EA Clarifies Free-to-Play, Connected Gaming Comments

[lacktheknack]

Yes that's right, blame your audience for misinterpreting your poorly chosen choice of phrase. They'll only be too happy to vote you Worst Company in America for another year.

They'll be awful people, then.

OT: I figured. What everyone was wanting to believe just didn't gel with their actions past and present. (Except SimCity, but I doubt they'll want to repeat that again.)

Well, yeah. EA constantly winning this award when there are far more 'deserving' companies out there (like Haliburton, Bank of America etc) really only goes to show how many gamers lack a sense of proportion.

But then at the same time, you'd think EA might at least react to it by considering that they need to smooth over their PR techniques.

Ten million dollars gone to charity. Digital game returns before Valve. Calls to fix relations with the core base. And yet gamers will never recognize change even if it curbstomps them.

If EA wins the Worst Company award again, I may simply ragequit this society of petulant man children for good. It's like a CoD match in hell with dozens and dozens of pre-teens with their mics on full blast.

(I'm sorry, do I sound bitter?)

 

[StriderShinryu]

I can't help but feel that the only people who required such "clarification" were those who wanted to take the message negatively in the first place. I mean, EA isn't always the best company out there to put it mildly, but this is a statement they've already made and clarified in the past when people when an EA hate on went ballistic.

 

[Sanunes]

Yes that's right, blame your audience for misinterpreting your poorly chosen choice of phrase. They'll only be too happy to vote you Worst Company in America for another year.

They'll be awful people, then.

OT: I figured. What everyone was wanting to believe just didn't gel with their actions past and present. (Except SimCity, but I doubt they'll want to repeat that again.)

Well, yeah. EA constantly winning this award when there are far more 'deserving' companies out there (like Haliburton, Bank of America etc) really only goes to show how many gamers lack a sense of proportion.

But then at the same time, you'd think EA might at least react to it by considering that they need to smooth over their PR techniques.

Ten million dollars gone to charity. Digital game returns before Valve. Calls to fix relations with the core base. And yet gamers will never recognize change even if it curbstomps them.

If EA wins the Worst Company award again, I may simply ragequit this society of petulant man children for good. It's like a CoD match in hell with dozens and dozens of pre-teens with their mics on full blast.

(I'm sorry, do I sound bitter?)

You don't sound bitter to me at all, just someone that reads a lot of what is said on the internet.

 

[dangoball]

"We don't ship a game at EA that is offline," and furthermore, "The ability to be able to interact with [Battlefield and FIFA] on a free-to-play basis has got to be part and parcel of every major franchise we do now."

Unless you were misquoted, it's kinda hard for that statement to be misinterpreted, Pete. "We don't ship a game at EA that is offline" can really only be translated as "Every game we ship requires online capabilities." while "a free-to-play basis has got to be part and parcel of every major franchise we do now" can really only be translated as "From now on, every major franchise we put out is going to be on a Free-to-Play model."

Now, if you misspoke then fair enough, but don't blame us for hearing the words that came out of your mouth.

Personally I think they did a turbo-Microsoft and released that statement, had a pile of "FUCK YOU!" thrown at them, then immediately decided "Ehhhhhh, maybe not....SO! To clarify...."

You know, there IS a different way to interpret his statement other than "ALL our gamez r gunna be F2P and always-on, DERP!" and I was quite surprised that everyone decided that he meant exactly that.

First of, even in the original statement, when he said that "We don't ship a game at EA that is offline" he clarified he meant leaderboards and stuff like that, not that every games needs coop multiplayer like ME3. And last time I check, that is not mandatory for the game to function. The game is online simply by the virtue of having that one "online element".

Next, quoting "... a free-to-play basis has got to be part and parcel of every major franchise we do now" leaves out the kinda important "The ability to be able to interact with...". Please note the phrase "interact with", not "play". This most likely means that major franchises will have F2P of-shots, maybe FB game, maybe mobile, called, I dunno - Battlefield Tactics.

Yes, everyone knows that "online" is a big term at EA, but they are not as cartoonishly stupid and evil as we like to make them out to be. They learned that "online only" doesn't work with SimCity. Now they are calling it "online elements" and "singleplayer/offline mode". You can still play your Battlefield in the middle of Pacific, but you'll be limited to it's campaign and everyone buys Battlefield for it's SP, right?

...

Man... I just stood up for EA... I feel kinda weird

 

[FoolKiller]

Yes that's right, blame your audience for misinterpreting your poorly chosen choice of phrase.

It reminds me of Jim Sterling's rant against the devs of Hydrophobia who claimed he played their game wrong.

Also, does EA understand the concept of clarifying something? Because I just got a bit more confused by their message.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Yes that's right, blame your audience for misinterpreting your poorly chosen choice of phrase.

It reminds me of Jim Sterling's rant against the devs of Hydrophobia who claimed he played their game wrong.

Also, does EA understand the concept of clarifying something? Because I just got a bit more confused by their message.

It is easy to misinterpret ambiguous statements like "free-to-play basis has got to be part and parcel of every major franchise we do now"

 

[Strazdas]

OK, what is wrong with gaming executives that they are consistently making bumbling press releases full of half-baked thoughts regarding very important and worrying issues in gaming that seem to take everything we hate and turn it into company policy, then when the gaming audience understandably calls them out on their treatise of bollocks they shout "It's not what you think! We didn't mean that at all!" and completely contradict everything said in the first statement.

If I lived in America I would seriously consider launching a business based on giving public relations talks to idiot executives in high profile public positions about how not to be an ass on social media, and how to release public statements that don't make everything a million times worse, and Microsoft and EA's braindead statements alone would give me more than enough material for the entire thing.

Understand your audience. Don't insult them for not allowing you to take all their consumer rights away. Make games that the audience of that genre are interested in, not the audiences of a separate genre that aren't going to play your game anyway! Don't insult your audience. Don't speak until you know exactly what you want to say, and then say it as clearly as possible. DON'T INSULT YOUR AUDIENCE. It's not rocket science people. Sheesh.

When i was young i used to think that people know what they are doing and can always comment on what they are talking about. In reality, most of them pull stuff out of their ass and spend more time trying to force what they said to be reality than the other way around. Its not executives that are "Braindead". its whole human race.
Also, they dont have time to sit for 8 hours every day talking with their audience, understanding the audience of gamers when you yourself are not is like if i asked you to understand golfers audience and speak about future of golf as a sport in 5 minutes.

Is it just me or has there been a lot of people in the gaming industry desperately pulling the foots out of their mouths as of late?

New consoles are comming. everyone is trying to remain significant and remembered.

They'll be awful people, then.

Not really. You see, the worst gaming company in existence - capcom - is not american. Activision merged with blizzard that keeps pulling it up and seems to be the only thing they didnt manage to consume, plus them going independant now also raised peoples hopes. So what were left with, is EA. and before you go protesting "why not bank of america or such". Well lets see, EA keeps fucking me over again and again, all the time. The bank has never fucked me over. It has fucked over other people, sure, but im going to vote on what actually happened to me.
P.S. im not american, me was hypothetical

I haven't seen backpedaling like this since the last Microsoft PR release!

Seriously Publishers should learn that what sounds good in the boardroom and to investors doesn't nessceray translate to sounding good to their customers. And if the customers don't like it and don't buy said games/products that results in everyone being unhappy.

actually they have said the always online stuff and had to backpedal on it before already. i felt dejavu reading the article yesterday, its like someone dug up 4 month old article and riposted it almost.

Ten million dollars gone to charity. Digital game returns before Valve. Calls to fix relations with the core base. And yet gamers will never recognize change even if it curbstomps them.

If EA wins the Worst Company award again, I may simply ragequit this society of petulant man children for good. It's like a CoD match in hell with dozens and dozens of pre-teens with their mics on full blast.

(I'm sorry, do I sound bitter?)

ten million to EA (that they didnt got out of their pockets to begin with, merely "possible income") is so small it would be like you donating couple pennies. The digital return, i have to give them props for, that was a good call and one that raises my hope in new leadership of EA (well, old one, that used to rule EA back when it was actually good). Pretty much every company has asked to fix relationships, few have actually tried.
You have to remmeber that worsl company award is a internet award. meaning that only people on the internet are goign to vote, so the company that wins is the worst company of america for them. most of them never got hurt by a bank, but plenty by EA.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

OK, what is wrong with gaming executives that they are consistently making bumbling press releases full of half-baked thoughts regarding very important and worrying issues in gaming that seem to take everything we hate and turn it into company policy, then when the gaming audience understandably calls them out on their treatise of bollocks they shout "It's not what you think! We didn't mean that at all!" and completely contradict everything said in the first statement.

If I lived in America I would seriously consider launching a business based on giving public relations talks to idiot executives in high profile public positions about how not to be an ass on social media, and how to release public statements that don't make everything a million times worse, and Microsoft and EA's braindead statements alone would give me more than enough material for the entire thing.

Understand your audience. Don't insult them for not allowing you to take all their consumer rights away. Make games that the audience of that genre are interested in, not the audiences of a separate genre that aren't going to play your game anyway! Don't insult your audience. Don't speak until you know exactly what you want to say, and then say it as clearly as possible. DON'T INSULT YOUR AUDIENCE. It's not rocket science people. Sheesh.

When i was young i used to think that people know what they are doing and can always comment on what they are talking about. In reality, most of them pull stuff out of their ass and spend more time trying to force what they said to be reality than the other way around. Its not executives that are "Braindead". its whole human race.
Also, they dont have time to sit for 8 hours every day talking with their audience, understanding the audience of gamers when you yourself are not is like if i asked you to understand golfers audience and speak about future of golf as a sport in 5 minutes.

I see what you're saying, but if it was my job (and I was being paid millions) to run a golfing company, then you'd be damn sure I'd be making some time to get out there and understand the average golfer and what they want for the future.

I worked as a political aide for a month on work experience, and my job was to take the current issues (which were about every subject under the sun, from higher education to windfarms to fishermen upset at river hydro plants) and research all the material that the press guys dug up about them, (could be about 100-200 pages of scientific studies, newspaper cuttings, policies and law etc.) and condense that into about 3-5 pages of information for the politician to read, as well as having a brief chat with him to make sure he understood the topic at hand and the most pressing issue, and anything he should avoid mentioning or be wary of.

If politicians can manage to do this on a weekly basis for every issue under the sun that could possibly affect them, surely the top Executive of one of the largest gaming companies could arrange a little research into the pressing issues of his own industry before flapping his mouth off about company policy on an issue he knows very little about. It only took the politician about 10 minutes to read my summary and have a chat with me about the most important bits, how much more simple should it be for gaming executive to arrange someone to inform him about gaming issues before announcing his opinions permanently to the world where he knows they will be scrutinized and criticized by the most passionate of people: his potential customers.

 

[shrekfan246]

Yes that's right, blame your audience for misinterpreting your poorly chosen choice of phrase. They'll only be too happy to vote you Worst Company in America for another year.

They'll be awful people, then.

OT: I figured. What everyone was wanting to believe just didn't gel with their actions past and present. (Except SimCity, but I doubt they'll want to repeat that again.)

I wonder if there's some way to find a large enough collection of "gamers" to create a vote on the "Worst Consumers in the World/On the Internet".

OT: I'll admit I was a bit worried by the wording of the initial statement, but re-reading it I can see how it could be misinterpreted. "Not offline" doesn't necessarily mean "always online", even in the case of EA. Doesn't mean I won't still have my eye on things because I really don't want the next Mirror's Edge to get fucked up, but at least EA has the presence of mind to try clearing this up, as futile an effort as it is trying to appeal to the gaming 'community' at this point.

 

[Strazdas]

OK, what is wrong with gaming executives that they are consistently making bumbling press releases full of half-baked thoughts regarding very important and worrying issues in gaming that seem to take everything we hate and turn it into company policy, then when the gaming audience understandably calls them out on their treatise of bollocks they shout "It's not what you think! We didn't mean that at all!" and completely contradict everything said in the first statement.

If I lived in America I would seriously consider launching a business based on giving public relations talks to idiot executives in high profile public positions about how not to be an ass on social media, and how to release public statements that don't make everything a million times worse, and Microsoft and EA's braindead statements alone would give me more than enough material for the entire thing.

Understand your audience. Don't insult them for not allowing you to take all their consumer rights away. Make games that the audience of that genre are interested in, not the audiences of a separate genre that aren't going to play your game anyway! Don't insult your audience. Don't speak until you know exactly what you want to say, and then say it as clearly as possible. DON'T INSULT YOUR AUDIENCE. It's not rocket science people. Sheesh.

When i was young i used to think that people know what they are doing and can always comment on what they are talking about. In reality, most of them pull stuff out of their ass and spend more time trying to force what they said to be reality than the other way around. Its not executives that are "Braindead". its whole human race.
Also, they dont have time to sit for 8 hours every day talking with their audience, understanding the audience of gamers when you yourself are not is like if i asked you to understand golfers audience and speak about future of golf as a sport in 5 minutes.

I see what you're saying, but if it was my job (and I was being paid millions) to run a golfing company, then you'd be damn sure I'd be making some time to get out there and understand the average golfer and what they want for the future.

I worked as a political aide for a month on work experience, and my job was to take the current issues (which were about every subject under the sun, from higher education to windfarms to fishermen upset at river hydro plants) and research all the material that the press guys dug up about them, (could be about 100-200 pages of scientific studies, newspaper cuttings, policies and law etc.) and condense that into about 3-5 pages of information for the politician to read, as well as having a brief chat with him to make sure he understood the topic at hand and the most pressing issue, and anything he should avoid mentioning or be wary of.

If politicians can manage to do this on a weekly basis for every issue under the sun that could possibly affect them, surely the top Executive of one of the largest gaming companies could arrange a little research into the pressing issues of his own industry before flapping his mouth off about company policy on an issue he knows very little about. It only took the politician about 10 minutes to read my summary and have a chat with me about the most important bits, how much more simple should it be for gaming executive to arrange someone to inform him about gaming issues before announcing his opinions permanently to the world where he knows they will be scrutinized and criticized by the most passionate of people: his potential customers.

I understand your reasoning and in a perfect world you would be completely right. however a Gold corporation president does not need to know stuff about golf, he needs to know how to run a company. and smae goes for gaming CEOs, some of them never played a videogame. A gamer CEO (Ala CD PRoject) is a great idea in theory, in practice pretty much all cases (with the example being exception) mean they dont know anything about running company and going bancrupt.
You did find a job where you would need knowlege in anything it seems, nice. But as you said yourself, the politician knew only the 3 pages summary, and evne then IF he read all of it and memorized it, and not everything. you knew way more than he did about the issues, but he was the one making decisions and talking publicly. you see where im getting?

 

[Hero in a half shell]

-snip-

When i was young i used to think that people know what they are doing and can always comment on what they are talking about. In reality, most of them pull stuff out of their ass and spend more time trying to force what they said to be reality than the other way around. Its not executives that are "Braindead". its whole human race.
Also, they dont have time to sit for 8 hours every day talking with their audience, understanding the audience of gamers when you yourself are not is like if i asked you to understand golfers audience and speak about future of golf as a sport in 5 minutes.

I see what you're saying, but if it was my job (and I was being paid millions) to run a golfing company, then you'd be damn sure I'd be making some time to get out there and understand the average golfer and what they want for the future.

I worked as a political aide for a month on work experience, and my job was to take the current issues (which were about every subject under the sun, from higher education to windfarms to fishermen upset at river hydro plants) and research all the material that the press guys dug up about them, (could be about 100-200 pages of scientific studies, newspaper cuttings, policies and law etc.) and condense that into about 3-5 pages of information for the politician to read, as well as having a brief chat with him to make sure he understood the topic at hand and the most pressing issue, and anything he should avoid mentioning or be wary of.

If politicians can manage to do this on a weekly basis for every issue under the sun that could possibly affect them, surely the top Executive of one of the largest gaming companies could arrange a little research into the pressing issues of his own industry before flapping his mouth off about company policy on an issue he knows very little about. It only took the politician about 10 minutes to read my summary and have a chat with me about the most important bits, how much more simple should it be for gaming executive to arrange someone to inform him about gaming issues before announcing his opinions permanently to the world where he knows they will be scrutinized and criticized by the most passionate of people: his potential customers.

I understand your reasoning and in a perfect world you would be completely right. however a Gold corporation president does not need to know stuff about golf, he needs to know how to run a company. and smae goes for gaming CEOs, some of them never played a videogame. A gamer CEO (Ala CD PRoject) is a great idea in theory, in practice pretty much all cases (with the example being exception) mean they dont know anything about running company and going bancrupt.
You did find a job where you would need knowlege in anything it seems, nice. But as you said yourself, the politician knew only the 3 pages summary, and evne then IF he read all of it and memorized it, and not everything. you knew way more than he did about the issues, but he was the one making decisions and talking publicly. you see where im getting?

I understand what you're saying, and I can see why it is that way, but I just think that it would be a lot better if these execs either learned properly about their companies, had someone with actual gaming knowledge to proofread whatever they're going to say and make sure it isn't going to create negative publicity, or just refrain from giving these public interviews altogether.

Having a man at the top who understands business, not videogames is annoying, but understandable. Having him constantly informing on gaming policy and telling gamers what they want, directly affecting the games they will get; That's an issue that should be addressed.

 

[Strazdas]

looong quote

Fair enough. i compeltely agree that them knowing would be better, but they dont and it isnt some "gaming ceo only" occurence. It would indeed be better if they had somone to help them, but imagine some small time intern telling moore what to say, it could jsut end up "say whatever you want just dont fire me"

 

[Racecarlock]

Am I missing something? Battlefield and NFS aren't free to play, you buy them for 60 dollars.