Electronic Arts has been in the middle of controversy for ages now, and Star Wars’ use of the license has been quite disappointing thus far.
Electronic Arts has been in the middle of controversy for ages now, and Star Wars‘ use of the license has been quite disappointing thus far.
We’ve reported about Rogue One writer’s comment about “catastrophic” mismanagement by the publisher, which has been quite strong as an opinion coming from such a relevant person in the Star Wars universe.
Disney’s CEO Bob Iger has now offered a new comment about the management of the license and the IP by EA.
First, Iger has shared his opinion about gaming overall. “We’re obviously mindful of the size of that business,” he said.
“Over the years, as you know, we’ve tried our hand at self-publishing, we’ve bought companies, we’ve sold companies, we’ve bought developers, we’ve closed developers.
And we’ve found over the years that we haven’t been particularly good at the self-publishing side, but we’ve been great at the licensing side which obviously doesn’t require that much allocation of capital.”
Then, talking about Electronic Arts and Star Wars specifically, he added that “since we’re allocating capital in other directions… we’ve just decided that the best place for us to be in that space is licensing and not publishing.”
“We’ve had good relationships with some of those we’re licensing to, notably EA and the relationship on the Star Wars properties, and we’re probably going to stay on that side of the business and put our capital elsewhere.”
So, Iger didn’t mention the problems Electronic Arts has had with Battlefront II’s microtransactions, nor the cancelled projects at both Visceral Games and EA Vancouver.
He only said that the firm has “good relationships” in terms of licensing and that the business is going to stay as it is today.
Conversely, the Star Wars license appears to be staying for quite a long while in the hands of EA, whatever you might think of how it is handling it.
Source: Variety
