EA is not evil.

[Redryhno]

There's a a few things you're overlooking however, such as the fact that EA, while a company interested in making money, seems to me to ONLY be interested in making money. It doesn't matter what they have to do, they'll do it, if a company has a suitably juicy IP, they'll do whatever they can to acquire them and then shut them down after a few million in the pocket. After that, then they threaten their base players that they'll cancel funding for an IP because they didn't sell 50 million copies, when they know it won't happen to begin with. Practices like that are why people call them evil. And they may not always be intentionally evil, but I'd say that ignorance is a far worse type of evil than intentional.

All they see is charts, money signs, and plummeting sales figures indicating them that it's time to cut with the money and run. Then more than a few stories of them blacklisting their employees that leave them with every other place they can get on the phone. Which forces them back into EA's pocket, right where they should be. Fine, you can argue that it's all just a business practice, but if you defend it, then you have lost all respect from me that you've garnered by expressing your opinions, even if I don't agree with them.

 

[gigastar]

Sorry but if "as a corporation, EA needs to make money" is your best argument then im still happy not to give them any.

 

[Warstratigier]

If EA needs to make money, then it needs to do something that makes me want to give it to them. However, it looks like they don't want to do much of that.

 

[LobsterFeng]

Good post, long and filled with good points.

But yeah I'm not a fan of them mainly because of their practices, like online passes. And their new philosophy on single player games doesn't really make me like them either.

And this is probably just personal but I hate their marketing department. But I hate most marketing departments because most marketing stinks anyway.

 

[Smeggs]

No gaming corporation is actually evil.

However, EA is run by dicks.

So, EA, by association, is one massive dick.

Their PR is terrible, they ruin franchises every other Tuesday, they devour other companies like a ravenous beast whose hunger can never be sated.

Because they are greedy.

Not just regular greed, such as Valve, who at least offers us sweet deals for their money, but Ultra-Greed.

The kind that makes them consider the idea of charging per-bullet in the next Battlefield game.

The kind that makes them completely block every single game you bought on Origin for your possible actions in a single one.

The kind that makes people refer to them as Evil.

That is what EA is.

And as soon as they stop treating their consumers like swine, then maybe people will stop calling them evil.

 

[Woodsey]

No, they're just a bit shit and total money-grubbers. There are plenty of companies far less obnoxious than them (see: pretty much everyone else in the industry, bar Activision).

They have a poor reputation because they're a poor company, and "they need to make money" is neither a good argument for how they behave, nor is it for us to worry about.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Evil? No. People who call EA evil with a straight face need a serious reality check over what real 'evil' actually looks like.

There are, however, plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike them.

Yes, they are a for-profit company and they need to make money. That's no skin off my nose. What bothers me is that they seem to be completely clueless about it. They blow vast and entirely unnecessary amounts of money on marketing campaigns (all of which seem to end up completely missing the mark anyway, so they might as well have been going round chucking huge wads of the games budget out of the windows of moving cars), and then, because of that, putting a massive Sword of Damocles over the developers by giving them stupidly unrealistic sales targets (that will not be reached, partly thanks to aforementioned shitty marketing), then shutting down entire franchises at the drop of a hat when they fail to reach said targets.

I also accept that EA can't afford to take as many risks as an indie developer, nor did I ever expect them too. However, that does not mean it's a good move to make every IP they own as homogenised as possible. It's counter-intuitive. If they make everything they own look the same as everything that they're trying to compete with in the market, then their products aren't going to stand out among all the already over-saturated genre's of the medium, nor spark the interest of any demographics that their competitors are not catering for, which would seem to me like the perfect way to one-up your rivals. For example, people who already play Dead Space have no interest in playing a co-op action shooter in the Dead Space franchise, and people who already play co-op action shooters have no interest in jumping on to the Dead Space franchise just for the third installment. Therefore, homogenising Dead Space 3 in order to make it 'appeal to a wider audience' will have exactly the opposite effect, and was a stupid idea.

I don't mind my businessmen being greedy. That comes with the territory. I do mind when my businessmen are incompetent, and that's my problem with EA. They're incompetent.

 

[Bobic]

Calling EA evil is ignorant. EA makes decisions which gives them profit and makes some people hate them. Just like other big companies out there. Evil is about deliberate wrongdoing. EA is run by people who do it for own personal gain. Not admirable, but not evil either.

I disagree. I don't really have much of an opinion on EA, but I'm pretty sure doing stuff for personal gain at the expense of other people is perfectly evil. Can you really turn around to me and say that Bernie Madoff ripping off all of his family and friends for the sake of being rich wasn't evil? Or hell, that Banana company that, when their pesticide of choice was found to be poisonous to their workers and was banned in America, continued to use it in countries other than the USA because it'd cost a bit of cash to swap pesticides (and not irreparably damage their employees), that's pretty evil. Or slavery, that's got to be evil right?

Yes, EA isn't anywhere near that bad. But saying the pursuit of personal gain at the expense of others is never evil seems a bit ridiculous.

Edit: Oh, and to those saying they need to do it to make money, wasn't there a news article on the escapist a while ago saying their stock was falling? It's clearly not working for them, perhaps they should be less daft. (unless of course I made this up to make myself laugh and to be able to make a point.)

 

[clippen05]

I wouldn't say they're amazing, far from it. But there are far worse evils out there (Activision-Blizzard) In fact, they gave me a free AAA game (DA:O) just for having Origin, no other game company besides Valve (Portal 1) has done that.

 

[Syzygy23]

You make good points, but I still dislike the company. Mainly because the constant screwing over of companies, shady practices, Origin, and Online Passes.

By the way, this thread might get a little lengthy...

Captcha: Who makes the total lean product line?
options:
A1 supplements
GNC
The vitamin shoppe
Super Supplements
Vitamin World

How the fuck would I know?

Okay, the way captchas are treating users indicates that I'm supposed to know who has exactly what products if I am to be believed as a human. Something is a bit wrong with that.

Dude, captcha is PUSHING PRODUCTS on you, you didn't find that scary BEFORE?

An OP is wrong on the account of Pandemic. Destroy All Humans! 2 was an improvement over the original in every way, things were looking UP for them if anything else.

You want a good example of why EA is a bad company? Just look at that FUSE game. Before EA got their hands on the studio making it, it was a colorful looking game set in the near future with a sort of campy, james bond style to it. Now it's gritty, brown and realistic.

Look at Dead Space 3. LOOK AT IT.

Look at Mass Effect 3. Rushed ending and a half finished metagame.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

You make good points, but I still dislike the company. Mainly because the constant screwing over of companies, shady practices, Origin, and Online Passes.

By the way, this thread might get a little lengthy...

Captcha: Who makes the total lean product line?
options:
A1 supplements
GNC
The vitamin shoppe
Super Supplements
Vitamin World

How the fuck would I know?

Okay, the way captchas are treating users indicates that I'm supposed to know who has exactly what products if I am to be believed as a human. Something is a bit wrong with that.

Dude, captcha is PUSHING PRODUCTS on you, you didn't find that scary BEFORE?

An OP is wrong on the account of Pandemic. Destroy All Humans! 2 was an improvement over the original in every way, things were looking UP for them if anything else.

You want a good example of why EA is a bad company? Just look at that FUSE game. Before EA got their hands on the studio making it, it was a colorful looking game set in the near future with a sort of campy, james bond style to it. Now it's gritty, brown and realistic.

Look at Dead Space 3. LOOK AT IT.

Look at Mass Effect 3. Rushed ending and a half finished metagame.

What FUSE game? As for Dead Space 3 and Mass Effect 3, I've never played Dead Space at all, and the game's not even out yet, so judging it completely is a bit rash.

And I actually really liked Mass Effect 3. Was it perfect? No. But I enjoyed it greatly. It didn't completely destroy the characters I'd grown to enjoy, and it did everything I expected out of it, which was to complete the story in a suitably epic manner. Which is why I hated the original ending (EC is much improvement, to me), but even then, I didn't say "This game that I've been enjoying for the last 20 odd hours, and the series I've put more than 200 hours into, is now complete crap," either.

 

[Mirroga]

EA might not be evil, but they're the epitome of giant corporations who have a weakness for NEW and CREATIVE things because businesses just hate taking risks. But they're forgetting this gaming is a business who strives on those. Alas, they will never learn that simply because they never lose money by creating endless sequels of their own product.

 

[Agayek]

As for the idea that games produced after EA acquires them being of lower quality, let me point out a few things.

Mass Effect: Metacritic score of 94

Mass Effect 2: Metacritic score of 96

There's my Bioware example. Oh, and despite the hate-on for ME3, it has a Metacritic score of 93. Worst of the series, true, but many developers would be ecstatic over breaking 90.

I'm not gonna get too into this debate, but I will say right here and now that using Metacritic scores to judge the quality of a game is incredibly silly. All it tells you is the critical reception of the game, which in some cases can be rather suspect.

Comparing ME1 and ME2 as objectively as possible, using factors such as story structure/pacing, gameplay mechanics, overall plot, and user friendliness, it becomes pretty clear that ME1 is the better product. The gameplay mechanics are a bit clunkier, but just about everything else (sans the technical details) in ME1 is quite a bit superior to its sequel, especially in the story/plot department.

Literally the only thing ME2 has over ME1 is that the shooting and inventory is more refined.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Of course they aren't "evil", all that Imperial March schtick is just the internet poking fun. Hell, I don't think its healthy to have a genuine seething hatred for a fucking game company that produces a good fraction of the games you buy on a regular basis.

Really, they're just kind of bad at their jobs in terms of managing the games they publish, company direction, public appeal, and marketing. All important aspects of what makes a company, but they aren't intentionally running their studios into the ground. Hell, I'd even believe what you're saying with the studios doing themselves in.

 

[Phlakes]

The biggest thing here is the thing that everyone forgets-

EA publishes games for people to buy. People put down really damn good games like Mass Effect and Dead Space and complain about DLC or whatever, calling EA evil and hoping that the company dies, forgetting that they funded and made available the game that they just played and most likely enjoyed.

Yes, they've made some bad decisions, but those are blinding everyone from EA's actual job.

all that Imperial March schtick is just the internet poking fun.

Go to the Bioware Social Network forums. Find a thread about EA. There's no fun being poked anywhere.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

I was unaware that stating that EA is neither pure good or pure evil was being a senator. Huh.

I wasn't complaining because your post demonstrated moral complexity, I was pointing out that you don't need to defend something if you're denying it. It's not necessarily illogical but it implies a motive, and in this case it's not one I care for.

As for my examples, they weren't intended to be all inclusive, just countering the examples everyone brings up, which are Maxis, Pandemic, Bioware, Bullfrog, and Westwood. Of those five examples, four had already started to decline before EA got involved, and one has not even started declining, either critically or commercially. You can say that Mass Effect 3 sucked and ruined the franchise. You are entitled to your opinion. But by critic scores and sales, it was still a success.

I don't care about sales figures or critics. Try to consider things from the consumer's perspective. Even if I accept your criteria for decline, and even if I accept that those studios were already in decline, the point is EA had the golden goose, however it came about. And they ate it for lunch. If they obtained those companies in the most cutthroat way possible and went on to make great games I would probably be singing EA's praises right now. I didn't say Mass Effect 3 ruined the franchise. I said Mass Effect 2 did.

And you're right, EA making money isn't your problem. But then, no gaming company making money is your problem. As for the "shit games", let's just agree to disagree there. I won't be able to convince you that EA games are, while not original, still very solid games, and you won't be able to convince me that they are pure shit that only sells because people are stupid.

It's not fair to put that insult in my mouth. I'm not afraid to be unreasonably harsh in my criticisms of GAMES but I really don't think I implied anything about the audience. At least nothing more than what is necessarily implied when you say a game is bad. I agree about the rest, though.

I agree with you on the risk taking part, and I'm not totally defending EA trying to play it too safe, because they should take more risks. My only point is to show why they, as a company, are concerned about that.

I am aware I didn't address every single problem people have with EA, and I actually said I realized that in the first post. I felt that the post was too long as it was. Give me a point, and I'll do my best to counteract it. Other than day one/on disk DLC. That is something I do admit EA is at fault for, and I cannot defend that business practice. Although they are far from the only company to do it, but "they are doing it too" is not a valid defense.

Finally, I don't really expect anyone to be able to ban me. That was just a joke put at the end of a ridiculously long post. I should have stated it was a joke, though.

Eh, I can't blame you if your joke flew over my head lol. I may jump in if people start listing other things EA has done but unfortunately I don't have the energy to list them right now. I just thought your title hinted at something a little more comprehensive. Even if I accept your arguments here, the obvious next objection is "what about everything else?"

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

all that Imperial March schtick is just the internet poking fun.

Go to the Bioware Social Network forums. Find a thread about EA. There's no fun being poked anywhere.

Hmmm... "Blood of the damned", huh? I see.

Nah, I kid. From what I'm reading, they seem to treat EA with the same mob-mentality fervor that we carry in our forums. Not exactly dripping with liquid hatred, more like that when that douche who thinks he's cool says another lame joke that makes everyone in the room facepalm. Maybe people are in a good mood today, though I don't doubt that the network was hell on earth after the ME3 debacle.

Still, in regards to any genuine rage that people might have for EA, my response to this type of behavior follows the sentence you quoted.

 

[gim73]

Sorry, your argument is invalid. They are NOT there to make money, there are there to make fucking GAMES. Quality games. Not this Action 52 crap they've been churning out. Anyone who thinks Mass Effect 2 was better than 1 is crazy. Anyone who thinks that Dragon Age 2 was better than the first is drunk.

You know what EA is like? They are like those companies that see a popular movie and then release the video-game tie-in to the movie, only it's rushed and makes no sense. Or worse, a CHILDRENS movie video game tie in, because parents are stupid and know jack shit about what a good game actually is. How many good video game tie in games are there? Think really hard...

It's funny when you see Zynga and EA duking it out, because zynga is essentially EA from the other side. However, if EA had a low quality, highly addicting game, they sure as shit would mark it up to 60 bucks!

 

[Bostur]

All companies are in it for the money, but some are better at providing a quality product or service than others. So as consumers why shouldn't we call them out on it if we are dissatisfied? It's not our responsibility to worry about their profitability.

I don't buy EA games or UBISoft games. I've simply been shafted one too many times. Some people use the term evil for it, thats just a typical internet exaggeration.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

As for the idea that games produced after EA acquires them being of lower quality, let me point out a few things.

Mass Effect: Metacritic score of 94

Mass Effect 2: Metacritic score of 96

There's my Bioware example. Oh, and despite the hate-on for ME3, it has a Metacritic score of 93. Worst of the series, true, but many developers would be ecstatic over breaking 90.

I'm not gonna get too into this debate, but I will say right here and now that using Metacritic scores to judge the quality of a game is incredibly silly. All it tells you is the critical reception of the game, which in some cases can be rather suspect.

Comparing ME1 and ME2 as objectively as possible, using factors such as story structure/pacing, gameplay mechanics, overall plot, and user friendliness, it becomes pretty clear that ME1 is the better product. The gameplay mechanics are a bit clunkier, but just about everything else (sans the technical details) in ME1 is quite a bit superior to its sequel, especially in the story/plot department.

Literally the only thing ME2 has over ME1 is that the shooting and inventory is more refined.

You say that you are comparing them "as objectively as possible", yet I've discovered that plot and story structure are quite subjective. What one person thinks is a great story, another could hate. I've seen it happen many times.

And I'm a bit confused on one thing. You say that the user friendliness and gameplay mechanics are better in ME1 (as you list those in categories to show how ME1 is clearly the better game), but then say that in ME2, the shooting and inventory are more refined, and that the gameplay mechanics are "a bit clunkier" in ME1. Which is it?

And to me, that's not a minor quibble, as I place gameplay above all else in a game. If the game doesn't play well, I can't enjoy it.

Edit: And my point, to anyone who said something similar, is not to convince you to start buying EA games. I understand that you may have problems with them, and that's all right. My entire purpose in this topic is to show that EA is a company that is trying to make money above all else. They aren't good, in the sense of Double Fine who makes games for the sake of making games, but they aren't the bastard offspring of Cthulu and Satan, flipping off gamers with one hand while eating a baby in the other. Which is how I feel a lot of gamers receive EA, judging from the comments on how EA needs to die for the good of the gaming industry on literally every newspost that involves EA.