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Dear Electronic Arts,
since you have a free position as your executive chairman for your company right now, I wanted to take the chance and submit an application for the job.
I have a lot of experience in making games. When I was a child I would make my brother a boardgame for his birthday every year. I even showed a great understanding of economic decision-making at this young age, because every year I took the game from last year, put some fresh paint on it and gave it to him again. This way I saved a lot of resources I otherwise would have spent on making a new game and sometimes he didn't even notice.
I assume the games I made were great since every year my brother would say he liked the birthday present and I am sure an older brother would never lie about such a delicate topic.
Later in school I could show my managing skills. I joined the school-newspaper and developed some revolutionary ideas!
A big problem at the time was that in every class only a few students would actually buy the newspaper and then show the articles to other students. But I solved the problem with a brilliant solution. The students would only be allowed to read or even see the newspaper in a single room they could only enter after paying the full price.
A few weeks later the school newspaper was shut down, but I am sure this was for other reasons.
I hope you are impressed by my resume and I want to close my application with a limerick:
A hero EA was his name
once tried to produce a good game
sold his soul for some bucks
now DRM sucks
your managing skills are a shame
Sincerely yours,
Jan
Previous letters:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=402750
  
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Fun read, EA unfortunately blows
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I enjoyed it, after i worked out that you were trolling took me too long though 
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DRM is here to stay. Welcome to the present.
What went wrong with Simcity is not that it was online only, but that EA grossly underestimated the server capacity they would need. This is of course inexcusable, but arguing that DRM is the problem is a nonstarter.
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I doubt DRM is here to stay. It ups production costs and makes paying customers suffer, all for the reward of making a cracked version show up a full 2 days later than it otherwise would. It just doesn't seem like a very good idea from a business perspective.
We'll have to wait and see I guess...
ANYWAY, enjoyed reading this letter, it was better than your first, which I suppose isn't all that weird. The tone, sarcasm and anecdote at the end remind me a lot of David Thorne's writing actually. If that name doesn't ring a bell, google it, I think you'd enjoy reading his email conversations just as much as I enjoy reading through your letters 
Looking forward to reading the next part ^^
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DRM isn't going anywhere that's for sure. Even if it only delays a cracked version by like 4 days they probably sell quite a few copies during that time to people who are too impatient to wait.
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DRM has to be the worst investment of all time, since the only thing it does is pissing off customers, and stops literally no one from pirating anything. Ever.
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On March 22 2013 04:26 TehRei wrote:I doubt DRM is here to stay. It ups production costs and makes paying customers suffer, all for the reward of making a cracked version show up a full 2 days later than it otherwise would. It just doesn't seem like a very good idea from a business perspective. We'll have to wait and see I guess... ANYWAY, enjoyed reading this letter, it was better than your first, which I suppose isn't all that weird. The tone, sarcasm and anecdote at the end remind me a lot of David Thorne's writing actually. If that name doesn't ring a bell, google it, I think you'd enjoy reading his email conversations just as much as I enjoy reading through your letters Looking forward to reading the next part ^^
You are assuming that the only value and purpose of the servers is the DRM. It is also the multiplayer. Forcing everyone online instead of letting people choose doesn't up production cost that much.
If you want to make the argument that Simcity should never have been multiplayer in the first place, then I could understand, but you'd have to accept this is a matter of opinion.
Yes people will crack everything, but there is a higher barrier to entry as opposed to if you could just install it using your friend's disc or whatever. Plus you have all your friends playing on the official servers, providing peer pressure to play with them. So it DOES work. Its not a magic bullet, but it certainly has an effect on sales (which is why they are all doing it now).
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Electronic Art's use of DRM was not the main cause of CEO's ouster. It was 6 straight years of decline and stagnation since 2007 under this guy that got him fired. Since 2009, the year that the current bull run started, EA's stock value has remained flat and disappointing. Comparatively, Blizzard Activision did stagnate between 2009 and the end of 2013, but has risen sharply since in contrast.
The decline comes not from DRM being an issue, but failing or trailing the video game industry's trends and opportunities. The reboot of Medal of Honor series was a flop in a market that was both saturated and high competition. The extremely expensive and highly invested Star Wars MMORPG had to switch to free to play. Their social/casual venture, inspired by Popcap and Zynga, has led to little or no profits. Origin being launched 2 years ago was too late to compete with Steam and other digital distribution methods.
You're thinking too small to think DRM was the reason for John Riccitello's downfall.
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Thanks for the feedback. I do these letters to create a fun read with maybe a tiny bit of truth in it. BirdKiller you are right, of course DRM is not the one reason for the problems EA is facing right now. Your summary of EA's situation is quite accurate.
Thanks TehRei, I've seen David Thorne's spider-story before but I didn't know he had a whole website with email conversations. It's a great read.
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EPT
