EA pulled a big surprise out of the bag at their E3 press conference. Rather than choosing Activision once again, id Software has decided that EA shall publish their forthcoming Tech 5 engine-powered game Rage.
The fiercely independent developer id would never have considered EA if not for the publisher’s EA Partners program. Through that, developers can utilize the best bits of EA, namely marketing, support and global reach, without having to give up any rights to their games or IP.
The decision may come as a surprise to many gamers, but it also came as a surprise to John Carmack. He commented:
I’ll admit that, if you asked me years ago, I still had thoughts that EA was the Evil Empire, the company that crushes the small studios…I’d have been surprised, if you told me a year ago that we’d end up with EA as a publisher … When we went out and talked to people, especially EA Partners people like Valve, we got almost uniformly positive responses from them.
The deal with EA is just for one title, however. id are clear on that, but haven’t ruled out further games going the same root. Doom 4 could potentially get the same deal, but the developer intends to just “shop around” when the time comes.
id can basically do what they want with their games. They self fund the development, own all their own tech and release titles when they are ready. The use of EA Partners is because it’s the best deal for them, they don’t have to give anything up in terms of rights and see it as the best path to take.
This is actually bigger news for EA. They will make a lot of money off the back of this because sales are probably going to be huge and the costs to them are minimal. It also means other developers may be more inclined to consider them as a publisher now they have Valve, Crytek and id on their books.
Read more at GameSpot.com and view the GameSpot Q&A with John Carmack, Tim Willits and David DeMartini.
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