EA discussion thread

[Aeonknight]

Ok what website did I stumble on to? I thought this was the Escapist, where people couldn't possibly rage at EA any more if they tried. yet here I am in a thread started by one of the haters, and people are being reasonable about the company. Even defending it.

OT: they make games I like to play. The last DLC I got from them, I got for free (Karkland maps on PS3). Punching in online passes doesn't bother me, since it takes a grand total of 45 seconds to do it, and it only needs to be done once. Also couldn't give a fuck about Mass Effect as a franchise, or it's problems with the ending of it all.

Yea, I'm pretty content with the company.

 

[Rawne1980]

Welcome to the Escapist. There's an off-topic and political area for people to discuss various issues.

But I'm sure flocking to the game section to complain about a company making games you don't like is perfectly valid.

Only a U.S. company would be voted "worst company ever" for doing well, lol.

Don't like EA? Don't buy their shit. But I hate you break it to you, they are a very successful company doing quite well in their chosen market. EA is a good company who survives because a whole fuck ton of people give them money and actively want their products.

You want to complain? Complain about people's opinions and taste in video games, because they are the ones making EA a gigantic success.

"Stop buying games I don't like from a company I don't like." Opinions never felt so righteous.

I didn't complain about EA, in fact I rarely complain about anything (apart from shit weather).

Would be a tad hypocritical of me to complain about a company who's games I still buy and have no intention of stopping buying from.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

• A business opens its doors to customers
  
  Sells a shit ton of entertainment products
  
  People keep coming back for more and record sales are smashed year after year
  
  Labeled worst company ever
  

_

• A child labor warehouse is hired to make clothes
  
  Everyone around the world buys their crap from the local megastore
  
  Becomes the "in" clothes to wear
  
  No one thinks about it

Oh internet, you are so cute.

This. While EA has done plenty to tick me off recently, in global terms they are nowhere near as bad as people have painted them. Even just within publishers I would still label Activision, Square Enix and Lucasarts as worse at least. I'm not normally the guy to be waving the 'First World Problems' banner, but I think somebody needs to sit a large portion of the gaming community down and explain to them that losing their shit on internet forums over every relatively minor thing, is just going to make big companies more likely to dismiss their complaints as more of the same the one time they actually will have something to shout about.

While I don't always approve of the ways EA makes its money, they are most definitely not evil, and it would be remiss of me to not point out just how many games that I personally love that would have never been made if it weren't for EA doing what it does.

 

[Dryk]

I find it very interesting that out of the thousands of things that make up a game, if we really hate one of it we're not about to complain about it. Doesn't matter how good the rest of the game is, don't buy it or don't complain about the one glaring imperfection. Capitalism is dumb.

OT: As others have said we really don't need this thread again yet.

Even more OT: My one experience with EA was spending a few days periodically contacting support hoping to find someone that wouldn't screw me around and actually give me a key for the free Mass Effect 1 DLC. That's right, I spent 2 days trying to find someone who would give an activation key for a FREE product.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I just despise online passes, mainly. I'm not sure who started the whole shingding but I do remember an EA game having one of the first I played. they may have been the ones to popularise it.
It's stupid; you pay for the game, the console, an XBL Gold account and an internet connection so you shouldn't have to pay extra just to play online. I remember an article on here even said they aren't making as much money as they'd like from it.

I hate paying for on disk DLC too, you shouldn't have to pay more for the rest of the game. I don't mind paying more for more content but you should get the full game when you buy it.
I know they're not the only company to do this but they do own a lot of companies and games now, so I shake my fist at EA more often than not.

They're a company at the end of the day I guess and they are incredibly hard to ignore now. Best thing is to just suck it up, it makes money rather than losses so they won't stop any time soon.

EDIT: I know people need to hush with these threads but I can't remember posting in one before, so now my opinion is out there I can ignore any more threads. lol.

 

[nu1mlock]

I have nothing against EA.

Sure, it can be a bit annoying the way they make their developers pour out DLC or put too short deadlines on games, but that's pretty much it. There are a lot of other publishers that does exactly that though and it's nothing unique to EA.

Origin isn't bad at all, it's just not as feature-rich as Steam. What I do like about Origin is the about 100% faster downloads (usually get 25MB/s instead of the up to 10MB/s from Steam) and their customer service where I can actually CALL them and even speak with their support in my native language (Swedish).

The only time I have had to call support was when my BF3 copy wasn't working, black screens and whatnot. Sure, it took an hour and a half but we eventually fixed the problem and I got an extra BF3 key to give to a friend to the trouble. Can't say the same thing about Steam and its support where it can take days to get an answer to an easy ticket.

But that's just me.

 

[Danne]

As long as you find a way to feel superior to most other gamers

Although, as a possible alternative might I suggest not wasting your time hating giant companies and instead supporting smaller developers and spending your time on that? It doesn't give quite the same feeling of being better than everyone else but it does make you much less of a condescending twat.

I actually love The Humble Indie Bundle and Indie Royal. They always have great games!

 

[Da Orky Man]

I have created this post to have a nice, orderly discussion. Not a flame war. i would I think EA should be burned at the metaphorical stake. Anyone else disagree?

A joke, surely.

...

Honestly, at this point I'm just tired of hearing the EA hate. It's like someone yelling, "Hitler wasn't a very nice guy!" in my face every chance he gets. No matter how true that is, I'm still going to want him to shut up before too long.

Huh. I think I just equated EA to Hitler. Well, aren't we off to a fine start.

I've truly never seen Godwin's Law in action by the second post. Bravo to you, good chap.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

I find it very interesting that out of the thousands of things that make up a game, if we really hate one of it we're not about to complain about it. Doesn't matter how good the rest of the game is, don't buy it or don't complain about the one glaring imperfection. Capitalism is dumb.

It is so ironic that I may actually explode from hilarity in a second that nothing you just described has anything to do with capitalism, then you called it dumb.

Oh god the irony! Too much irony!

 

[Dryk]

It is so ironic that I may actually explode from hilarity in a second that nothing you just described has anything to do with capitalism, then you called it dumb.

Oh god the irony! Too much irony!

Yeah I'm having one of those days where I don't find words good

 

[Hagi]

As long as you find a way to feel superior to most other gamers

Although, as a possible alternative might I suggest not wasting your time hating giant companies and instead supporting smaller developers and spending your time on that? It doesn't give quite the same feeling of being better than everyone else but it does make you much less of a condescending twat.

I actually love The Humble Indie Bundle and Indie Royal. They always have great games!

Then why create a thread about how much you hate EA rather than creating a thread about how much you love those games? Or hell, how about actually playing those games?

Surely discussing something you love is much more fun than something you hate? Not to mention that no matter how much people claim to hate EA they'll just keep doing what they're doing as long as people are paying them money.

I'd say focus on the thing you enjoy, they deserve and need the attention, and let your wallet do the talking on the things you don't. That's the only effective way to make any sort of positive change in this industry.

 

[Arina Love]

Gonna watch whole thing on GT. That's about it. Expecting to be bored.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

At the end of the day however, they're just out to make money. They've found what works for them and they're laughing all the way to the bank.

That must be why they had to take out another loan when they got to the bank.

Where does this illusion come from? Why does everyone think EA are super rich? They made a ridiculous minus in 2011, something like $300.000.000.000 in losses.

Their stock has also dropped by 50% in the last 5 months, but I won't even pretend I can make head or tails of the stock market, so I can't really comment on that.

EA are reaping what they sow right now. The (rather high) sales of their games aren't big enough to cover their multimilliontrilliongazillion advertising budget. Case and point: TOR.

Um, The Old Republic is [b\]profitable[/b] (and shit, imo, but whatever) and I'm not sure where you're getting your info from, but from what I can see, EA reported a billion dollar revenue last year. In fact, fairly big news was made of it, seeing as how their income blitzed even their forecast and set world-wide records.

EA's current assets are worth about five billion United States Dollars and they own just under a fifth of the gaming market.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

• A business opens its doors to customers
  
  Sells a shit ton of entertainment products
  
  People keep coming back for more and record sales are smashed year after year
  
  Labeled worst company ever
  

_

• A child labor warehouse is hired to make clothes
  
  Everyone around the world buys their crap from the local megastore
  
  Becomes the "in" clothes to wear
  
  No one thinks about it

Oh internet, you are so cute.

Oh, this again.

Minimum wage workers in the US have no food in the fridge.

Children in Poland don't have a fridge to put food in.

Children in Africa have neither food nor fridge.

Saturn, on the other hand, has no solid surface.

See what I mean? It's a stupid argument. "There are worse things going on!" No fucking shit, but first world problems are still problems.

Normally I would agree. However, when the internet's collective self-righteousness has reached the point when we are banding together to vote EA as the 'Worst Company in America' ahead of banks that have taken the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of people, and oil companies who's lax safety has actually cost lives and damaged an entire region for years to come, then something has gone very very wrong.

This isn't really even about 'first world problems'. This is about EA genuinely not being anywhere near as bad as people make them out to be. I'll be the last person to cheer on everything they do, but at worst, their business practices are greedy and misguided, not 'evil', but the amount of people I see calling them 'evil', apparently without any portion of tongue in their cheek, makes me think we all need a better idea of what real evil actually looks like.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

• A business opens its doors to customers
  
  Sells a shit ton of entertainment products
  
  People keep coming back for more and record sales are smashed year after year
  
  Labeled worst company ever
  

_

• A child labor warehouse is hired to make clothes
  
  Everyone around the world buys their crap from the local megastore
  
  Becomes the "in" clothes to wear
  
  No one thinks about it

Oh internet, you are so cute.

Oh, this again.

Minimum wage workers in the US have no food in the fridge.

Children in Poland don't have a fridge to put food in.

Children in Africa have neither food nor fridge.

Saturn, on the other hand, has no solid surface.

See what I mean? It's a stupid argument. "There are worse things going on!" No fucking shit, but first world problems are still problems.

Quick, look up! Too late. The point went over your head. I'll catch it and float it over to you again, don't worry.

EA is a business; they want to make money and they are making entertainment products that people want to buy in order to achieve this goal. They are doing a rather good job at it. I don't care at all how much you dislike them, the fact remains, EA is a very, very good business worth several billion dollars and with a billion dollar income.

Think EA sucks? Tell the people buying their games they are bad people, because they are the ones telling EA what to do; a company will change to meet demand or fail and go under. Just because you don't like them means precisely nothing. Lots of people love their shit and you gotta deal with it.

Haters gona hate. EA gonna make money.

 

[Vivi22]

They've found what works for them and they're laughing all the way to the bank.

Actually, unless I'm mistaken they've been reporting some huge losses recently, so that statement isn't really true. But I'm not sure what they expect when they do things like try to out-COD COD.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

It is a bloody good argument when you have to deal with both, and you determined one to be worse than the other.

So complaining about EA on these forums means I can't boycott companies that make use of sweatshop labor. Good to know.

If it does not, what is your point? We should discuss sweatshop labor anyway? Why? This is a gaming forum, so stop getting all pissy when people actually discuss gaming.

Um, The Old Republic is [b\]profitable[/b]

It will be profitable. In 2 years. IF they hold 1 million subscribers, which probably won't happen.

These figures were provided by EA themselves.

EA reported a billion dollar revenue last year. In fact, fairly big news was made of it, seeing as how their income blitzed even their forecast and set world-wide records.

EA's current assets are worth about five billion United States Dollars and they own just under a fifth of the gaming market.

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/83862/ea-loses-322m-in-october-december-2010-on-revenue-of-1053b/
http://www.vgchartz.com/article/88330/ea-loses-340m-in-the-september-2011-quarter/
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/28/ea-suffers-q2-loss-revenue-propped-up-by-fifa-and-madden/
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:EA

Revenue =/= Profit.

Did you not see the part where they have several billion in the bank, or? Maybe read your own sources?

Lol. I'm fairly certain a company sitting on five billion dollars can afford to go a few years with a couple million in losses. Next Call of Duty comes out and the hoard of "EA SUCKS!" will be drowned out by the cash registers chinging away, lolol.

EA 2012 - EA in profit, $80m on next-gen dev in FY13

EA made a profit last year, the publisher said today, and is now looking forward to heavy investment in next-gen consoles.

Total revenue was $4.14 billion for the year ended March 31, compared to $3.59 billion in the previous year. EA made a profit in the last financial year, with income at $76 million compared to a loss of $276 million in the prior 12 months.

[link]http://www.vg247.com/2012/05/07/ea-2012-mass-effect-3-takes-200m-ea-swings-to-profit/[/link]

 

[Nachtmahr]

I really like EA and never personally understood the hate. They publish great games, some of which I still play and enjoy to this day.

Origin has always worked smoothly for me. Their customer service is polite, efficient and very helpful. When I had a problem with ME3, customer service live chat immediately got the issue resolved, and the guy I chatted with even stuck around to ensure everything worked to my satisfaction. When the chat session was suddenly disconnected I received an email during the same day, asking if the problem I had was resolved. That's what I call proper customer care.

As long as EA continues to exist, I will continue to support them and buy their products. They may not be perfect, but they do their best.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

The one that tries to squeeze every last penny out of the same consumer is not only generally hated, but also spending more than they make.

EA 2012 - EA in profit, $80m on next-gen dev in FY13

EA made a profit last year, the publisher said today, and is now looking forward to heavy investment in next-gen consoles.

Total revenue was $4.14 billion for the year ended March 31, compared to $3.59 billion in the previous year. EA made a profit in the last financial year, with income at $76 million compared to a loss of $276 million in the prior 12 months.

[link]http://www.vg247.com/2012/05/07/ea-2012-mass-effect-3-takes-200m-ea-swings-to-profit/[/link]

Sorry, what?

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Sure they're dicks, but it's not like they're going to ruin gaming, they're nowhere near as bad as that.