Mythic founder Mark Jacobs will be the first guy to tell people that a publishing relationship with Electronic Arts is not a terrible thing. In an interview with MMORPG.com Jacobs related that Warhammer Online is a title that rests on its own unique merits and every decision that went into the development of the game was of Mythic’s choice. Mega publisher EA actually turned out to be a great partner in the process of development and allowed delays and changes throughout the development process to occur without penalty.
In the end we got to make the game that we wanted. Not that game that EA wanted, not the game that Blizzard wanted, it’s the game that we wanted. That’s what it is … We got two delays out of it with EA where we said, ‘we need to delay it again’. EA didn’t rush us out the door. They could have said to us in June, ‘no guys, you’ve gotta ship it, patch it afterwards.’ They didn’t. And I don’t mean that I threatened so they didn’t, they never said that.
This is a growing sentiment among developers under the EA parachute and it still feels foreign to write about. It’s good that EA has come to grips with the fact that great games take time. Makes you wish that NBA Live or Madden could go on a slight hiatus to iron out the kinks, doesn’t it?
