Today saw the directors of the Medal of Honor Headquarters, the official community site for the Medal of Honor series release news that they will be shutting the doors at Medal of Honor Headquarters.
The Directors wrote the following on the sites main and now only page:
“Friends, fans, & devoted gamers,
While it’s become difficult to make this decision, we feel it’s perhaps the best. Medal of Honor was a fantastic franchise until the ‘rushed cycled’ was implemented into its development & marketing strategies. Let us take the time to explain why this is a terrible model for game development, and why we’re shutting our doors. This notion may burn a few bridges, although that’s not my goal, it may be what’s necessary to get EA’s attention. I have many friends inside EA and their respective studios, none of which enjoy the direction that Electronic Arts is heading with its company.
EA has admired the Call of Duty model for some time now, but they lack the loyal fan base to mock it. For those unfamiliar with the Call of Duty release model, there is a new title at the end of every year with two different development teams working on the rotating titles. To successfully implement this model, you need a fan base that will buy your game out of trust & loyalty that you’ve made a product that will no doubt be fun and a worthy investment. Medal of Honor 2010 was a reboot to the franchise & had one of the largest marketing campaigns to date. It utterly and completely failed consumers at launch and with post-launch support. Consumers, from that point on, were wary of EA’s bad practices.”
“The product was rushed in a terrible manner. There were rumors, now confirmed, that the executive producer was quietly removed from Danger Close approximately two months before release. EA proceeded to assume complete control and release the game without any leadership. The sheer fact that the Battlefield 4 beta text was larger than the text for Medal of Honor was a hint at what was to come of this game. Perhaps it’s time for the ‘major publisher’ model to cease, or a change in executive leadership.
Whatever EA’s future may be, we wish them the best of luck and hope to see the proper changes made to their products. Maybe with the largest Medal of Honor community shutting its doors, it may spark interested to take new paths. I would like to extend my gratitude to the community managers for Medal of Honor, Daniel Chin (No longer with Electronic Arts), and Seeson Mahathavorn who have done an outstanding job. The problem lies “mostly” within the upper management of Electronic Arts, not within the hard working people that make and contribute to the game.
Please share this page over Twitter. The more tweets we get, the stronger our message will become.”
This is a sad time for all fans of the series. We can only hope EA gets there act up to scratch and give us back what was once a AAA game.