CA going down hill?

[KingDave]

After Empire's less than stellar performance and a clear cash grab with Napoleon, do you think that CA's on a steadily declining slope to its bitter and unfortunate end?

[A1_Unit]

I hope not - I hope they will make high quality games.

[Mikelus Trento]

Nope. And altho I initially could not play ETW without CTDs, in its current state I find it very enjoyable and can't wait for NTW.

[Patchythepatched]

I wonder if anyone here has finally learned their CA lesson?

They had to be hounded unmercifully to fix MTW.

They didn't really fix Rome, though the expansion was quite fun.

MTW2 was never completely fixed, and they then brought out a seperate campaign which did nothing for the core game.

And look! They are doing it again! Except ETW is in an even worse shape than MTW2 was when they released their last patch and went on to the stand alone and full priced expansion. What a surprise! One would never have thought it!

And it is not just that. It's the attention to details that made the older games so fun that are missing in the newer TW games. Soldiers falling from walls, those dying on a bridge falling in the water below to slowly drift away, the battle maps where you actually fought battles in a region that looked like it did on the campaign map with ships, towns and even wonders like the pyramids being visible if they were nearby. Not to mention that in Empire all towns and forts look alike, well apart from those in the RTI campaign. They seemingly had the time to individualise all of those. What's happening is that CA seems to rush their games more and more and while losing sight of the fun details and attention that made their earlier games so special. Not to mention a horrid lack of QA.

[KingDave]

"They seemingly had the time to individualise all of those. What's happening is that CA seems to rush their games more and more and while losing sight of the fun details and attention that made their earlier games so special."

I agree. CA needs to calm down and think about the long term goals of their Total War series. The more games they release that clearly show their lack of attention to their fan base, the lower the sales they will get on their next titles. Simple as that.

[Sir Winston Churchill]

While I hope to God not, it's hard to ignore the symptoms of a failing company.

[Edelward]

Napoleon TW can be a success .This is not Cossacks 2,which you learn quickly and can only get challenge in multiplayer.Of course there are more Napoleonic games ,but people en masse like Total War'
style .

[MehemtAli_Pasha]

from Rome to Empire, i say yes, it has been going downhill. who knows, Napoleon might bring it up again.

[Nordmann]

Symptoms of a failing company would be the suspension of new development and/or staff reduction, since this is clearly not the case, such a sweeping statement is at best inaccurate, at worst ignorant. Simply because one of their games is disliked by a percentage of people, does not mean that their company is failing, all it means is that said game did not appeal to these people for various reasons (which have already been discussed at length in previous threads).

It's also worth pointing out, that while Empire's controversy (on these forums at least) may seem like a nail in CA's consumer coffin, such controversy has existed since the release of Rome (unfinished/unstable) and Medieval 2 (same state as Rome), and yet here they are, years later, still in business! Clearly they are doing something right; without detailed reports on their finances, it is ridiculous to even suggest commercial and financial failure.

I think this "failure" scenario is simply wishful thinking on the part of some individuals. The problem with this, and something they have apparently failed to consider, is that if CA went out of business, you can kiss goodbye to any and all future Total War strategy games. You may enjoy playing the same game for ten or more years, but I personally like progress. Strategy games such as that of Total War are a rarity, and while not perfect, they are better than the alternative....nothing.

That is why I'm not going to whine about the release of Napoleon, it is a much overlooked era as far as games are concerned, and thus more are always welcome.

[nameless]

It's also worth pointing out, that while Empire's controversy (on these forums at least) may seem like a nail in CA's consumer coffin, such controversy has existed since the release of Rome (unfinished/unstable) and Medieval 2 (same state as Rome), and yet here they are, years later, still in business! Clearly they are doing something right; without detailed reports on their finances, it is ridiculous to even suggest commercial and financial failure.

It's because it's been amplified by the internet. More information more noise.

[leif_erikson]

...such controversy has existed since the release of Rome (unfinished/unstable) and Medieval 2 (same state as Rome), and yet here they are, years later, still in business! Clearly they are doing something right...

They are still in business because they are platforms for tons of mods, the modding community is what kept these two alive not their vanilla quality. And the road CA took with ETW looks like they are not caring at all about us trolls here. True they will still be making lots of money but I really don't see ETW or NTW having such a long life span as RTW did. I for one I would not bother to spend money over NTW the failure of ETW is enough for my pocket.

Cheers

[jeweetwel_youknow]

I agree. Nonetheless, I do not share the opinion that it started going 'down hill', in fact, I consider RTW and M2TW great successes. Because of those successes, I ran to the shop to buy ETW, I'll be more patient with NTW. This is their chance, hopefully they take it...

[War lord]

Yes.

[SirVulf]

I myself am 35 and an IT Director. Personally, I think CA's business ethics are shameful and they use nothing but smoke and mirrors to put a positive spin on incomplete games and try to pawn them off as solid products. They catered their product to reviewers to garner higher than deserving scores to increase their sales of ETW. Now, they're working on an entirely new product NTW while ETW hasn't even been fixed yet.

They are taking advantage of fact that there are no legal recourses available to consumers and that people are willing to purchase half-arse material in the hopes that it will be a complete product through a consistent patching processes.

Overall, CA has lost complete sight of being an Entertainment Content Provider for consumers. The goal should be to please the consumer and provide a solid product. That aspect of their trade has fallen completely to the way-side.

In my field, I provide a service to my users. I fix problems and educate users. Just because X user consistently refuses to remember a password to long into their accounting software, doesn't mean I'm going to provide less of a service. I will curse that user under my breath, but I will continue to do what needs to be done, so that user can log into the accounting system.

The whole idea of ethics and responsibility has been forgotten by CA and Karma will return the favor soon enough. Personally, nothing would please me more than to see them go out of business for their poor ethics as they don't DESERVE to be making games.

[johncage]

all i can do at this point is sit and watch them snowball into oblivion.

is that joy i'm sensing inside me? perhaps...

[eatme]

After Empire's less than stellar performance and a clear cash grab with Napoleon, do you think that CA's on a steadily declining slope to its bitter and unfortunate end?

Completely unfounded supposition. Look at the charts for PC sales this year. ETW has been leading for some weeks after release, and has hundreds thousands copies sold.

[KingDave]

Completely unfounded supposition. Look at the charts for PC sales this year. ETW has been leading for some weeks after release, and has hundreds thousands copies sold.

That was not what I was saying dear sir. Sure it may have sold a lot of copies BUT did it live up to its name? Are all those who played E:TW going to come back for N:TW or the next TW game after that?

I agree with Drunk Penguin, though I do think its going a little down hill, but only a little. I never had any problems with empire though and I love it.

I also enjoyed E:TW, good sir. However, I still play Rome and Medieval 2, while Empire is starting to lose its appeal to me. I mean, in my last game of Medieval 2 (as France), in the 2nd or 3rd turn I had to fight an epic battle against Sicily for control of Marseilles. France on VH/VH proved to be a very challenging game for me. Can I expect Sicily to invade my Southern borders in Empire? No... Amphibious operation are still a thing that only happened in Medieval times (according to CA)...

[Yojimbo]

I hope so they produce worse and more rushed games and spout more pr lies.

I honestly cant wait for another company to pick up the license and ca/sega to go bankrupt.

Completely unfounded supposition. Look at the charts for PC sales this year. ETW has been leading for some weeks after release, and has hundreds thousands copies sold.

Sega has repeatedly posted huge losses in press releases. Its awesome. Not to mention everything Sega touches dies, like every console they have ever created that got thumped in sales by somebody else.

[♔DoomBunny666♔]

I hope so they produce worse and more rushed games and spout more pr lies.

I honestly cant wait for another company to pick up the license and ca/sega to go bankrupt.



Sega has repeatedly posted huge losses in press releases. Its awesome. Not to mention everything Sega touches dies, like every console they have ever created that got thumped in sales by somebody else.

PARADOX cough cough PARADOX ahem

paradox should take over at least they can make a game that works and look at HOI3 and EU3 not much to look at but i can sit for hours slowly crushing the life from germany with the red army or shooting french knights down with longbowmen

CA should get this one right or bog off in my opinion i dont want um to make another half assed game

it all started with SEGA coming in..........

[pajomife]

PARADOX cough cough PARADOX ahem

paradox should take over at least they can make a game that works and look at HOI3 and EU3 not much to look at but i can sit for hours slowly crushing the life from germany with the red army or shooting french knights down with longbowmen

CA should get this one right or bog off in my opinion i dont want um to make another half assed game

it all started with SEGA coming in..........

Paradox is, Mr Anderson and more four or five guys , they cant handle with a TW brand .