EA is going to die - and that will improve gaming

[Radelaide]

It's astounding how little people on this website actually know about developing games...

 

[Sansha]

EA isn't evil. EA isn't going to die anytime soon. Now, I know many have said this and I may just be repeating it, but it seems it needs to be engraved in your skull with an icepick! The ENTIRE POINT of a Company is to MAKE MONEY. Now you may not believe this, but EA is making money. They will continue to do whatever they can to make more money.

I'm a businessman myself. I understand EA exists to make money, but that by no means excuses their appalling business practices, especially their customer service.
It doesn't excuse that they treat you like a woolly wallet, and ignore your complaints when their product doesn't work, either by plagues of in-game bugs, inexcusable server issues or the game is simply shite. There's never an excuse to ignore the concerns of your customers, and there's especially no excuse to produce faulty products then tell your purchasers to eat shit.

Refusing to buy games that you would enjoy just because of the company? Stupid. Very stupid. That lowers the chance of that franchise having future installments. It is even worse if it is a special-type of genre like say Horror or Turn-Based Strategy. Have your petty boycott. I will be over here, playing good games and having fun.

You have fun putting up with unacceptable production quality and customer relations time and time and time again. Say what you will, but every time I go to purchase from EA, I just can't. I cannot justify doing business with EA because I know I'll get screwed. Voting with your wallet is the most effective way to make a point against a company, and if it's only money EA cares about, they shan't get it from me.

There are plenty of excellent Valve titles and indie games for me to spend my money on, so I've no shortage of fun. I still play Fallout3 more than any other game. Yeah, it's a pity I can't play BF3 or SimCity, but really SC is tanking hard being a shit enough game on its own, which I put down to again being rushed onto shelves instead of having the time to be developed entirely. Maxis isn't the company that does that. Will Wright is probably sobbing over a bowl of ice-cream over this.

 

[Dryk]

Politics thrives based on popularity where as the corporate world thrives based on money.

And both thrive on public complacency, which we have in spades in all walks of life. As a collective our society accepts outright lies and manipulation from people that have huge amounts of power as a matter of course. We can do better, but apparently we don't want to and I just don't comprehend and can't abide by that mindset, it stifles progress and encourages exploitation.

 

[AD-Stu]

I will concede that the retail PC market is crashing, or rather slowly dying. If you look at a retailer like Best Buy, there is maybe ONE small shelf for PC games. The console games get a wall. If anything, I think this will work in EA's favor.

Not really sure what this proves, other than the fact that PCs have readily available digital distribution systems that mean customers don't have to bother schleping down to a Best Buy to purchase a physical game disc?

 

[Altorin]

I don't think the entire industry will crash because of the internet. As a whole, we know a lot more then we did in 83. Valve's not going anywhere, and with the steam boxes coming down the line, that will just eventually be the way of things

 

[piinyouri]

EA going completely down would not create a video game crash. Would change the landscape drastically (and not all for the better in my opinion) but there are simply too many other companies that can take their place.
Atari didn't have that back in the first crash.

 

[Sansha]

Politics thrives based on popularity where as the corporate world thrives based on money.

And both thrive on public complacency, which we have in spades in all walks of life. As a collective our society accepts outright lies and manipulation from people that have huge amounts of power as a matter of course. We can do better, but apparently we don't want to and I just don't comprehend and can't abide by that mindset, it stifles progress and encourages exploitation.

This is exactly the problem I see. People want gaming to be in a better place than it is, but nobody seems to want to make an effort to do it.

"I'd like the gaming industry to be higher quality... but eeeh, want play games now."

Which results in

"omg this game is shit im totally surprised EA screwed me again"

 

[bug_of_war]

Yeah, yeah, EA is evil, needs to die, etc.
Fact is, I can remember people 'taking a stand' against EA, 'never going to buy any EA games anymore', etc... since around they f-ed over Westwood Studios back in 2003.
That's 10 years by now. 10 years people have been hating on EA, 10 years EA was supposedly soon to die.

EA is not evil. Just because they do morally questionable business practices DOES NOT MAKE THEM EVIL. At no point have they forced me to buy ANYTHING from them I didn't want, and the stupid gamers who get all nancy about a company trying to make money infuriates me. The micro-transactions that everyone was crying about ended up having ZERO, I repeat, ZERO effect on the final product. You could go through Dead Space 3 without ever purchasing anything with real money and still obtain the same weapons albeit at a later point in the game. People are crying about how Maxis has long since been dead, and I agree, but not because of EA, but because Will Wright left. Will Wright was the backbone and soul of Maxis, and when he left their quality in games fell. The people crying about Mass Effect need to nut the fuck up and realise EA did not ruin the story, EA gave Bioware money to make the game, and when they needed an extension to get everything finished EA gave Bioware that extension. EA allowed Bioware to release the EC FOR FREE, EA allowed Bioware to release multiplayer DLC FOR FREE. Sure Origin has so far not been as great as Steam, but that's because Steam has had years to figure out how to get their shit working.

Also, WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT EA TO GO OUT OF BUSINESS? All of their developers would have to find themselves a new publisher, and seeing as how THQ has only just recently gone out of business and sold off as many publishers as it could I highly doubt that many devs under EA would find themselves safely secured. Why are people hoping that other people loose their jobs? It's fucking disgusting to see a community so full of blind hatred that they want to see thousands of people loose their job.

I'm not saying EA is a saint, but they are not evil, they're really not. The are a business that makes business decisions in order to stay in business. They make games, people buy games, they use that money to make more games so that people will buy more games so they make more money so they make more games so they make more money. I'm sorry if people don't get that that is how business works, and that even precious Valve cares more about the money they make than the customer. Are people aware that Valve offers 1 refund in a customers entire life time of using Steam. Yeah, if you buy a faulty game you have to go through a long tedious process to proove that the game is truly faulty and does not work on your equipment to then have Valve say, "Fine, you can have a refund but just this once". I'm not making a case that Valve is evil, I am simply showing that companies are not here because they want nothing more than to please their customers. No, companies want money, and while there are people in the industry who really want to make great games, they want money to do so. And why do they want money to make games? Because they spend years of their time working on products that they should be compensated for seeing as how furniture companies get money for making chairs, beds, TVs, fans, radios, couches etc.

Companies are not a mass of evil, they are a collection of people who work their asses of creating something for their consumers and expect to get paid for doing so.

 

[F-I-D-O]

[spoiler = Quotation]

EA and Sony's stock is lower during the largest recession in 100 years then during the tail end of one of largest economic growth periods in US History? No kidding.

Fans upset about them has had the exact same effect on them as an ant pissing on them. Their stocks have gone down not because fans boycotted or got through to them but because of management decisions causing their stock to decline. Video games make up less than .00001 percent of any given trade in the stock market.

EA as a publically traded company, loses stock every time they acquire a new subsidiary because acquiring video game companies has always been considered a risky venture. It has zero to do with the games themselves and more with the people running the market.

And that negates the idea that the industry could crash... how? So the people in charge of running EA and Sony are responsible for the continued slump in their stock prices? Doesn't that sort of mismanagement make some sort of industry crisis more likely, not less?

Because regardless of what DS3 became, they took a chance with Dead Space 1.

A Resident Evil clone in space?

Because Need for Speed has improved in the last few years.

I'd hope so. Back in the PS2/Xbox era, the games were widely regarded as being terrible. If it's taken until now for them to start getting good again, then what may I ask has taken so fucking long?

Because I will always have a place in my heart for the original Medal of Honor.

A game that's nearly 15 years old?

Because American McGee's Alice series was a big risk.

Really? A platformer game, right when platformers were at their popularity peak, was a big risk? Sure, it was considerably darker than your average fare, but come on. It's hardly like EA put the company on the line for that one game.

Because they had the sheer audacity to, in a shooter filled market, release a throwback to classic RPGs in Dragon's Age.

Sure, because it's not like other retro fantasy RPGs were around, like The Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, Demon's Souls, the Tales series, Dragon Quest, Shin Megami Tensei, Fallout...

Besides, the original Dragon Age was Bioware's baby, and they already had the majority of work done on it by the time EA bought them. Dragon Age 2 is EA's baby, and by god does it show...

Because if they go out of business, thousands if not millions will lose their jobs. Designers with plenty of talent, and a place to work, even if not with complete control, will be put out on the street. A job in the industry that you love is still a nice job to have.

Never liked this argument. A crappy company is not worth keeping round just for its employees. If it goes under, those employees can get together and make a better company in its place. God only knows in EA's case, that wouldn't be hard...

Yeah, EA might be the popular punching bag. Hell, it's not all unjustified. This new SimCity launch was terrible.
But they still sold millions.

That's marketing for you.

And hell, they took the effort to fix it fast, which is more than Parodox ever does.

If by fixing it, you mean take the biggest cluster fuck of a game launch in memory, and drag their fucking feet over actually getting a playable game out of the mess, then yeah, they've made an effort to fix it. If only they'd made a similar effort to prevent the fucking mess in the first place.

Believe it or not, EA aren't trying to fix SimCity out of the kindness of their hearts. They're doing so because it would be illegal to leave gamers with such a broken game. They don't deserve any credit for labouring to make a fucking game playable.

But they've also done great things for the industry.
They've moved the game industry forward, and they've taken money from massive cash cows and invested it in experimental projects.

When was the last time they made a game that wasn't a sequel? Because by my reckoning, it was years ago when they had that brief burst of creativity, and funded Mirror's Edge. Now a whole lot since then.

Are they the greatest thing ever right now? No, but it sure doesn't seem balanced to be cheering on their death because of always on-DRM.

Because complaining online is such an unfair advantage compared to the billions EA have, and the dominant influence they have in the industry. Wait, what?

Note: I hate always online games just as much as everyone. It's consumer hating, and a terrible practice. I don't buy games with it. But NFS:MW had some of the best online integration I've seen in ANY game. I'll keep buying EA games as long as they keep making interesting, quality titles. And EA's showing no signs of stopping.

Because Medal Of Honor: Warfighter was such a bastion of creative quality, right?

[/spoiler]
Quote above, my paragraphs match to his.

I liked Dead Space, but hey, opinions. Mainly because modern RE's could take notes from any of the Dead space games when it comes to building atmosphere.

Improving the IP, even over time, is much better than letting it stagnate forever. At least they took the effort to make it work by moving it between developers (and finding it a home at Criterion). And I was under the impression that the original few NFS games were fairly well regarded. Oh, and they also slowed down the release schedule, instead of killing it in Guitar Hero style. But again, opinions.

Yep, original MoH is old. Nope, I don't care. Did I say it stood the test of time? No, but I'll still remember it fondly through my nostalgia glasses. And then the storming of Normandy in Frontline set the standard for D-Day levels for years.

With Alice, there was a risk it would sell terribly. Specifically with Madness Returns. Yeah, platformers were popular. Last I checked those old platformers didn't have a disembodied cat head following you around. And no, they didn't throw their company under the bus for one game. They took money from the bigger franchises and USED it for experimental projects.

Onwards to Dragon's Age. Yeah, none of those you mention sell Call of Duty or Battlefield levels of copies. And Skyrim, the big RPG seller of this gen, was a bit behind DA:O. Fallout took the shooter path, and while I love the game, it's hardly a Dragon's Age level RPG. Oh, and just to add fuel to the fire, I LIKED Dragon's Age 2. Granted, I liked the story more than the gameplay, but I had fun running through Kirkwall. If only game taste was subjective.

And there's something to be said for the masses of employees under EA's brand. Good luck getting the tester's together to formulate a new EA sized company. Best case the head designers get together and everyone else gets shed like dead weight. Weak argument - save the company for the people, but still a point.

Yep. Marketing. Something a publisher does for it's brands. And that EA usually does well (and failed miserably at with A:MR)

They didn't drag their feet to make it playable, they made the hard call to actually disable parts to get it playable, to give the customer something. And last I checked, those features were coming back on relativly soon, if they weren't already. Should the problem have happened? No, but they reacted to it quickly.
And as I said, that's a hell of a lot better than releasing a game with multiplayer STILL IN BETA which Paradox did with Impire.
Plus, they don't legally have to fix it. They sold the customer a product that technically worked on launch day. The EULA you agree to lets them turn off the servers, and prevents people from suing if the servers are off.

Since Mirror's Edge?
DeathSpank
Warp
Gatling Gears
BulletStorm
Risk Factions (licensed, but still)
Dragon's Age: Origins
Brutal Legend
Dante's Inferno
Shank
Shadows of the Damned
Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning

Not really sure of your complaint with this next bit. I don't like always-online. Never have. I don't buy games with it. But it seems that people always say x publisher should die because of y developer's game due to the DRM used. And that annoys me on a personal level.

Never said Doorfighter was a creative piece of work. Didn't buy it, looked like a worse version of MW (a series I already dislike). I see the joke you're trying to make, but I explicitly said older MoH games. But I liked Dragon's Age. I liked Bulletstorm. I had fun with Shank and DeathSpank. While not exactly genre defying, those were interesting enough to me to warrant my purchase. I will keep buying EA games as long as they make games I find interesting. I don't care about the rest of their catalogue, because I don't play those. The (lack of) quality of Warfighter did not influence Dead Space 3. Because they were different developers.

And that's the key point with the whole publisher thing -> they don't make the games. DEVELOPERS make the games. Publishers have a say, but so do developers. The writer for Dead Space was saying the action push was necessary for the story to evolve.
If you have a complaint about the core gameplay, rage about Maxis or Visceral. Don't ***** about EA.
If you have a complaint about the business side, EA is the target.
I'm not defending their bad calls. I'm simply saying, in this most likely anti-EA thread, that maybe they should be burned at the stake.

 

[Cabisco]

I like them, crucify me. Take EA into your heart. Accept Them as your saviour. Nail me to the f*****g cross and let me be REBORN!

(Not sure why i'm quoting Vaas but it sounded good)

I like EA, a lot. Sure it might be selfish for me to say this but I am a console gamer and they have done nothing bad to me.

In fact over the past decade they have given me many of my favorite games. For such a vile evil company they sure are beating out most other companies for amount of games I love. So they can continue on for all I care because I'm a gamer and I want to play their games. They have the best games.

 

[lacktheknack]

You see, I'm part of this crazy movement.

It's known as "Carrot AND Stick".

I don't buy products that have terrible things done to them (such as SimCity).

But I DO buy products that do the right thing, REGARDLESS of who released them. I boycotted Ubisoft for a good chunk of time, but when they released Rayman: Origins without the horror of Always-Online, I bought it right away. I regret nothing, and Ubisoft gets the point better than boycotting them forever would get across.

 

[Tom Waits' hat]

I swear to god the simple volume of "fuck EA" threads and people is going to make me Pro-EA.

Personally I buy a game if its good, I don't care about the publisher anymore, its not worth my time or effort. If the game is good and doesn't want to skullfuck me I'll lay down the 60 for it, if its okay I'll wait for a sale, if it sucks I'll avoid it.

Are gamers all becoming such drama queens that we need to shout our displeasure about one company so loud that the dead can get annoyed by it?

Well said, that's exactly how I feel about this whole EA thing. I'm not a fan of EA, but I think I dislike people who hates EA more. Just bunch of drama queen, who lose their minds over such a non-issue.

And at the end for what? You won't see a single cents out of it. After 1-2 months of intense internet lynch mob action on EA, everything will stay the same, then it is business as usual until the next EA release.

People just need to realised, it just a video game guys.