EA has no idea what to do with their intellectual properties.  Electronic Arts purchased and subsequently decimated developer Origin Systems Inc, wasting the opportunities it had with all of the IP’s that Origin developed throughout the 80s and early 90s.   Then in 2008, EA gives us the awful top-down, 2D space combat game that they slapped the words Wing Commander onto to try to lure old fans of the quality 3D Wing Commander series to purchase it.  For shame!

But now, they’ve done it again!

The Ultima franchise is another casualty of the EA acquisition.  The last stand-alone game, Ultima IX, had it’s share of development problems, but it’s widely remembered for how buggy it was, because EA forced its release when it wasn’t ready.  A fixed version was released several months later, but the damage was done.  Ultima Online had proved to be successful, and EA decided to turn Origin into an online-only company after Ultima IX, thereby killing prospects of future stand-alone titles.

The latest EA misuse of intellectual property is a web-based browser strategy game named Lord of Ultima.  From their website:

Lord of Ultima is an online strategy game where you build your own unique city and play with thousands of other players. Join now and rule a mighty empire which you can access from wherever and whenever you want.

What??  You took a real-time strategy web game and slapped the Ultima name on it?!  I swear a little piece of me dies every time EA makes an announcement regarding something new related to Origin Systems franchises.

To be completely fair, I haven’t played it or even seen any screenshots of it yet.  I logged into the closed beta, but it seems to be in a perpetual state of “servers full.”  I doubt that’s to do with it’s popularity, and more to do with it just not being available.  I haven’t been able to find any gameplay pictures of it online yet either, and the closed beta prohibits screenshots.  But that’s all rather a moot point.

Fans of the Ultima franchise want a role playing game, not a real-time strategy game!  You don’t see Microsoft Game Studios turning Age of Empires into an RPG, do you??  If EA had continued to develop the Ultima brand like Bungie and Microsoft developed the Halo brand, then maybe you could release a RTS-style Ultima to expand the thriving franchise into other areas ala Halo Wars.  But (Ultima Online notwithstanding) the Ultima franchise has been dead since 1999.  To revive the brand in name only, just like they did with the much scorned Wing Commander Arena (metacritic score of 51) is just another spit in the face of the people most likely to even recognize the disused brand!!  Is it any wonder that EA is not in great financial shape?  They can’t even identify what genre their brands lie in, let alone develop new titles in those genres for their well respected bands.

It’s yet another sad day for Ultima fans.

EDIT:  For a real web-based Ultima, try this one.