And that money paid to the waiters/waitresses must be paid at 20% interest to EA as well.FalloutJack said:
EA: Dungeon Keeper Failed by "Innovating Too Much"
- Thread starter IanDavis
- Start date
Well to be fair, when you make a game as shallow as that it isn't hard to make profit. A lot of mobile games are very easily and cheaply made and make at least some profit. This is why every studio and indie around, just about, has started doing it. Now add ridiculous, draconian, restrictive paywalls and you have yourself and instant money maker. I mean come on, they could find 10 - 15 people that would fork over some cash. It isn't thaaat hard. But I worry that because "profit" is the sole motivation for companies, and they aren't required to have any real standards, these days, that we'll end up with this being the norm. Not because most gamers want it, but because they'll manipulate reviews, media, and other market forces to make it happen.Strazdas said:
Similar to how tape cassettes were replaced by CD. It wasn't because CD was inherently better for the customer. I mean sure it had more space fit to it, but you could record and cheaply buy tape cassettes. They first raised the price of cassettes for no reason, then sales didn't drop. So next they stopped carrying as many tape recorders in stores. Then sales finally dropped, not because people didn't want them but because people were forced to not have access to them. Then CD sales went up because that was the only way to get music for the longest time. Then they said CDs "defeated" tape cassettes. That wasn't the market at work, it was big corporations at work.
If you look in the history of gaming some similar things have happened. Just slightly different. They said we want DLC to be a thing. People didn't buy into it at first (this was around the Dreamcast). Then xbox original did it and barely anyone got on board. Then when 7th generation started a big wave of it was shoved in peoples faces, being told that they were "expanding games lives" and saying that it was "the future of gaming". And then people bought a little more. But then they wanted it all, so they made it a "standard" that every game have 3 - 5 DLCs and features began to be cut from games. But they still tell you your getting more "value" than ever before, although games didn't use to be cut in almost half for DLC. And then Microtransactions got into the mix. And now we have EA saying things like "pay $5 to reload your gun" and "cloud gaming is the future". Cloud gaming being very interesting in that, Sony just came into this saying they wanted something like $5.99 per hour of gameplay for streaming a game to you, I think. And it's $39.99 per 6 months or year, per game.
Yeah it's gonna get ridiculous long before it becomes stable again. Unfortunately these are elitist, capitalist, conquerors of market. They aren't interested in being the best in their field. They're only interested and addicted to the expansion of their power. Likely only their complete and total failure, via a crash or other such event, will stop them from "easing people into worse and worse". Their predators of the market.
Y'know I think EA might have given up any ambitions to *not* be voted the worst company in America (which is ridiculous by the way, there are banks who've been blatantly taking people's houses instead of letting them pay back their loans; but hey... it's the Internet... priorities are different.)
Anyway, I think they're pretty much trolling us now. I mean, seriously. This guy can't really mean what he says?
I'd like to also point out that this week's Jimquisition has been proven correct, yet again, less than five days after it was posted. Maybe Jim really CAN see the future. (Because nobody ever expected someone at EA to put their foot in it.)
Anyway, I think they're pretty much trolling us now. I mean, seriously. This guy can't really mean what he says?
I'd like to also point out that this week's Jimquisition has been proven correct, yet again, less than five days after it was posted. Maybe Jim really CAN see the future. (Because nobody ever expected someone at EA to put their foot in it.)
Dear EA,
"A fool and his money are soon parted" is not innovative, nor is it a business strategy.
Yours,
All of Us
"A fool and his money are soon parted" is not innovative, nor is it a business strategy.
Yours,
All of Us
Well, "innovation" can refer to anything moving forward. In this case I think what they "innovated" was an unprecedented level of cash grabbing, and people weren't just whipped into accepting passivity enough to accept and and fork over their hard earned money for increasingly trivial game advantages. I'd imagine EA is being kind of honest in their statement, you just need to view it the right way, which still makes it pretty absurd and insulting.
That said, the gaming industry seems to be intent on making it so every game is pretty much "pay for everything" so you either need to accept it, or stop gaming. The big question is whether we are addicted enough to support this, without a massive number of people turning on the industry and causing it to crash.
The part that most gets me about this whole thing is how the industry claims people obviously "like DLC" as opposed to endure it despite massive hatred. Ubisoft seems particularly vocal about this, but EA has had it's turn. Largely because gamers, which sadly includes me, have pretty much became trained to realize that if we buy a game we had better check for DLC to make sure we get the whole thing, and when it comes to day #1 DLC, we'll usually buy it as part of the purchase, meaning that the industry has basically found a back door way of raising prices without actually increasing the initial price tag. People don't do this because they like it, its simply because people who want to game have few other options if they want a complete product (and no, most DLC does not count as legitimate "extras" almost all of it is stuff that should be in a game by default) and/or not to be harassed while playing the game, since developers will go out of their way to show what's missing if you haven't bought the DLC (even to the point of famously having an NPC tell you to spend real money to do their quest in Dragon Age: Origins).
The thing with Dungeon Keeper is that it used a big name, and was released by a huge company, while fundamentally doing the same thing as a lot of other companies. For example, recently I decided to try a game called "Astro Lords: The Ooort Cloud" which I heard about through Alienware, it looked decent. It fundamentally turned out to be a prettier version of one of those "build queues" games released by a company like Kabam!, and also one that seemed to make no real bones about harassing you for premium currency right off the bat by showing how you could use it to lower timers (making it clear how obnoxious they will get), and of course telling you that you need 1000 units of currency to upgrade your General's space ship to a "premium version" to really increase their power. I expect this kind of thing from FTP internet games, but not from products carrying those kinds of brand names. It should also be noted that I have nothing against paying money to games I actually play (including a decent empire sim I check in on a few times a day), but there is such a thing as overmarketing and getting too greedy, and it's obnoxious to see this moving into the regular gaming sector as much as it has been.
At the same time though, with the number of casuals willing to spend small fortunes on games like "Candy Crush" I don't expect things to change. That pretty much seemed to be what EA was going for with "Dungeon Keeper Mobile". The big question is whether the casuals will learn and the gaming industry will crash, or if some of the people running these companies will figure "okay, we have enough money" and back off a bit. Games DO need to make money to support themselves and of course turn a profit for their developers, and I'm quite blunt about how you should pay a game, even a "free one" if you keep playing and are having fun. I've sunk a good chunk of money into Cryptic's games for example, and frequently tell people who put hundreds of hours into them and whine that they should probably pay to support something they play that much. However getting people to pay to remove blocks, or slow down timers/pay walls and such is ridiculous. The absolute worst game for this I've tolerated and supported is probably "City Of Steam" love the game (as it's fairly unique) and I have given them some money, but I find it offputting that it is a game that literally has a micro transaction possibility attached to everything in the game.... albeit very few of the things are needed, so it's not as bad as EA or "timer" games but it's annoying when every menu basically has the equivalent of some dude standing
there with a cash register.
That said, the gaming industry seems to be intent on making it so every game is pretty much "pay for everything" so you either need to accept it, or stop gaming. The big question is whether we are addicted enough to support this, without a massive number of people turning on the industry and causing it to crash.
The part that most gets me about this whole thing is how the industry claims people obviously "like DLC" as opposed to endure it despite massive hatred. Ubisoft seems particularly vocal about this, but EA has had it's turn. Largely because gamers, which sadly includes me, have pretty much became trained to realize that if we buy a game we had better check for DLC to make sure we get the whole thing, and when it comes to day #1 DLC, we'll usually buy it as part of the purchase, meaning that the industry has basically found a back door way of raising prices without actually increasing the initial price tag. People don't do this because they like it, its simply because people who want to game have few other options if they want a complete product (and no, most DLC does not count as legitimate "extras" almost all of it is stuff that should be in a game by default) and/or not to be harassed while playing the game, since developers will go out of their way to show what's missing if you haven't bought the DLC (even to the point of famously having an NPC tell you to spend real money to do their quest in Dragon Age: Origins).
The thing with Dungeon Keeper is that it used a big name, and was released by a huge company, while fundamentally doing the same thing as a lot of other companies. For example, recently I decided to try a game called "Astro Lords: The Ooort Cloud" which I heard about through Alienware, it looked decent. It fundamentally turned out to be a prettier version of one of those "build queues" games released by a company like Kabam!, and also one that seemed to make no real bones about harassing you for premium currency right off the bat by showing how you could use it to lower timers (making it clear how obnoxious they will get), and of course telling you that you need 1000 units of currency to upgrade your General's space ship to a "premium version" to really increase their power. I expect this kind of thing from FTP internet games, but not from products carrying those kinds of brand names. It should also be noted that I have nothing against paying money to games I actually play (including a decent empire sim I check in on a few times a day), but there is such a thing as overmarketing and getting too greedy, and it's obnoxious to see this moving into the regular gaming sector as much as it has been.
At the same time though, with the number of casuals willing to spend small fortunes on games like "Candy Crush" I don't expect things to change. That pretty much seemed to be what EA was going for with "Dungeon Keeper Mobile". The big question is whether the casuals will learn and the gaming industry will crash, or if some of the people running these companies will figure "okay, we have enough money" and back off a bit. Games DO need to make money to support themselves and of course turn a profit for their developers, and I'm quite blunt about how you should pay a game, even a "free one" if you keep playing and are having fun. I've sunk a good chunk of money into Cryptic's games for example, and frequently tell people who put hundreds of hours into them and whine that they should probably pay to support something they play that much. However getting people to pay to remove blocks, or slow down timers/pay walls and such is ridiculous. The absolute worst game for this I've tolerated and supported is probably "City Of Steam" love the game (as it's fairly unique) and I have given them some money, but I find it offputting that it is a game that literally has a micro transaction possibility attached to everything in the game.... albeit very few of the things are needed, so it's not as bad as EA or "timer" games but it's annoying when every menu basically has the equivalent of some dude standing
there with a cash register.
To me this is not a laughing manner. I think whenever one of EA's CEO's or PR guys says something like this, then made to either apologize or resign. EA somehow thinks this will make everything better.
Not saying that these people aren't in the wrong for saying it but I refuse to blame just one or two people for the attitude of a major company like EA. The truth is that the joke is on us. I've said it before and I'll say it again. "We as consumers need to stop giving EA money."
Not saying that these people aren't in the wrong for saying it but I refuse to blame just one or two people for the attitude of a major company like EA. The truth is that the joke is on us. I've said it before and I'll say it again. "We as consumers need to stop giving EA money."
Precisely, there's a lot of people laughing at EA in this thread and dropping comments like "they can't be serious" but who's laughing all the way to the bank? Hint: Not us.Magmarock said:
Nothing about this game was innovative. Even in terms of it's "screw the customer over with a pipe wrench" pay wall system was copied from numerous other games. It even wasn't done that well, in terms of "evil money making machine." The magic Candy Crush trick is to get people not to notice how much your spending on removing the paywalls.
That is it, I refuse to buy any more EA games (not that I have ever bought that many to begin wiht) until they stop their idiotic, self destructive, horrible business practices.
Actually, they aren't even innovative in that sense. A lot of games that came before Dungeon Keeper have the same pay walls, the same systems were the whole game is either wait or play, and expecting you to buy on name recognition.Therumancer said:
TL;DW: Star Trek Trexels is not even a free to play game consists of one kind of mission: have various rooms to due "research"(timer) to unlock a planet, then build (timer) and send a probe that scans the planet (timer) that MIGHT unlock one single quick time event cutscene where you press crystals that fly up on the screen, but most of the time just gives you a wall of text explaining how the mission went.
You can also spend "dilithium" crystals to buy premium rooms, probes, and the characters from the original series. You don't, technically, have to pay for the dilithium, but you can only get it VERY rarely in a boring "click the screen" minigame.
Just more proof that Gibeau is a huge idiot. He is the same guy who thought that a mandatory online component in all EA games was a great idea, thereby causing the SimCity fiasco and by extension the cuts made to The Sims 4.
EA could easily solve a lot of their problems just by giving that empty suit the pink slip as quickly as possible.
EA could easily solve a lot of their problems just by giving that empty suit the pink slip as quickly as possible.
To be fair, EA and Ubisoft have been leaders in the industry of completely pissing people off. Just when you think their PR has hit rock bottom, their think-tanks blast themselves a completely new basement.
That being said:
I give DK Mobile three months before they make the "difficult" decision to pull the plug and refund absolutely nobody because they're too busy rolling around naked in a pile of money.
That being said:
The Sims Social, SimCity Social, Pet Society.
I give DK Mobile three months before they make the "difficult" decision to pull the plug and refund absolutely nobody because they're too busy rolling around naked in a pile of money.
A stark, gloomy concrete hall, bits of the walls already crumbling and a section of roof collapsed onto the corpses of a dozen programmers, helplessly chained to the ruin of their workstations. The corpses are fresh, pungent, but haven't been removed - Management considers such expenditures, in this financial climate, to be an excess. Those who survived, the hundreds of starving, emaciated drudges who keep at their work, hopeless and grimly accepting of their fate, continue clacking away at keyboards surrounding the grisly scene.
In the corner sits Management, or rather, floats in an ocean of his own flab. It's a grotesquely obese, naked Donald Trump, whose sunken, pig-like eyes view his employees with suspicion and contempt. Surrounded by a vanguard of rabid copyright lawyers wielding clubs, he is untouchable, and free to fart openly and hurl abuse as well as stones at his employees, squealing in self-satisfaction. He manages to hit an employee in the head, who recoils in pain and pleads again for release. Management shrieks in a shrill, eunuch voice: "SHOW ME THE MONEY!!" A lawyer clubs the poor wretch to a pulp, who dies, spasming.
Dungeon Keeper Mobile is released. People hate it, it doesn't work, it's a total failure. Management snorts at the news, in a flash of rare introspection which strikes his corpulent form with quivers of terror (actual thinking has long ago become like poison to his atrophying mind), causing him to panic briefly. Is my sty to fall? He thinks to himself. Will I no longer be free to act like a spoiled animal in open sight, shoving money into my open maw while my serfs starve and grovel?
He knows what he must do. His hand is raised, slowly, torturously - it's a monumental effort for Management, who lost the ability to even crawl around after the release of The Sims 2. A thousand thousand eyes watch the motion, terrified, knowing what is about to happen. A sausage-like finger unfurls from the balled fist, pointing at a few dozen programmers. Mythic Entertainment, or rather what is left of it after the last purge.
"MONEY!! SHOW ME THE MONEY!!" comes the hoarse, squealing call. The lawyers savagely flood over the programmers, beating, kicking, biting. They die screaming, their still jerking bodies torn apart, manacled arms and pieces of skin flying around. A lawyer takes a severed leg, the bone sticking out of one end, takes a huge bite out of it, and begins to chew, chittering gleefully to himself as the carnage unfolds around him. The bloodbath ends as the last mutilated corpse of the Mythic crew is torn from its restraints, pieces of her still fused to the chair, but mostly just strewn around the blood-slicked floor.
A door opens, and through it flocks another dozen wailing bodies, their eyes vacant, knowing a new eternity of thankless drudgery and eventual execution awaits them. They are chained to the Mythic workstations, none resisting, knowing it is truly futile. The bodies of the previous employees aren't even touched; they will be left to rot as a warning. Through it all, the fat monster in the corner shrieks "SHOW ME THE MONEY!!"
In the corner sits Management, or rather, floats in an ocean of his own flab. It's a grotesquely obese, naked Donald Trump, whose sunken, pig-like eyes view his employees with suspicion and contempt. Surrounded by a vanguard of rabid copyright lawyers wielding clubs, he is untouchable, and free to fart openly and hurl abuse as well as stones at his employees, squealing in self-satisfaction. He manages to hit an employee in the head, who recoils in pain and pleads again for release. Management shrieks in a shrill, eunuch voice: "SHOW ME THE MONEY!!" A lawyer clubs the poor wretch to a pulp, who dies, spasming.
Dungeon Keeper Mobile is released. People hate it, it doesn't work, it's a total failure. Management snorts at the news, in a flash of rare introspection which strikes his corpulent form with quivers of terror (actual thinking has long ago become like poison to his atrophying mind), causing him to panic briefly. Is my sty to fall? He thinks to himself. Will I no longer be free to act like a spoiled animal in open sight, shoving money into my open maw while my serfs starve and grovel?
He knows what he must do. His hand is raised, slowly, torturously - it's a monumental effort for Management, who lost the ability to even crawl around after the release of The Sims 2. A thousand thousand eyes watch the motion, terrified, knowing what is about to happen. A sausage-like finger unfurls from the balled fist, pointing at a few dozen programmers. Mythic Entertainment, or rather what is left of it after the last purge.
"MONEY!! SHOW ME THE MONEY!!" comes the hoarse, squealing call. The lawyers savagely flood over the programmers, beating, kicking, biting. They die screaming, their still jerking bodies torn apart, manacled arms and pieces of skin flying around. A lawyer takes a severed leg, the bone sticking out of one end, takes a huge bite out of it, and begins to chew, chittering gleefully to himself as the carnage unfolds around him. The bloodbath ends as the last mutilated corpse of the Mythic crew is torn from its restraints, pieces of her still fused to the chair, but mostly just strewn around the blood-slicked floor.
A door opens, and through it flocks another dozen wailing bodies, their eyes vacant, knowing a new eternity of thankless drudgery and eventual execution awaits them. They are chained to the Mythic workstations, none resisting, knowing it is truly futile. The bodies of the previous employees aren't even touched; they will be left to rot as a warning. Through it all, the fat monster in the corner shrieks "SHOW ME THE MONEY!!"
Goddamn EA.
That is like saying that Mass Effect 3's endings were innovative, or Battlefield 4's launch was innovative. You cant just fuck up and then blame it on the consumer saying that we "weren't ready". If you stick your fingers into a beloved franchise and then you change one little thing, people are not going to be happy, granted, but if you stick your grubby little fingers into a beloved franchise, fuck it up, and then blame it on the consumer, then everybody is going to hate you.
That is like saying that Mass Effect 3's endings were innovative, or Battlefield 4's launch was innovative. You cant just fuck up and then blame it on the consumer saying that we "weren't ready". If you stick your fingers into a beloved franchise and then you change one little thing, people are not going to be happy, granted, but if you stick your grubby little fingers into a beloved franchise, fuck it up, and then blame it on the consumer, then everybody is going to hate you.
None of you fine people deserve to be exposed to my thoughts regarding Dungeon Keeper.
How do we contact Frank Gibeau?
No, wait. That's exactly what EA wants me to do. Frank Gibeau's entire job exists to shield EA's leadership from ever having to acknowledge, listen to, or deal with its customers.
How do we contact literally anyone else who works at EA?
*speculatively does a few random google searches*
How do we contact Frank Gibeau?
No, wait. That's exactly what EA wants me to do. Frank Gibeau's entire job exists to shield EA's leadership from ever having to acknowledge, listen to, or deal with its customers.
How do we contact literally anyone else who works at EA?
*speculatively does a few random google searches*