EA Boycott?

[aashell13]

HOW TO MAKE EA STOP AND LISTEN:

ONE: Wait for them to screw you over.

TWO: Complain to the Better Business Bureau.

THREE: Win.

WHY THIS WORKS: The BBB is where many investors go before investing in companies. A poor BBB rating may spell doom for a company, especially a heavily investor-run one.

I'm not sure that EA is heavily investor-run, but I DO know that they have a <link=http://www.bbb.org/greater-san-francisco/business-reviews/video-games-wholesale-and-manufacturers/electronic-arts-in-san-francisco-ca-64196>A+ rating, have received 768 complaints, and have satisfactorily responded to every single one. The BBB is very pro-customer, so "satisfactorily" either means that A. the customer was satisfied with the response, or B. the complainant was trolling.

My guess is that EA doesn't want to injure their A+, and will be as pleasant as they need to be. They'll take care of the Origin horror stories at some point, or else we're gonna see a big drop in that rating.

OT: No. When they release a game I like with terms I can work with, I will buy it, end of. EA has not personally ticked me off.

Maybe, but my main gripe with EA is that the stuff they pull winds up wasting my time and causing me a great deal of fuss and bother. So even if this does work, it's still substantially more difficulty than any other publisher has put me through for the privilege of giving them my money.

I guess my issue boils down to the fact that EA knows its policies are overly restrictive and prone to these sorts of problems, but they don't change the policies; even if they might be persuaded to resolve individual incidents satisfactorily.

EA just isn't worth the trouble anymore.

 

[Syzygy23]

Nah.

I don't like EA either, but not to the point where I'm going to deny myself a good game. At the end of the day, nothing is gonna stand between me and my Mass Effect fix.

Of course, you console folks have the option of buying used. You get the game legally, EA doesn't get your money. Best of both worlds.

But I want the Day one Exclusive DLC and Collectors Edition.

Go out and start a pick-up soccer/rugby/etc. team, or be the GM for some good ol' fashioned Tabletop gaming.

Both will create experiences far more memorable than some schlocky game that was being sold for more than it was actually worth.

It's easy to resist consuming these games when you have things even better. And I don't wanna hear the "Those things you just listed don't have awesome graphics" argument, especially against tabletops. People need to stop attempting to replace their imagination with technology.

 

[boag]

Nah.

I don't like EA either, but not to the point where I'm going to deny myself a good game. At the end of the day, nothing is gonna stand between me and my Mass Effect fix.

Of course, you console folks have the option of buying used. You get the game legally, EA doesn't get your money. Best of both worlds.

But I want the Day one Exclusive DLC and Collectors Edition.

Go out and start a pick-up soccer/rugby/etc. team, or be the GM for some good ol' fashioned Tabletop gaming.

Both will create experiences far more memorable than some schlocky game that was being sold for more than it was actually worth.

It's easy to resist consuming these games when you have things even better. And I don't wanna hear the "Those things you just listed don't have awesome graphics" argument, especially against tabletops. People need to stop attempting to replace their imagination with technology.

But no one in my RL circle of friends even play Tabletops, I havent seen a D20 since I was in School.

 

[Zeh Don]

I'd go as far as to say a good portion of PC Gamers have been boycotting EA Games and all of it's work for quite some time.

I don't buy anything with EA Games on the box. If I must, I buy it second hand to ensure that as few copies total are sold as possible.

I also do this for Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft, however they make basically no games I'm interested in purchasing.

 

[lacktheknack]

HOW TO MAKE EA STOP AND LISTEN:

ONE: Wait for them to screw you over.

TWO: Complain to the Better Business Bureau.

THREE: Win.

WHY THIS WORKS: The BBB is where many investors go before investing in companies. A poor BBB rating may spell doom for a company, especially a heavily investor-run one.

I'm not sure that EA is heavily investor-run, but I DO know that they have a <link=http://www.bbb.org/greater-san-francisco/business-reviews/video-games-wholesale-and-manufacturers/electronic-arts-in-san-francisco-ca-64196>A+ rating, have received 768 complaints, and have satisfactorily responded to every single one. The BBB is very pro-customer, so "satisfactorily" either means that A. the customer was satisfied with the response, or B. the complainant was trolling.

My guess is that EA doesn't want to injure their A+, and will be as pleasant as they need to be. They'll take care of the Origin horror stories at some point, or else we're gonna see a big drop in that rating.

OT: No. When they release a game I like with terms I can work with, I will buy it, end of. EA has not personally ticked me off.

Maybe, but my main gripe with EA is that the stuff they pull winds up wasting my time and causing me a great deal of fuss and bother. So even if this does work, it's still substantially more difficulty than any other publisher has put me through for the privilege of giving them my money.

I guess my issue boils down to the fact that EA knows its policies are overly restrictive and prone to these sorts of problems, but they don't change the policies; even if they might be persuaded to resolve individual incidents satisfactorily.

EA just isn't worth the trouble anymore.

In that case, you're fully in the right to stop purchasing their products.

I, however, will not follow your example until they start injuring me personally.

 

[Vault101]

Can't be just 2 Dead Space games, there has to be a third damn't. Can't believe how far survival horror has fallen and Dead Space was a step in the right direction, fuck you Resident Evil 5.

Dead space isnt exactally scary though

BUT I guess its the got the "survival horror" thing going on because it works in a very frantic way

"oh god, oh god, 3 plasmas left...2....1...SHIT! MORE?? are you kidding me?..uhh RUN!..run! Issac...NEED MEDS! NEED MEDS! WHERE ARE MY MEDS???"

its more "Aliens" than "Alien"

 

[Edager6882]

'I won't boycott because EA hasn't done anything to me' is a lame comment. EA's policies are effecting the game industry as a whole and all of us gamers are paying for it. EA has forced us all to buy new or pay $10 for an online pass, it has made us gamers look like a bunch of adolescent tool bags with its ad campaigns and now it is taking away our right to free speech and punishing us by stealing from us. EA are thieves. They are taking away the right to use the product people have bought. What kind of precedent is that going to leave on the games industry. We are basically saying 'I don't care how you treat me and steal from me as long as I get to play your games.'

I'm still going to play Mass Effect 3 but i am going to wait and buy it used. Screw the multiplayer and EA's $10 online pass. EA is not going to get another penny out of me. We gamers need to stand up for our rights. As a consumer there is little else we can to do to get our voices heard. So use our unique way to boycott but still enjoy the games. Wait a week or so and buy the games used and don't buy DLC.

 

[Zantos]

EA makes more money than God. If a few people protest, it'll still make more money than God. I imagine from atop their throne of gold and human skulls they won't care.

 

[Vanbael]

An attempt at an EA boycott will fail with a word and three letters: Madden NFL. Sadly, that is the most successful franchise to date. Even if you get the hard core gamers to listen to you (which they wont as long as they get the at-least-once-a-year decent game out), you will still have the casual crowd going after the Madden franchise.

This should also be taken into account you should go after the subdivisions of EA and not the entire corporate giant. Do your homework, learn the studios, then boycott them individually because I think some people want to see some EA made games come out. Also if you successfully bring down EA, there goes a sizable chunk of the Electronic Entertainment economy, jobs lost, games lost. I'm not touching the word boycott on any game company or developer no matter how much I love them (That means you Insomniac) or hate them (I'm staring at you K2 and Activision).

 

[Starke]

I have a better idea. When EA does something illegal get a lawyer and sue them for every penny you can get. Its easy to laugh it off as "Oh EA has a mega corporation with high priced lawyers" but at the end of the day the law is the law and a judge will rule on the side of it.

If enough law suits happen its more likely to change EA then boycotts which usually dont work due to gamers not sticking to them.

While that would be great, I don't have the spare 250 bucks lying around to file in small claims court. And every lawsuit I've ever been involved with has cost me at least ten grand. So, the idea is great, but the expense of actually doing this is insane.

 

[Gmans uncle]

I would LOVE to Boycott EA... but I cant untill March of next year.
Why? well...

...yeah...
But right after that, I'm with ya' 110% of the way!

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I am currently boycotting EA, even at the expense of never playing Mass Effect 3. Anyway, you won't ever get enough people together for it. EA won't care and it won't matter.

 

[aashell13]

An attempt at an EA boycott will fail with a word and three letters: Madden NFL. Sadly, that is the most successful franchise to date. Even if you get the hard core gamers to listen to you (which they wont as long as they get the at-least-once-a-year decent game out), you will still have the casual crowd going after the Madden franchise.

This should also be taken into account you should go after the subdivisions of EA and not the entire corporate giant. Do your homework, learn the studios, then boycott them individually because I think some people want to see some EA made games come out. Also if you successfully bring down EA, there goes a sizable chunk of the Electronic Entertainment economy, jobs lost, games lost. I'm not touching the word boycott on any game company or developer no matter how much I love them (That means you Insomniac) or hate them (I'm staring at you K2 and Activision).

Well, there's the kicker though: the policies that are problematic (bad origin TOS, rediculous DRM, mandatory online registration/passes, idiotic ad campaigns) are company-wide, are they not? So cherry-picking individual studios seems a moot point.

I don't buy the part about damaging the industry as a whole because a dollar I don't spend on EA will most likely wind up going to some other developer/publisher/distributor who's business practices I find less intolerable. And even if madden keeps EA afloat in some form indefinitely, other less objectionable companies will have grown at EA's expense. I'm on board with that. Better still, they might figure out why everybody stopped buying their other stuff and fix it.

Tremendously unlikely, I know, but one can always hope.

 

[superstringz]

Welcome to the bandwagon. I've boycotted EA for years now (The one exception goes to buying the Steam version of Simcity 4.) Simply bearing the logo is enough for me to drop all interest.

 

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

Meh. My view is this. Life sucks. Shit happens. Some guy gets screwed because someone said his name and the filter went wonky. You know what you do? You shut the fuck up and deal. You get on the phone with tech support and talk to them until the fix the issue. if they can't, you never deal with them again and report them to the BBB.

I don't play EA games right now because they don't have any I want. if I have to play ME3 and install Origin so be it. That's the price you pay for playing ME3 on PC. I play WoW... means I have Warden running in the background all the time. (or did, dunno if it's still going) but you know what? I did it cause I liked playing WoW and that was part of their ToS. If I was truly against Warden I wouldn't play WoW, but I'm not going to throw a fit because I want to play WoW and not have the warden.

You don't break the rules, you don't get in trouble. Funny how so many people seem to think they should be able ot bend the rules because it suits them. Until this Origin thingy does something so truly atrocious I'm not going to worry about it. So it's spyware? big deal, it'll find out I like certain types of porn

Most people just need ot step back and just do what they want and not worry about what EA says or what the anti-EA crowd says. Though my friends tell me I'm way to laid back for my own good sometimes.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

Yeah Boycott! *hoots like a monkey*

Jokes aside... I can care less about EA and their 'ethics'. It's less them and more between Mass Effect 3, Bioware, and me. EA can just wait outside.

 

[SargentToughie]

I'll join up for this boycott in a second.

I've actually already been doing it on my own for a few years now.

I came to the realization that I am perfectly capable of living a normal human life if I never play Mass Effect 3, it's not worth selling my soul to EA.

 

[red the fister]

Look, I've played EA games. They're not horrible, although they have been mashed through the jaws of corporate interests. But recently, EA is going off the leash, attacking it's own customers.

Incidents such as prohibiting people from playing their LEGALLY bought games if they misbehave on their forums, as well as locking the accounts (and the games, effectively cutting off access to the games) of people who haven't done a damned thing wrong (the recent case of a man named Aaron who was banned because someone else swore in the forums while also mentioning Aaron's username).

This has gone on too long.

Either EA stops their abhorrent, and possibly illegal, practices, or we stop buying their games.

I, Fuhjem, am pledging henceforth to never buy a single game that EA has at any point put their hands on.

That means no Mass Effect 3 for me (and as anyone who knows me knows, I am a diehard fan of the ME series), no Battlefield 3, no Star Wars: The Old Republic, nothing EA is putting their filthy hands on.

I'm going to do my part to call to attention the extreme amount of bullshit that EA is doing to their very own customers, the very people who let them exist.

If you believe as I do, let the world know and post here. Maybe we can have a petition put up, telling EA to cut this bullcrap.

Thanks for your time.

I suggest you go to a bar, buy a beer and insult the barman. Do you think you get to drink the beer or not? If people behaved badly in real life there are real consequences, why shouldn't there be ones online?

the bartender may tell you to GTFO, or be bound by law to serve you that beer or risk losing their job. but the bartender will not take away a beverage after you have paid for it nor will they charge you twice for the drink, refuse to let you have it and tell you to GTFO when you tell them that they have double charged you.

 

[Soviet Steve]

I've been touting Origin as a positive development for a while now. It's never been easier to enforce a no-EA policy on your purchases.

 

[minimacker]

You know, we could all promise each other to not buy EA games. Like they formed the workers unions where all agreed not to take jobs that further lower the "minimum" pay.

If we remain true, then EA will notice. No need to boycott or yell at people. Be a silent protest, that's what I do. My voice alone is weak, but if the entire Escapist are true to themselves, we'd make a difference.

You can even tell your grandchildren about it!
"I remember. *Sniff* When I worked together on an internet community to stop a games publisher from oppressing their customers. *Sniff* A lot of good men were lost during those times. *Sniff* I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU, GNOMEYFACE4612!"