Complete list of EA's mistakes for future reference (in progress)

[Qvar]

In my ideal world steam will only sell valve games, Origin will only sell EA games, Uplay will only sell UbiSoft games, etc, with no exceptions. That is my reasoning.

That's a terrible, terrible idea. Dozens of accounts, you could say goodbye to anything resembling a in-store community, and all for NOTHING in exchange. Oh well you could feel safer from the evil Valve and their plot to steal all the games.

In my ideal world we would have a centralized game repository with a single account. Then if every publisher wants to set up their own shop (to sells their games contained at the repository) instead of letting the 3rd parties do the job, they're welcome. But that's not gonna happen because the publishers would never agree on how to found and who would control this neutral repository.

Geh I'm such a commie.

ps: It could be financed through an internal fixed tax on every game sold, ensuring that everybody pays a proportional part to how much is he making.

 

[Ticklefist]

I don't disagree with you. I'm just not familiar with your example. I own both DA games and I've never been asked for my credit card when accepting a quest.

Maybe you got some special edition, but in the standard edition some guy with a quest marker shows up at the camp pretty early in the game. He tells you about his family and an old, haunted keep. When you try to accept the quest, he tells you visit the Bioware Store and buy it.

The credit card thing was more methaphoric.

Yeah, I bought the Ultimate Edition so that never happened to me. In Need 4 Speed Most Wanted a similar thing happens when you try to jump into one of the DLC cars.

 

[Edl01]

The recent Dungeon Keeper fiasco, to begin with.
Ruining Dead Space.
Pulling games out of other stores to force people install Origin.

These are subjective issues and I personally have no problem with these at all.

I like Origin, I like the direction that Dead Space went, and as far as Dungeon Keeper goes, it is an Ios game. It is, okay, as far as ios games go.

Dungeon Keeper taking a classic franchise and filling it with Micro-Transactions should could as a sin.

 

[Ticklefist]

I'm not here to let EA off the hook, they've earned the flack they get. I do think they've finally got the message though and have begun to right themselves.

 

[Qvar]

Btw Mass Effect was released 1 month after Bioware was bought by EA. I would hardly give them any credit for that one. But generally speaking, it's not the quality of their games by itself. They are mostly good. It's the constant obsession on fucking consumers and compulsive money-grabbing, that earns them so much hate.

While pretty much everybody creates DLCs for their games (if the game is succesful ofc), EA decided that it wasn't enough, and started not only cutting content out of the game to sell it as separated (other infamous cases are Creative Assembly for example), but also rubbing it on our face while you play, such as the already mentioned DA:O, or The Sims 3.

It's bad enough that they give me only 4 chairs to choose from after they have been creating godamn chairs for the 2 previous games during 10 years, but it's even worse that they try to sell me the other 6 ones for extra money showing them directly in-game like if it was a friggin facebook game.

 

[BusaLova]

Great points. Looks like the micro transactions entry is gonna need more than a handful of subentries to distinguish the many ways MT's work.

Googling the words ''EA lawsuit'' provides more entertainment than answers. It's honestly quite baffling to see how thoroughly EA fucks up so many things. Anyone seen Wolf of Wall Street? It would at least explain the shitty attitude towards customers and their complaints...

Oh by the way. A game company wanting to sell their games through Steam is like a dairy producer wanting to sell their yoghurt in a big supermarket. It gets exposure, publicity, marketing and sales. In return, the producer has to abide by several conditions to be allowed doing (further) business with the supermarket.

Btw Mass Effect was released 1 month after Bioware was bought by EA. I would hardly give them any credit for that one. But generally speaking, it's not the quality of their games by itself. They are mostly good. It's the constant obsession on fucking consumers and compulsive money-grabbing, that earns them so much hate.

I've already said that.

 

[Requia]

In my ideal world steam will only sell valve games, Origin will only sell EA games, Uplay will only sell UbiSoft games, etc, with no exceptions. That is my reasoning.

That's a terrible, terrible idea. Dozens of accounts, you could say goodbye to anything resembling a in-store community, and all for NOTHING in exchange. Oh well you could feel safer from the evil Valve and their plot to steal all the games.

The in store community is one of the worst things about Steam. You should not be separated from a substantial portion of the community around a single game because you chose to buy it elsewhere.

 

[ThriKreen]

Slight correction:Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age Origins were already complete when Bioware was bought out by EA.

Slight correction: Mass Effect 1 was, Dragon Age: Origins was not.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Slight correction:Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age Origins were already complete when Bioware was bought out by EA.

Slight correction: Mass Effect 1 was, Dragon Age: Origins was not.

How so?The game was already in the final stages of production when Bioware was bought by EA.That's why DAO had none of EA's usual features in it.

Kind-of, EA bought out Bioware in 2007 while Dragon Age was released in 2009. Assuming they did at least a years worth of planning before its announcement in 2004 the majority of DA's development would have been free of EA.

 

[ThriKreen]

How so? The game was already in the final stages of production when Bioware was bought by EA. That's why DAO had none of EA's usual features in it.

There was still about 2 years of dev time from when EA bought Bioware to when DA:O was released - A lot can happen in 2 years for game development, at the time, it was nowhere near "final stages of production".

As for "usual features", you say that like there's some DLC/MT bible that all the studios have to follow, even though every implementation I've seen differs. Oh hey, didn't Respawn say they're not doing any microtransactions for Titanfall? Like it was really up to the studio to decide how to develop the title... Hm...

I'll totally give EA crap for allowing DK to go through in the state it was in, though.

 

[C14N]

I've written out a bit about microtransactions, I'm not sure if this is what OP was looking for though. On this topic, while I do personally hate microtransactions, probably more than anything else that's in fashion in games these days, I really can't say EA are the sole offenders here. It seems that almost every big publisher (Ubisoft, Activision, Eidos/Square et al) is shoe-horning this poison into their games just as much. Anyway:

MICROTRANSACTIONS

What it is : Small, in-game purchases (usually under ?/$ 3) that are do not add enough to be considered expansion packs or ordinary DLC.

How it's implemented : They are often numerous, perhaps tens or even hundreds of small additional items (it could be weapons, character skins, a new level or even just in-game currency) that you can buy. They are completely non-essential although usually more effective than the items given in the game for free. Some "freemium" model games are severely hindered if you do not decide to pay for them.

Why it's good or bad : It misleads consumers on the price of the product. Often, since they are so numerous, for a single game you would need to spend more than the price of the standard game to get the complete content. They are also generally disproportionately expensive compared to the cost of the game itself and the prices never drop. They also give an uneasy feeling of penny-pinching as developers are trying to collect these tiny amounts of money. When players have paid for their game, they generally do not want to see advertisements to pay more money. Some players feel it breaks the spirit of the actual game as well when it allows people to pay to make the game easier instead of making it easier through skill. The prices almost never go down either, meaning players can't simply wait to pick them up in a sale.

Relevant examples : Mass Effect 3, Dead Space 3, The Simpsons Tapped Out, Battlefield 3, The Sims 3

How to improve : Remove them. A better idea might be to include smaller items like these as part of larger expansion packs. This has been done in games before. The Sims expansion packs always included new items in addition to new gameplay features; the same goes for Civilization where expansion packs include (in addition to new strategy systems) many smaller things such as new civilizations and maps.

 

[Vigormortis]

This is fucking ridiculous. Are we going to have a list for every other major company? Activision? Ubisoft? Valve?

Probably not. This virulence and vitriol towards EA was once justified, but at this point it's overblown to the point of ridiculousness. If Valve is the most Overrated game company on this site, EA is certainly the most overhated.

I like that you simultaneously lament the overabundance of hyperbole on this site while resorting to using it yourself.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

These are subjective issues and I personally have no problem with these at all.

I like Origin, I like the direction that Dead Space went, and as far as Dungeon Keeper goes, it is an Ios game. It is, okay, as far as ios games go.

But is it ok to trash a much-loved IP? It may be an iOS game, and while I personally think it is a pathetically poor iOS game, it being an iOS game of the kind it is at all is an issue for me, and I haven't even played the originals.

 

[BusaLova]

This is fucking ridiculous. Are we going to have a list for every other major company? Activision? Ubisoft? Valve?

I've been thinking about that. I might have the title changed to ''Complete list of game publisher's mistakes'' for the sake of being complete. You'd be surprised to see what a clear, complete and cohesive list of unpopular features can do.

To do that, there will have to be some digging into the past to list them all. Any help towards this goes a long way because they WILL all be listed.

 

[Willstown]

Buying Criterion Studios. Effectively killing Burnout, my personal Fav drive em up. Then folding it into the weak sauce N4S series

 

[BusaLova]

Large entry into the microtransactions bit of the list added.
New entry in the list of webpages at the bottom of post 1.

If you're interested, please read the new entry of microtransactions. These are drafts, and therefor subject to change. Feel free to add / discuss / suggest. As said, I want to make this list as complete as possible. Any suggestions for games that fit the bill with the different versions of microtransactions will be added as long as they apply.

 

[BusaLova]

Such dealings serve to remind us that 1) they do some good, and 2) this list, at the bottom of it's intent, is made because we care about the game industry and we want to see it do well, by telling it to give us what we want, by critiqueing it.

Here's an appropriate quote. It comes from Call of Duty MW 2.

(I can't believe I'm doing this but here goes...)

''I love America more than any other country in the world, and therefor I insist on the right to criticize it perpetually''. John F Kennedy I think.

It means criticism is often meant to explain a desire for improvement.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Easy really, i just buy the games i want to play. Dont give a crap what company made it or published it. If your disappointed by a game then dont buy the sequel or wait for a review to come out before buying it.

 

[Qvar]

The in store community is one of the worst things about Steam. You should not be separated from a substantial portion of the community around a single game because you chose to buy it elsewhere.

1. That's your opinion. I use the steam community a lot.
2. With the steam community I can check if any discussion I'm into has new posts with a single glance. With 50 different forums to check, no way I would be checking any of them. Nor uploading photos, nor anything else.

Kind-of, EA bought out Bioware in 2007 while Dragon Age was released in 2009. Assuming they did at least a years worth of planning before its announcement in 2004 the majority of DA's development would have been free of EA.

You mean like the game doesn't slap in your face the quests you haven't paid for, just like the sims 3 slaps in your face the items you haven't paid for?

This is fucking ridiculous. Are we going to have a list for every other major company? Activision? Ubisoft? Valve?

Probably not. This virulence and vitriol towards EA was once justified, but at this point it's overblown to the point of ridiculousness. If Valve is the most Overrated game company on this site, EA is certainly the most overhated.

Dude there's a thread about Valve at the first page. Also I consider that they are neither saints or demons.
I'm sorry for you if people having enough intelligency to rate some companies over others hurts your feelings. Overblown this days? Yeah Dungeon Keeper, I don't know what's that.

Btw Activision can go fuck themselves too. Are you guys seriously trying to defend EA because "someone else also does bad"? That's the lamest excuse ever, I don't think even EA employees would use it.

I have many reasons to complain about EA instead of Activision, starting with "They like to buy franchises I like and ruin them into the ground with always more sophisticated methods". I critizice them because I WANT THEM TO IMPROVE. GODAMNIT. I couldn't care less about what Activision does, I've never liked their games.

Easy really, i just buy the games i want to play. Dont give a crap what company made it or published it. If your disappointed by a game then dont buy the sequel or wait for a review to come out before buying it.

Easy: You can expect what kind of crap you will find in a game depending on who is making it.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Easy really, i just buy the games i want to play. Dont give a crap what company made it or published it. If your disappointed by a game then dont buy the sequel or wait for a review to come out before buying it.

Easy: You can expect what kind of crap you will find in a game depending on who is making it.

I disagree, i wouldnt dismiss a companies future releases by a few current crappy releases. But then its about the games not the companies. DA2 wasnt the greatest thing ever but that wont stop me looking into DA3 and see if they have fixed stuff and what reviewers think of it. Although, i think the problem with gaming now is that things connected to ftp games and mobile gaming are moving into full price console games. Currently both Grand Tourismo and Forza gimped there games to force people to buy money.

End of the day people shouldn't buy games based on the name, especially now with prices now £50 (will PS4/XB1) and then you end up wasting cash on crap like Knack and Ryse.