CliffyB: Microtransaction is Not a Dirty Word, EA is Not The Bad Guy

[lacktheknack]

...

At this point all I seeing from you is "hurr durr ignorance ea fanboi"

You keep on using arguments long since disproven and keep on spouting bullmanure at anyone who reports facts to you. Please stop being so ignorant and accept the fact that your straws disguised as arguments that you are clinging to have already been shredded.

If you are doing this on purpose then you are a VERY bad troll!

Uhhhhh.... how?

I'm seeing the exact opposite. Where are these "shredded arguments"?

 

[lacktheknack]

Oh and to address this specifically, as a someone who plays video games I care about one thing: playing games.
*snip*

I'm not sure how you can knowingly be so cold. When someone makes art that you like, are you not grateful? Are you not excited to see what else will be created by those same minds?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, then you surely care, if bad business practices cause those people you're grateful to to lose their jobs, and for the opportunity for expansion upon the original art to likely disappear forever.

At least, I'd hope you'd understand why someone else might care. It's not so simple as just "find a new job". In a business like this, losing your job often means you lose the IP you were working on. It means you need to find somewhere new to work, where they'll already have their own project, or start your own business, but without access to your previous work or ideas. When Westwood lost their jobs, they lost C&C. They couldn't just go somewhere else and make another C&C. You take an over-simplistic, albeit optimistic, view.

We both enjoyed Mirror's Edge, right? Wouldn't it bother you in the least, if you read tomorrow that the Mirror's Edge team were sacked, and that the possible sequel has been cancelled?

Well, THAT'S an about-face.

EA's business practices are anything but "bad". In fact, they're some of the most effective and sustaining business practices in the industry. EA keeps experiencing growth and is never in danger of shutting down, because they know how to handle themselves.

What YOU want is for a daring publisher to publish big-budget titles you want to play while being as "benevolent" as possible. Sorry, that's not fiscally possible. High-end industry does not give a rip about individuality, excellent service touches, or how "good" the job is, they care about efficiency. That's because efficiency is what allows those industries to exist with collapsing under miles and miles of bureaucratic tape. Such is the great conflict between the AAA industry and the indie scene. You can have your cake, or you can eat it. Not both. So make up your mind: Do you care about high production values and quality execution in your games, or do you care about the workers in the industry? Akalabeth picked the first one, I pick and choose on a case by case basis (I gave up trying to find the holy grail a while ago), and now it's your turn.

Valve comes kind of close to getting both, but they release too infrequently to rely on (and the Steam backlash is starting to pick up).

 

[Something Amyss]

And as for Kingdoms of Amalur. Yeah. New IP. No one bought it. Who's fault is that? EAs?

KOA didn't really sell horribly.

People are too quick to justify the "it didn't sell like Skyrim/Call of Duty, so it sold poorly" mentality.

 

[Something Amyss]

Tired of COD shooters? Where's the next evolution of FPS from Valve? I mean they're rolling in money from what I understand, why aren't they providing competition.

They're too busy trolling their userbase by not releasing Episode 3.

 

[lacktheknack]

And as for Kingdoms of Amalur. Yeah. New IP. No one bought it. Who's fault is that? EAs?

KOA didn't really sell horribly.

People are too quick to justify the "it didn't sell like Skyrim/Call of Duty, so it sold poorly" mentality.

Eh, well didn't Studio 38 or whatever it was called defraud on some loans to the government or something? Ie, not having money to pay back what they owed. Had some sort of state-incentive to mov there and didn't hold up to their end of the bargain. Sounds like a lack of sales to me.

<link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118382-38-Studios-Bankruptcy-Hearings-Begin>There was more than low sales involved. You don't owe people $150 million because your game didn't sell very well, you owe that much after some insane and possibly illegal things happen.

For the record, it sold <link=http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=kingdoms+of+amalur&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200>one and a half million units. Not spectacular by AAA standards, but not "$150 million in debt" level of failure either.

 

[Something Amyss]

Eh, well didn't Studio 38 or whatever it was called defraud on some loans to the government or something? Ie, not having money to pay back what they owed. Had some sort of state-incentive to mov there and didn't hold up to their end of the bargain. Sounds like a lack of sales to me.

And if logic is not an issue, attributing the results of management issues to lack of sales sounds perfectly reasonable.

Look, even EA called KOA's sales a success. Sales were not the issue with the company's failure.

 

[Something Amyss]

And as for Kingdoms of Amalur. Yeah. New IP. No one bought it. Who's fault is that? EAs?

KOA didn't really sell horribly.

People are too quick to justify the "it didn't sell like Skyrim/Call of Duty, so it sold poorly" mentality.

Eh, well didn't Studio 38 or whatever it was called defraud on some loans to the government or something? Ie, not having money to pay back what they owed. Had some sort of state-incentive to mov there and didn't hold up to their end of the bargain. Sounds like a lack of sales to me.

<link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118382-38-Studios-Bankruptcy-Hearings-Begin>There was more than low sales involved. You don't owe people $150 million because your game didn't sell very well, you owe that much after some insane and possibly illegal things happen.

For the record, it sold <link=http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=kingdoms+of+amalur&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200>one and a half million units. Not spectacular by AAA standards, but not "$150 million in debt" level of failure either.

Thank you for proving that the trend of 'knowing stuff' isn't dead.

 

[Signa]

Context is everything Cliffy. Try being a consumer for once.

 

[Compatriot Block]

I feel like a lot of these posts have been "I disagree because of CliffyB" rather than "I disagree with CliffyB because..."

If a developer you liked had said exactly what CliffyB said, would you be arguing as vehemently with it?

And as for the accusations of "bro-tasticism," when I look that that guy, I see a developer who has a ton of fun designing his games. He always looked excited about whatever they had coming out, and that makes me smile. I wish more developers treated the game-design process like he did.

 

[Rachmaninov]

See now you're talking sense.

And yet, you give no ground. You join a thread to rant about people painting EA as the devil and saying Valve can do no wrong, only to tell us how EA in fact can do no wrong?

As far as you're concerned;

They're not guilty of crushing development companies, despite the evidence to the contrary.
They're not guilty of setting unreasonably short deadlines, leading to companies having to rush games and cut parts out, despite evidence to the contrary.
And they're not guilty of releasing an endless dirge of sequels, despite evidence to the contrary.

Apparently I've started talking sense. When are you going to join me?

They've been making games for years. They should know how long this stuff is going to take.

And yet, apparently EA, who set the deadlines, do not. But still no blame for them, right?

No, I don't blame the quality of the game on the publisher. Certainly don't blame the writing for it. That's not the domain of the publisher. Unless EA specifically asked for a shit ending. Or they specifically push up the deadline. Or if the deadline is unreasonable with the budget and quality demanded.

I emboldened and underlined for emphasis there.

That is the point. That is what they do. That is why the game quality suffers.

As for long hours, crunch time is a part of the industry. Someplaces is worse than others. Again if your job sucks, go somewhere else.

I'm not referring to crunch times uniquely. EA made some devs work as many as 100 hours a week even when it wasn't crunch time. And it's really not as simple as just going somewhere else. You must live in a fantasy world where people roll out of one job into another, and don't have the period of unemployment that most people experience which results in them not having enough money to meet their responsibilities. Let alone the idea of leaving meaning losing all of your work.

Sometimes, people aren't in a position to just leave if they don't like a job. And sometimes, employers take advantage of that. Your precious EA just might be guilty of that.

So yes, not many, but more than one.

Two facebook games, an Android port, an iOS game, an XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) game and a reboot. I'd say those add up to maybe half one new game.

TSW and KoA are new games. So, two and a half? It's more than I was expecting. But we should ask more of one of the world's biggest publishers than two and a half new ideas a year.

You complain EA is stagnating things, but what is Valve doing?

Valve is comparatively small. I think you have unrealistic expectations if you think that every single developer is some kind of failure if they are out-doing the latest popular franchise.

I praise Valve because they operate generally customer-friendly practices, not because I think they will be the saviour of all gaming.

But as it happens, they are in fact doing something against stagnation. Steam Greenlight. It's giving indie games more exposure, a chance for them to be on the front page along with all the AAA titles. Because Indie games are less scared of new ideas, thanks to them not needing massive funding, generally.

That is, ironically, more than the giant EA is doing with it's two and a half new games a year policy.

Oh, and they're developing the Steam Box, to bring much-needed freshness to the console arena. So I guess, for a small developer, they're doing quite a lot, actually.

Yes but they could go somewhere else and make another RTS.

Let me use the example of Portal, since I think it makes an effective comparison. Portal had a unique idea. Let's say you were working on Portal, and then you got sacked and didn't get to keep the Portal IP.

You can't just go somewhere else and make another Portal. You'd be breaking the law. So what, you'd make a different game? But what if that was your magnus opus? What if another great idea doesn't just come to you? Wouldn't it be a tradegy that all the recognition and success for your great idea was going to the people who sacked you?

I don't think you've considered these things.

What YOU want is for a daring publisher to publish big-budget titles you want to play while being as "benevolent" as possible. Sorry, that's not fiscally possible.

You assume too much.

For a start, who said anything about big budget? Small budget is good, too. EA is obsessed with big budget, not me.

And yet, Valve manage this thing you say is fiscally impossible... I don't suppose you can explain that, can you? They don't treat their customers like boxes full of money waiting to be cracked open, and yet they raise the bar with every new game, while also going above and beyond by making it all high budget. As infrequently as they release, if everyone did the same, it'd be frequent enough.

So make up your mind: Do you care about high production values and quality execution in your games, or do you care about the workers in the industry? Akalabeth picked the first one, I pick and choose on a case by case basis (I gave up trying to find the holy grail a while ago), and now it's your turn.

It's pretty arrogant to assume you're presenting this choice to me like I've not already made it.

I did, long before I came to the Escapist. I choose on a case-by-case basis, although I almost always choose the second when it comes to properties and ideas I like.

But despite your assertion, quality execution and high budget are not related. Quality execution is the fruit of competence, and while competence can be bought, there are plenty of competent developers out there bringing high quality execution to free games, mods and indie titles.

And now to tell you what I actually want, so you don't need to assume again; I want EA to stop making me choose between filling their greedy pockets and doing my part to fund the properties and studios I like. I want good properties like Mass Effect to not be swallowed up, even if it means going low budget. I'd sooner buy a Mass Effect game that looked like it was made for the N64 than I would stuff more money into EA's scummy mitts.

 

[Boogie Knight]

I'm no Steam/Valve fanboy, but in a specific instance like Dead Space 3 microtransactions are part of a basic design choice in balancing the game. Part of the challenge comes from finding resources and understanding the rules of the game in order to get the most stuff so that the player is better equipped to deal with the increasingly difficult challenges. If some nut pops in the disc and plunks down $20 on resources, it pretty much wrecks the game. Admittedly, this would only ruin the game for the player, and possibly for anyone playing with them. However, I'm afraid that in the future the practice will eventually result in games with such lopsided difficulty that shelling out money to get through the game will be the norm... basically the arcades all over again and adjusted not only for inflation but for the bloated production costs of AAA developers.

 

[bafrali]

snip

Yeah I noticed that after posting too. Life is full of surprises.

Anyway I wasn't trying to insult people's intelligence really. For that I apologize to all of those who might have been offended. There is some merit in what he says but it is all out of context. Thought people would just read the headlines and jump in to the comments. Oddly enough I was the one who made an ass of himself. Well played Escapist, well played

 

[Olas]

[/quote]Cliff Bleszinski is tired of EA being seen as "the bad guy," while Valve can "do no wrong."[/quote]

I think there's a difference between having fondness for a company that seems to repeatedly make smart decisions and thinking said company can "do no wrong". And I believe most of us are in the latter category. I do like Valve and most of what they've done, but I won't turn a blind eye to their screwups when they have them.

To be honest, arguments like his blow my mind. Does he think we just arbitrarily chose to like Valve and dislike EA? Like, we had a coin toss to see which we would like more and Valve won? No this isn't random. Perhaps we hold onto biases too strongly, but they tend to be right more than they're wrong. And if EA is having image problems it's their problem to fix not ours.

 

[afroebob]

Videogames can cost upwards of $100 million to make and market, says Bleszinski

And whose fault is that? Well actually probably equal parts the gamer's fault and the industry's fault. All I know is I didn't ask for the excessive focus on graphics technology that led to that.

Lol ya we did. We asked for it all the damn time no more than 4 years ago. People craved great graphics and companies started spending money on it cause that's what we begged for at the time.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Em but Origin and GWFL had years to learn from Steams mistakes and why it is a good idea to have a stable working platform with an offline mode but what did they do? Basically, release original release Steam. Example, I should not have to go into my own computer's registry to uninstall Battlefield 3 nor should when I click uninstall should the game direct me to control panel.

As for the microtransactions yeah if Valve did what EA does they would get away with it for a bit before the goodwill runs out and then people would go for their neck. I fail to see the point in microtransactions in a game that is supposed to be horror when all these transactions do is give you stuff for the game that is non cosmetic. Some people might like to skip that part of gameplay but the stuff doesn't even carry over to a new game plus. Its only saving grace is that it only affects one person in the short term.

EA had a pretty good image this gen when Activision and Bobby Kotick didn't know when to keep their mouths shut and several of their PR guys probably felt the universe hated them. Then EA comes along takes all its good will and craps on it. So this hate for the most part is a solely EA centric problem.

 

[Norrdicus]

That next sentence is also a lie. EA have been alleged to rush out BF3, SWTOR, ME2/3, DA2, amongst the titles by Pandemic, Westwood and Bullfrog, immediately preceding EA firing the entire studio.

Let's not forget the last 2 Ultima games!

 

[verdant monkai]

When was the last time EA ever did a sale? like valve do all the time.

Right now, Cryis 3 and Dead space 3 are 30% off, BF3 and all the DLC were massively on sale just last week, half the Sims selection half price now as well..... Sigh some people are just intent on speaking stupidity.

....Our charming friend here is the perfect example of an EA supporter.

Granted but when was the last time Valve proudly announced to attach a feature not everyone likes (multiplayer), onto every new game they make? even though it often harms the quality of the single player (see Mass Effect 3).