EA CCO Says SimCity, Battlefield 4 Launches Weren't That Bad

[Tropicaz]

EA are just a mess of a company.

Interesting that they dont even talk about FIFA (though i suppose that's EA Sports).

For ages now there's a bug where if the opponent quits out a certain way you get credited with a loss regardless of scoreline, making half the gamemodes unplayable. The auction house for buying/selling players on ultimate team has been broken for months. There's a dozen other reasonably large problems that they havent fixed.


All in all, EA are an absolute disaster zone.

 

[Hiramas]

EA destroyed Bullfrog and thereby ruined some of my favorite brands (Theme Hospital was great, Dungeon Keeper one and two I play today from time to time).
Then they left the Sim City community alone for years, let them mod and patch a game which was amazingly awesome, yet felt somehow limited and unfinished.
And then they come and jump all these dedicated fans in the face backside front, just to acquire this mysterious group of "new fans", make it "more accessible" and push through their new engine (which is great from a technical standpoint, awesome work Maxis, BUT IT DOES NOT WORK FOR THIS GAME!)

EA screwed the pooch so many times that i feel that EVERY LAST BIT of hate they receive from customers is more than deserved.
And to be the biggest idiot in the room when you have Ubisoft (Uplay*recht*) and Activision as your roommates, thats an accomplishment that deserves some kind of prize, a statue maybe, why not this one: http://www.dailydiscord.com/resources/stupidestStateTrophy.jpg

Sorry for the rage, but EA brings out some real dark sides...

P.S.

I really want to like you again

It's a fucking publisher, not your troublesome ex-girlfriend. It's not like there's a shortage of games out there.

I know, I know, but I'm just so disappointed with EA. They have Mass Effect, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, and the entire Star Wars brand under their belt, and I am a huge fan of all those franchises. I don't want to see them take great brands like that and waste their potential.

If there is a good, EA won't screw up these IPs. DICE is a good dev in general, but i really fear for Battlefront 3...

 

[Caiphus]

I 100% believe this man is sincere. I believe he doesn't think those games had bad launches.

And the fact he thinks that way is the problem with EA.

I agree. It's certainly strange. The Simcity launch debacle got so bad that national newspapers here were reporting on it:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10870214

If that's happening, you've fucked up your launch. There's no real way to debate that. Even if objectively it was only as bad as, say, most MMO launches, or the Diablo 3 launch, you've done damage to your brand because everyone knows about it. And, even from a purely business standpoint, you've fucked up.

It really is confusing that EA is confident enough that they didn't screw up that they're willing to say that in a public statement. Most companies would issue an insincere apology and leave it at that. This, however, suggests that they either don't realise how poorly the gaming community sees them, or that they just don't give a damn if they make it worse.

Edit: I can't speak on the quality of the BF4 launch. I haven't watched let's plays. Multiplayer focussed shooters don't tend to interest me, so I'm ignorant of the current/launch status of that game.

 

[Isalan]

I never was big on news stories like this. Major company employee releases a statement, says major companies mistakes were massively overblown.

Call me when someone from EA releases a statement that says "Yes, we fucked up, here's how were going to fix it." I won't bother leaving my number as, obviously, this is a thing that is never going to happen.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Do EA execs even play their games?
I make myself laugh sometime.

Soooo, mr. EA executive. What would qualify a bad game for you? I think EA could've released a game where every single disk could've:
1. come alive
2. start eating babies
3. start burning puppies

and it'd still classify as a so-so release.

Hey! The Xbox One release was pretty good other than that stuff ok?

 

[laggyteabag]

Huh, sure, right. Now, it just be my wild imagination, or just my overly high standards, but if a game flat out does not work when it launches, and still contains game breaking bugs even after a few months after its release, that not only shows a bad launch, but it shows that it is a bad game, and a bad company backing them up. I mean come on now, the Battlefield 4 and SimCity launches will go down as some of the worst launches in recent memory alongside Diablo 3, basically letting other companies know how not to screw up, but all I can really think is, if they aren't bad launches, what is?

 

[Kahani]

"I'm not sure I accept your premise [that SimCity and Battlefield 4 had bad launches]. Battlefield 4 has been an exceedingly successful product on both consoles and PC. From a sales perspective, from a gameplay perspective," he said. "I think there was a lot of noise about the game, but some of that is a function of your surface area. The more customers you have, the more noise becomes available. We did things wrong. We know that. We're gonna fix those things. We're gonna try to be smart about what customers want in the future."

This part amuses me. "I don't agree that SimCity and Battlefield were bad. Look, here's a bunch of good stuff I can say about Battlefield." So, couldn't think of a single positive thing to say about SimCity then?

 

[spartandude]

Im pretty sure this site had a news article at least once every 2 days about Sim City for no less than 2 weeks, and all of them were about how fucked it was.

 

[Zeetchmen]

They have to be doing this on purpose.

I think they have subscribed to the "There is not bad publicity" idea between all the Dungeon Keeper viral advertising and this interview.

 

[tangoprime]

I 100% believe this man is sincere. I believe he doesn't think those games had bad launches.

And the fact he thinks that way is the problem with EA.

Exactly, and honestly, first thing I thought when I read this was "He's right, they weren't bad launches, from an EA business perspective." They launched terribly broken shit and it remained broken for way longer than it should have, and their handling of it was awful, but they made literally fucktons of hard currency. Simcity still sold >2 million copies, and BF4 last I read has sold ~8 million.

God I hope Titanfall falls flat on its face.

 

[Call Me Jose]

Interesting, while it's finally more stable than what it was before, yesterday I was playing and the game crashed on my console as I went for 15-4. I decided to call it a day.

 

[Yuuki]

The worst part about EA isn't their unfinished products...it's their constant denial and refusal to accept the full extent of their wrong-doings. Dungeon Keeper proved they're even willing to skew the rating system! Holy shit!

Shortly after BF4 release, the official forums had at least 100+ threads (yes, threads) being made EVERY DAY from people being unable to play the game for any period of time without running into endless bugs/glitches or crashing. Sound didn't work half the time, framerate was godawful, every 64-player server was rubberbanding to the point of being unplayable, netcode/hit registration was completely fucked (and it still is)...that's putting aside the crashes that could happen every 10 minutes depending on your platform. Crashes which completely discarded all the experience/etc you achieved in that round! I won't be surprised if someone strangled a kitten with their mouse cable in sheer rage.
There was even a common glitch which caused 1 bullet to register as 2 bullets (resulting in one-hit kills). No trigger, no conditions, it was just something happening all the time with all assault rifles and carbines.

It became extremely obvious to everyone that the game had been rushed out in an utterly incomplete state...and it turned out to be true: http://bf4central.com/2013/11/ea-pushed-battlefield-4-quality-control/

Looks like winning Worst Company In US award for 2 years in a row wasn't enough of a hint, lets give them the 3rd year too shall we? They are really begging for it.

 

[direkiller]

What fucking launch are you comparing them to? Apollo 1?

Star Wars Battlefront is screwed. It just is. Maybe I'll get the original battlefront 2 on digital if they release it, but I am seriously worried about this reboot. And why is it a reboot anyways? There is no reason for that.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 is, and has been for awhile, available on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/6060/?snr=1_7_15__13), though I don't think it's available through any other distributor. Maybe a hardcover version from Amazon, but a brief search didn't turn up any digital versions besides the Steam one.

I meant on the Xbox 360. My computer isn't exactly built for gaming.

There was never a 360 launch for Battlefront 2, it only had a PS2,PC,Xbox launch.

In this particular case your computer is probably better then most(older computers tend to have less compatibility issues). And I think any laptop/desktop made in the past 10 years has Direct x9 a quarter of a gig of ram and 5gb of hard drive.

 

[Zulnam]

And thus my embargo on EA products continues.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

You know, I'm not one for buying unfinished goods. Games, especially so. But every now and again, even with EA's shitty track record...


EA's learned that you can make a crap game and people make it golden. They simply don't care as long as they have your money, logic be damned.

 

[Norix596]

I know it's some kind of mantra in the corporate business world to never ever admit failure or wrongdoing of any kind but I think in this case, EA, Respawn, the Titanfall product and everyone else involved would be better served if the line were to be "yeah those two games' launches were quite problematic - we saw what went wrong and so that's NOT going to happen this time"