10 REAL Reasons Why These Video Games Failed
9. EA Interfering At Every Turn - Ultima IX: Acension
It is no secret that EA is the worst company in the entire gaming industry, they've literally been given that award several times. If you don't hate EA already, Google them and you'll FIND a reason to hate them. For classic CRPG fans, that reason comes in the form of what they did to poor poor Origin Systems.
If you thought EA closing down studios that they set up to fail in the first place was a new thing, oh no, they've been doing it for literal decades, and Origin was one of their most famous victims. Once one of the founding fathers of computer gaming, Richard Garriot's Ultima series was reduced to a joke in the one-two punch of the unfinished Ultima VIII: Pagan, and the truly disastrous Ultima IX: Ascension.
And both failures have one thing in common. No prizes for guessing what it was.
EA interfered in the development of Ultima IX at pretty much every single turn, from cutting development time, to forcing them to use an engine Origin wasn't familiar with, to - of course - taking it out on Origin when the game came out, and of course, getting them absolutely eaten alive.