EA exec talks about Galaxy in Turmoil shutdown
In the past several months, Frontwire Studios has shifted gears and turned their Star Wars-themed Galaxy in Turmoil into a more generic science fiction shooter.
According to the studio’s president, Tony Romanelli, the decision to transition away was “due to [LucasFilm’s] exclusive contract with EA.” He also wrote that “Lucasfilm was contractually obligated to deny our request for the use of the Star Wars IP for Galaxy in Turmoil based on EA’s decision.”
At gamescom last week, EA’s vice president Patrick Soderlund discussed the project with Game Informer.
“It’s a lot easier for us to make decisions for brands that we fully own. When it comes to something as big and well-known as Star Wars, there are so many other parts that come into play,” he said in the interview. “What is considered canon? What can you do within the brand? It becomes very complicated. On top of that, between Disney and EA is a substantial business deal where one partner has paid the other a lot of money to gain exclusivity. Without knowing details of exactly what happened, that’s kind of how I look at it in general.”
Soderlund doesn’t exactly have issues with fan-made mods. Instead, it seems the fact that Galaxy in Turmoil would have competed directly as a full game with EA’s Battlefront franchise has caused friction.
“What I would say is that we’ve seen back in the day with Battlefield 1942, we had a bunch of mods that truly helped people become aware of Battlefield as a brand and associate a lot of good things with it,” he said. “We saw the Desert Combat mod. We saw several World War II and even a World War I mod that we played and enjoyed. The community of people out there that are passionate about adding to something in existence is, in general, a good thing. I see no badness from that. That stems from passion and desire to build.”
The EA vice president also noted that he got his start in video games from modding.
“I grew up from that myself. We started building mods and ideas based on other games that were in the market,” Soderlund said. “Battlefield 1942 came about because we were playing a lot of Doom at the time and said, ‘This is cool, but wouldn’t it be cool if you could be in this first-person view, but outside and in vehicles.’ I totally get that, and this passion should not be chilled by any company.”
Frontwire Studios has now moved Galaxy in Turmoil away from Star Wars and is “embarking on a mission to create a new, original game in a never before seen universe.” They also said that the “game will still have massive 64-player battles, ground-to-space combat, destructible capital ships, and a full single-player campaign.”
(h/t Polygon)
