NoeL said:
You're forgetting that EA is a publisher, not a development studio. People might love and wish to support the games produced by a particular studio, but what if EA is producing those games? Do they let a beloved studio crash and burn, never to see some of their favourite games again, or do they play ball and feed the evil machine in hopes of a sequel?
I'm glad someone said it.
EA interfere with games they publish, and the games suffer, so we're supposed to "vote with our dollars" and not buy the game. But the end result there is that EA just carries on with the rest of its library, and the innocent developers lose their jobs.
I love the Battlefield series, for example. I would like to give DICE my money, for making a game series that I love. But EA are so intent on stealing market share from Call of Duty that they add an unnecessary, tacked-on single-player mode, and rush the game out before features so basic as in-game voice chat (which was included in the previous games) could be added.
So, what am I supposed to do in protest? Not buy the game? Attempt to doom a publisher of games I love, just because I disagree with EA's horrible business practices?
You put it better than I can. More succinctly. But you get the point.
Twilight_guy said:
Also happened to the game industry before, caused a big crash. Killed gaming until Nintendo brought it back.
I like talking to developers. They're good guys who love to make games and are willing to go through crap in order to make games (long hours and not particularly high pay). I wish that love for games was more present in the production and executive side but I know it can't be (developers would give games away and bankrupt their company in about a week).
I've seen many stories that don't even involve EA's business, just some guy at EA makes a statement and there is immediately 2 pages of posts blasting him as an idiot, no matter what he says. Even on stories where EA does something nice most of the posts are at best backhanded compliments. The EA hate has gotten so strong that if EA is even mentioned (seriously there are stories where EA is only mentioned as making a side comment or something) people will attack them. There are rabid people here people that go beyond thinking Ea is bad company and going into Nazi hating levels of bile. There is voicing your opinion to try and change something you see as wrong and then there is the kind of zealous hate usually reserved for burning crosses.
Actually, I agree with you after all.
If there is a reason to dislike anything, some people will dislike it simply because someone else dislikes it. It becomes like a meme. I've seen it before, whenever anyone mentions Call of Duty, people emerge from the undergrowth to regurgitate things other people have said, with no consideration to the meaning, or whether or not they actually agree.
So of course that would extend to EA. I can very much imagine every mention of them being met with bile even by people who haven't given the reason for the bile a moments consideration to see if it's deserved or not.
It's just a shame that it provokes reactions like CliffB's, polarizing a lot of people either into a "hate EA, and don't think about why!" or a "defend EA, and close your eyes if they do anything bad" situation.
Akalabeth said:
Each of these were released with the intent of smaller bits, more frequently. They were intended to get around the whole "long development cycle". That's an episodic game. They're also intended to be cheaper. HL2 episodes were 30 bucks cap.
Okay, I can agree with defining them by intent. But even if we section off Episode One and Two as "not full games" does that really make Dead Space 3 and The Orange Box equal?
Don't get me wrong, I actually own DS3. I like it. But if TOB and DS3 came out on the same day, and I had $60, and didn't own either, I'd know where my money would be going. Half Life 2 and the two episodes that followed set a new standard for single player FPS games. Portal brought a new, revolutionary concept. TF2 brought some of the most critically acclaimed multiplayer gaming around.
I really don't think it's fair to compare the two. And that's not just because I like Valve and dislike EA. Dead Space 3 is debatably the weakest entry of the series, while The Orange Box raised the bar for three different genres, all for the same price.
And I completely agree about Deus Ex being a better game than MW3/BF3/GOW3 rolled into one.
Akalabeth said:
Can you not even concede that the C&C pack is a good deal? From your despised EA?
I can. But my massive Steam library is packed with similar deals, except on hundreds of new and old games alike.
So okay, maybe EA does some sales. But if you've ever used Steam is the summer sales, I think you'd know that there's a big difference. For example, I bought RPG Maker VX Ace on Steam a few days after it was released... like a week later, it was half price. Now, as annoyed as I was, you have to appreciate when a company makes something which is moderately successful already half price so soon after its release, just because of periodic sales. I've bought at least 30 games at £1 each, and most of them are good, some are even classics.
But whether or not you were proving me wrong, telling me that games "don't count" because they're old, and then offering a comparison of even older games that supposedly do "count" is hypocrisy.
I do have a balanced perspective, and you simply haven't asked the right questions to find out. You shouldn't assume. Some things Valve does are bad, like promising support for L4D, only to quickly release L4D2. But they made up for that. Some things EA does are good, like risking publishing games I love, like Mirror's Edge. Then they mess it up by leaving that IP buried for ages. I associate EA with a generally high level of quality, too, even if over-strict deadlines sometimes result in some missing pieces.
Akalabeth said:
Command and Conquer is a minor success? One of the longest running RTS games in the golden age of RTSes? What?
Westwood's success with C&C was big at the time, but comparitively to the success of Mass Effect, it is small. This is because a lot more people are playing games these days. Since Westwood, C&C has remained successful, but I was talking about Westwood's success with it, in particular.
Akalabeth said:
Funny, other art-based industries don't have problems making their deadlines, why does gaming?
If they don't make the deadline it's because of a few problems. Not enough budget, not enough organization, not enough planning. But if you have a deadline, you have a deadline. Get it done.
To your first question; the answer is obvious. Gaming is unique in its requirements. No other art-based industry requires so much testing and feedback. Not even close.
That "Get it done" mentally isn't compatible with game development. if someone is making a game, and I give them the money and a deadline, who's to say I have set the deadline correctly? And even if I did, when that deadline comes around, what's more important; that we release an unfinished game, or delay it to finish it? EA say that releasing it is more important, which is why they release unfinished games. And in the case of Westwood, those games floundered because of it.
Akalabeth said:
Whereas if Bioware had planned thier shit properly and met their early and mid-project goals they wouldn't have had to rush anything.
Assuming absolutely zero guilt on the part of EA? And you're accusing
me of not having a balanced perspective? I've acknowledged guilt on the part of BioWare, because even if they had to rush it, they could've rushed it better, haha.
Akalabeth said:
People move. Get new jobs. New companies.
We're not talking about people moving. We're talking about people being made to work completely insane hours, to unreasonable deadlines, and then being sacked because the rushed game wasn't a success. Stop equating EA with a force of nature. They're people, and they're insistently messing up other peoples lives through their incompetence. Go read EA or Westwood's wiki page if you still don't understand.
Akalabeth said:
Criticizing EA for making nothing but sequels is a bit silly unless you hold Valve just as accountable.
Did you really type that with a straight face? I hope you didn't.
I asked you for non-sequel EA games. They made plenty of games in 2012, by your own admission. What was that number you mentioned earlier? 29 games, was it? How many of that long list weren't sequels?
Because Valve release much fewer games, it's not a fair comparison. Not to mention that Portal 2 wasn't 2012, and DOTA2 isn't even out yet, which makes two parts of that list wrong. Valve have 9 IPs and if you don't include multiplayer games or episodes as "full" games, none of those IPs have more than two games. If you do include those types of games, then Half Life has four and so does Counter Strike. So, Valve made a sequel last year... so what? How many of those 29 games you mentioned were sequels? I'm betting it's 28.
Go on, stun me by telling me you can't tell the difference between releasing one game that just so happened to be a sequel and releasing 29 games which were almost all sequels. And while you're at it, why don't you look up EA's upcoming releases for 2013... see if you can find 2013's 30 sequels. Like for example, next Battlefield game, which is most definitely not the fourth, despite the number in the title, and is in fact closer to triple that number.
As for the hours that EA makes people work, if you go to their wiki, you'll find the section that mentions it, which I believe has sources if you're interested. I'm glad the people are your local EA place have a good gig, and I'm sure not all EA subsidiaries are awful, but EA's general mantra, which you too seem to subscribe to, about deadlines being more important than a finished product, treats people like a means to an end, and that will inevitably lead to some mistreatment.
