Electronic Arts is fairly controversial within the gaming community. In fact, it is one of the most hated video game publishers, infamous for its embrace of loot boxes and other “games as a service” policies. The publisher’s decision to delist several classic games from GOG.com didn’t do much to improve its reputation.
Good Old Games announced that several games would be removed at the publisher’s request in late June. The games in question were Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2, Syndicate Plus, and Syndicate Wars. Electronic Arts published all four on DOS in the 1990s, and physical copies are now relatively difficult to get a hold of. While delisting the games didn’t affect players who’d already downloaded them, it prevented any new players from trying out these classic titles.
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The publisher did an about-face on August 6th, and they are once again available from the digital distributor. Electronic Arts additionally made them free to play through September 3rd. The company also issued a statement partially explaining the original decision to remove the games from GOG, which the publisher acknowledged “didn’t fully consider players' perspective.”
The company’s marketing Vice President, Chris Bruzzo, explained what happened in a statement to gamesindustry.biz. According to Bruzzo, EA usually takes time to carefully consider changes that affect players. However, the publisher neglected to do so in this instance. He claims the studio didn’t realize the strength of fans' passion for these games before delisting them. Bruzzo says that the company changed its mind after realizing the depth of fans’ love for these games. The company has pledged to create a process to make sure the same misunderstanding doesn’t happen again. Bruzzo also explained that the month-long free game promotion is the company's way of helping bring the classic titles to gamers who haven't had a chance to play them before.
Of course, there are a few things that the VP’s statement failed to explain. The first is why EA chose to remove the games without the supposedly standard level of consideration. He also never addressed EA’s reason for having GOG delist the games in the first place. Both series have been mostly dormant for some time. Syndicate had an underperforming reboot in 2007, while the most recent Ultima games were a pair of now-discontinued mobile titles.
EA may be considering giving them updated re-releases similar to what it did with the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection last year. Alternatively, the publisher may be considering another attempt at rebooting both series. However, this is ultimately little more than conjecture. Regardless of EA’s motivations, all four games are once again available on GOG.com, and will hopefully remain there for the foreseeable future. That means there’s no time like the present to take a look back at these pieces of gaming history.
Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2, Syndicate Plus, and Syndicate Wars are available on PC from GOG.com.
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Source: gameindustry.biz
