Respawn Entertainment being acquired by Electronic Arts was undoubtedly one of the biggest news stories in the whole games industry last week.
The studio founded by former Infinity Ward executives Vince Zampella and Jason West is now a subsidiary of Electronic Arts. Just a couple weeks after the giant publisher closed Visceral Games, this news seemed worrisome from the beginning to fans of the studio who quickly began picturing Respawn as the next studio lying in EA's graveyard.
One of the main points of contention core gamers often express at EA is that the corporation deprives studios of their creative freedom. Speaking with VentureBeat, Respawn CEO Vince Zampella sounded positive that this won't be an issue.
It’s always a balance. You have to worry about security and foundation of the company. How do you get to new games while still maintaining old games. I am not worried. I think the creative freedom is still here. So we get the best of both worlds. Ultimately, it is a contract with EA. We have to collaborate well together and that doesn’t change.
Ultimately, my message is we are still Respawn and we are going to make the same games we did before, and hopefully better. Anyone who is a fan of Respawn should trust us that what we are doing what we think is best for the future of Respawn and our games. We intend to deliver to our fans everything and more than we did in the past.
Patrick Soderlund, Executive VP at EA, also chimed in guaranteeing that all the studios inside EA retain their creative freedom.
When you worked inside EA at DICE, or BioWare or Vancouver, they all have creative freedom and creative integrity. There are different cultures in different locations. That’s what gets those studios to make great games. We are not interested in changing any of that. We want to keep what is great here. One of the reasons we are going into this acquisition is because of what Respawn is. It would be very unwise of us to change any of that.
Zampella was pretty honest in his statement, anyway, when he said that the executives at Respawn had to secure the company's future. After all, Titanfall 2 notoriously sold a lot less than anticipated and the studio's future seemingly hanged in the balance until this news hit.
This is probably the best option they were able to find to keep working on their projects, which may be unveiled at E3 2018.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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