The mindset behind leadership at Electronic Arts remains to be the most scrutinized in the gaming sphere. Recently, there has been little to argue against its actions. In one respect, the Need for Speed series has been put on hold to further platform Battlefield with plans for the new release aiming to come next year. Additionally, the firm also reduced staffing significantly at BioWare with plans ramping up for the next Mass Effect title also.
On the other hand, it has also made the right decision to continue partnering with Hazelight Studios especially with the latest success of its newest release. Earlier in March, new title Split Fiction arrived. And, the game has sparked new attention with Steam concurrent players peaking over 250,000 users. The game also overtook more than 2 million sales in its first week.
Now in post-mortem, studio head Josef Fares, he reveals that working with Electronic Arts has revealed that the publisher is a “good partner” after all. He also presses on the work for the next game at Hazelight, Fares tells on the Friends Per Second Podcast. You can watch the segment in the video below:
“No no no, here’s the thing, people don’t understand this: EA is a supporter. We don’t pitch games to them. We say, ‘We’re going to do this’, and that’s it. They’re not going to say- they have zero, and I mean zero thing[s] to say what we’re doing next. With that said, I have to say they’re a good partner; no one believes me because […] they’re like ‘yeah, yeah it’s EA’,” Fares explains.
“Look- I don’t know anything about who- what EA are doing- maybe they’re f***ing up with other developers; with us, no. They respect us, they respect what we do, and, I mean, I am very clear with them that they cannot interfere with what we do. From that perspective, […] I mean, now we have become one of their most successful studios, but- no, we don’t pitch, we just say, ‘this is what we’re doing’.”
Speaking on the new game, Fares shares: There is a reason why I can’t talk about the next game; it’s because it’s quite early,” he presses on the new project. “You do know, at Hazelight, we don’t work on [a] game more than three or four years. Three or four years is not so far away. Then we’re going to talk more about it. It’s way too early, but just know this: we are very, very, very, very excited here. Very excited, and we started working on this a month ago-ish.”
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