It's really weird how much the game industry seems to despise their audience

This will be Star Citizen.

At best, if it ever properly launches, you will get maybe 20 mill of game from a lot more than that.

I think we can be fairly confident that just giving a ravenous game designer an unlimited credit card doesnt translate into a better game.

As you say, at some point you can't cram more $ into the product in a way that meaningfully affects the experience. Every area eventually experiences diminishing returns, especially within the framework of a realistic-ish multiplayer shooter. There is a kind of winner-takes-all effect to digital media, but this takes it too far.

It is kindof crazy how lethargic the big publishers are. For EA: 7 years after Hollow Knight to release a metroidvania, 9 years since Stardew Valley to release a new 'cozy' title, at this rate it will be 5 more years before we see their proximity chat game in response to Lethal Company. The trends are literally rendered passé by multiple waves of indie and A/AA games before they react. You'd think having a ton of money, and a giant pool of experienced developers, they could be fast-followers at least. Seems they are content to just push money into slow, giant 'summer blockbuster' type titles though.

Edit: Totally forgot, this is all about a battle-royale title, so assuming it releases next year: 9 years after Fortnite and 6 after the CoD equivalent.

Business idiots, as Ed Zitron would say.

And saying the article is trying to 'farm outrage' is extreme- it's barely an article if anything, more of a blog-post, with a matching tone, there's not exactly any call-to-action.

That isn't to say that EA doesn't suck. This 100m goal just wouldn't be among the top 100 reasons I would point to as evidence.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/07/behind-the-next-battl...

Okay sure, let's say that. I don't think it's true. I think anyone who has ever made anything creative, which is most people, know that chasing success just make your creative work bad. That doesn't matter though.

Surely the executives at EA should know better. Like it's literally their job to know better. They head an entire organization dedicated to creative production. Surely the board would fire them if they don't know better right?

What is going on?

There are plenty of counter examples like Witcher 3, Desth Starnding, Resident Evil Village and Cyberpunk (regardless of its rocky launch)

The issue with EA and Ubisoft nowadays is that they are not run by game designers but by MBAs and HR departments. There is very little room to disagree with the mandates and if the game must have x,y,z then you need to find a way to cram it regardless.

When you kill the creativity and don’t take bold risks, you kill innovation and ultimately suck the soul out of the game.

Games are a form of art after all.

A lot of people who consume games don't want to foster lasting relationships, they want to tick the box saying "played game for X hours today" and move on.

I think that's pathological and, as you say, leads to lots of knock-on toxic effects in gameplay and community.

But it is the reality this is engineered for - a lot of people who play multiplayer games do not want to feel like they're doing something with other people when doing it, which is part of why you get lots of toxic interactions or entitled complaints about something which might be a good strategy but ruins the game experience for some of the people in the match.

I put somewhere over 12k hours into BF4 alone, and I've barely touched the series since. That game had the special sauce that they've failed to capture ever since. An updated remastered Battlefield 4 would perform incredibly well; ironically, my biggest fear for it would be that EA wouldn't be able to help themselves, giving a huge budget to a massive team and completely wrecking it by doing too much.