EA: Mirror's Edge "fell short"
Dead Space "didn't hit expectations" either.
Mirror's Edge, EA's 2008 parkour-flavoured FPS, "fell short" of the publisher's expectations.
EA Games boss Frank Gibeau told Develop, "First-person parkour across buildings is fun, but to be blunt, Mirror's Edge's' execution fell short."
"What I learned from Mirror's Edge is that you have to execute, you have to spend more time on a game to ensure it's polished, and you need to have the depth and persistence of an online game," he explained.
"There were issues with the learning curve, the difficulty, the narrative, and then there was no multiplayer either."
"The key learning from us was that if you're going to be bold with that kind of concept, you need to take it as far as it can go in development."
We'd say Gibeau needs to easy up on the DICE-developed title. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but it was certainly one of the more interesting new IPs of the last few years.
Eurogamer's Christian Donlan gave it 8/10, saying, "For those who can shrug off the contradictions and the limitations, ignore the tearing cityscape and lingering qualms about value for money, this will shove you so deeply into the experience of being in someone else's body, and taking it on a terrifying, breakneck joyride, that nothing else will matter."
Gibeau didn't stop at Mirror's Edge though – Visceral Games' largely excellent Dead Space also came in for a bit of a pasting.
"It made money for us, but didn't hit expectations. We felt like we had an IP that struck a chord, and one that hit quality, but again it missed multiplayer modes.
"So when we re-worked Dead Space [for the upcoming sequel], we looked at how to make it a better idea, how do we make the story more engrossing, how do we build Isaac as a character, how do we make this game a success online."
Dead Space 2 is out on 25th January on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but what of a Mirror's Edge sequel? "One thing I will say is that we won't give up on those IPs," promised Gibeau. "A new idea obviously has a lot of risk attached to it, but if you get it all right it can be huge."