Yes, you read that headline correctly: the developers of a large military first-person-shooter don't know why EA gets so much shit, as they're a testament to how easy it is to innovate within the corporate giant! Because coming up with a million new ways to shoot people, now that is working on cutting edge innovation right there, DICE. Develop reports them stating:
“In the background of everything, we run a business, of course. But with the success we have had, there are opportunities. It's quite easy for us to explain to upper management that, ‘We want to do this. We want to try this out’. And EA is actually very prone to try out new things, and I have to say that sometimes I think we get too much crap for not being innovative.
“We do release new IPs, and we do take care of IPs that have been out there. And perhaps not so successful, but we try to get new things out there as well. Now, that might sound strange coming from me, working on Battlefield. We've been around for 10 years, and we just keep doing more of the same, but being innovative in that space.
“But EA is quite easy to convince – for us, at least – to do more experiments, etcetera.”
At least he admits that it's weird to hear this coming from him…though personally I don't find it surprising that EA would accommodate DICE. Shooters aren't what people whine about when they talk about the lack of innovation and creativity in triple-A development: it's all the genres that aren't as 'commercially viable,' or anything that might endanger the bottom line.
Battlefield, at current, is both commercially viable and it doesn't threaten the bottom line. So uh, it's great that you have wiggle room there. It's not really what anyone is worried or cares about in this discussion, though.
