Saturday, September 27, 2014

EA celebrates 20th anniversary of releasing the same game

EA Games – Challenge everything (except the core gameplay mechanics and central ideas)

Following the successful launch of their 2014 edition of their FIFA World Cup football game on as many different videogame consoles as profit-makingly possible, videogames giant Electronic Arts (EA) have today celebrated their massive 20-year anniversary of releasing the same sports game.

“We’re just so happy,” said EA CEO Ian Ishals. “It’s taken years of perseverance, of stifling creative thought and internally repressing the resurgence of innovative concepts or new takes on the tired and over-done format of sports games, but we’ve done it.”

FIFA World Cup 2014 Brazil (which was originally penned to be released under the title FIFA Football Game Number 39) is the latest version of their original 2001 gameplay mechanics and basic coding – but the company is already hard at work updating the player names of this game to be released under the title FIFA World Cup Quatar 2022.

“We used to think that making inventive, breathtaking leaps in gameplay or never-before-seen concepts was necessary to make an impact on gaming culture – kind of like the massive change from ICO into Shadow of the Colossus or like they did with Borderlands, seamlessly combining elements of disparate gaming genres into one amazing product,” said head of the FIFA game design team, Cody Haxx, “but then we remembered we make sports and car games. So we just changed the names, shifted some stats, slapped a new coat of graphics on it, and bam! There you go!”

EA, which has been hard at work mastering how to release the same game with the illusion of novelty enough to dupe consumers, first found success in their global franchise The Sims, which has seen enough editions, versions, expansions, sequels and DLC-addons to last a lifetime and is entering its 2,758th instalment.

“What we’ve accomplished with that game is phenomenal,” they said. “You’d think consumers would notice our offering the same DLC pack each time we release a sequel – like we did with that IKEA furniture content pack – but no. They love it so much, they keep coming back for more.”

Fans are ecstatic.

“Taking the ladder out the pool, building a house with no doors to watch your Sims piss themselves, pass out and eventually die… these things never get old!” said 28-year-old gamer Creed Eitkard.

This anniversary celebration comes just one year after the Electronic Arts made history for winning the International Ecological Responsibility Award, for being so utterly dedicated to recycling trash.

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