weapons that have fixed stats. The modded lightsabers are able to take 4 different types of mods, 2 of which are crystals and hilts (other two are enhancements and mods). You can buy crystals on the cartel market if you have the coins, hence where the micro-transactions came into play. There's only one crystal you can buy currently (orange-yellow I believe, I had excess cartel coins since I get 500 a month for being a subscriber so I bought one) but you get a chance of getting a crystal in the packs they sell on the cartel market. Orange (modable) lightsabers can be acquired through packs as well (which I think Kite was talking about as hilts cannot be bought in the market currently (I might be mistaken, I haven't been on in over a month)). Basically it can get expensive if your spending money on cartel coins to spend in the cartel market (I honestly feel the cartel market is one of the worst things EA forced into the game, then again I still think TOR should be subscription based (though going F2P has certainly help bolster server populations)).

 

It's actually cheap to keep a certain look for a lightsaber as long as you know a crafter since crystals and hilts can be crafted by anyone that has artifice as a crew skill (like me).

[Pchan 5,162]

Star Wars can benefit from not having anything NEW/ OLD released for a period of 5 or 10 years. There's just so much of it out there, it's almost unimportant to me versus Star Trek that has a movie only that comes out every few years with no TV series or fifteen twenty games released between movies. 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Get ready, We're about to be on the receiving end of a massive saturation of Star Wars on the level that Marvel is at... or even more so with the games coming out a long side the movies.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I just hope that Disney doesn't go overboard with Star Wars. If they keep throwing new movies out ever year, people might get burned out on it.

 

It sounds like cartel coins are the same as Bits in Defiance. I hate that.. obviously these in-game currencies are actual monetary purchases. I wish these games would just list the in-game currency alongside with the actual currency of the region you are playing on. That way regardless of what nation you are in, you can see the real value of the item you are buying and are not getting mislead with the in-game currency.

[Dubird 6,815]

TOR is perfectly playable without the cartel coins. Granted, I don't play any of the group parts myself, I'm just trying to work though the main stories, but the cartel coins I have from being subscribed for a while are still sitting there because there was very little I actually wanted to get for customization.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Aside from customization do cartel coins give an advantage? Such as buying more powerful weapons or elite abilities? I can understand experience boosting items. Those don't bother me as time = money for me, but more powerful weapons and skills would be cheating IMO.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Outside of new armor, vanity pets, cartel packs (which give you a mix of armor, pets, titles, rare crafting materials, etc), and rare speeders the only other thing to get with cartel coins are xp boosts (for general grinding, flashpoints/operations, warzones, and space missions), unlocking subscriber only bonuses (like more character slots, access to certain areas (like section X), more access to flashpoints/operations/space missions (limited for anyone who's not a subscriber)), unlocking pc races not usable for your side (like Sith Purebloods for republic or Miraluka for the Empire), and various other things there is nothing that can be used to give someone an advantage.

 

Really the cartel market and coins were introduced to give those not willing to pay to play the ability to gain access to the stuff we subscribers have access too for a small amount of money. http://www.swtor.com/free/features. this is basically a good rundown of what people can use cartel coins to buy (any circle not fully filled means its limited).

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Ah! I see what you're saying. That seems understandable then.. the only thing I never understood is why these games even bother starting off with a subscription model. Honestly, every game that has a monthly fee makes me think I'll have to keep paying them forever or they'll delete my characters once I decide to stop playing for 6 months. I'd hate having to start all over just because I didn't want to pay for a game I wasn't playing. I don't know if thats how it is with MMOs these days or not. Considering many MMOs now have some free to play options or free to play up to a certain level, I'm assuming they'll save people's accounts in the hopes they'll come back to play again.

 

How is it with TOR? If you stopped paying your subscriber fee and stopped playing for months, would your account get tossed off their servers?

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

I know Blizzard will keep your characters indefinitely if you quit playing (I quit for a year (as in paying) and my characters were still there. I've quit for good 3 years ago so I don't know if they're still there or not). As for TOR I'm not a 100% sure but from what a friend of mine has told me his was still there after he quit playing for 5 months and recently started playing again (I've never actually quit paying even though I can rarely play it anymore due to my stupid internet (damn ISP)). I highly doubt they would toss them out though since it's now F2P and after the initial 700,000 subscribers quit playing the servers are finally starting to get full again (they went from like 20+ servers US side to 8 about 5-6 months ago due to the massive exodus and no characters were lost during the transition that I know of, I know my server is packed at peak times (thank god I'm a subscriber, I don't have to wait in queues like the masses of free players do)). Then again they might eventually to help clear out server clutter.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I doubt Activision or Ubisoft is the answer. But sadly that's almost all there is. COD: Star Wars here we come.

[Myk JL 1,731]

Can Loot Boxes being limited to players over 21 be

1. The end of Loot Boxes.
2. The beginning of AO (18+) being accepted onto consoles.
3. Nudity somehow being removed M Rated Games.
4. Hypocrisy just being their for the sake of Greed for over 21 "gambling" but still hating 18+ porn despite 18 still being younger than 21.