[Mad_Nick]

^ I'm not convinced EA has ever been good. They've been good at buying small studios and subsequently gradually dismantling them, in some cases publishing a decent sequel after the dismantling but mostly due to the people who stayed on. Maxis was never formally dismantled, but over time it lost the people that made it Maxis, and it has become a fully integrated part of EA.

I hear EA is a really shitty place to work, maybe that has something to do with why the games don't last long after dismantling of the original studio, that combined with their obsession with obtrusive DRM, it's like games at EA nowadays have to be designed around the DRM rather than the other way around.