EA is not evil.

[Dryk]

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.

I thought this too, so I looked it up

The forces/behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good. Evil generally seeks own benefit at the expense of others and is based on general malevolence.


Intending to harm; malevolent.
Morally corrupt.
Unpleasant.

profoundly immoral and wicked

I can think of many many worse companies, as apparently being willing to harvest your children's kidneys for five bucks is a prerequisite once your company grows to a certain size. But it still fits from where I stand.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

snip

Also, you've been consistently ignoring this flaw in your argument so i'm going to bring it up until it is addressed:


Being a corporation and having to make money does NOT in any way justify poor, vile, amoral business practices.

It doesn't justify amoral and vile business practices, I agree. However, I have yet to see EA actually do anything amoral or vile. You can argue about SecuROM, but they backed down on that very quickly when consumers turned on them. The multiple companies shutting down when they stop making money is, well, business. You don't put money into a studio that you are not getting money out of.

Any other vile or amoral business acts? Wait, forgot a few. Project Ten Dollar, an attempt to convince game buyers to buy games new with incentives, because they don't make money off of used games sales. Again, makes sense from a business incentive. Day One DLC? OK, that one is a little..iffy, but it's not amoral to hold back minor parts of the game in order to get more money. It's not nice, but it's not evil. Now, if it was something major, like the ending, that would be a stronger case, because that is basically scalping. Anything I forgot to mention?

 

[Bobic]

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.

I thought this too, so I looked it up

The forces/behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good. Evil generally seeks own benefit at the expense of others and is based on general malevolence.


Intending to harm; malevolent.
Morally corrupt.
Unpleasant.

profoundly immoral and wicked

I can think of many many worse companies, as apparently being willing to harvest your children's kidneys for five bucks is a prerequisite once your company grows to a certain size. But it still fits from where I stand.

Huzzah, the dictionary's got my back.

Thank you.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Remember that time in 2004 when EA was sued after the EA spouse incident? And they settled out of court for $15.6 million? Because one of the arguments was, with the wages paid, the workers were essentially paid slaves wages?

Good times. Totally a hallmark of an on the level, not evil company. But so long as they're a company, they need to make money right? Who cares if they don't pay their employees enough, or force them to work 110 hour weeks for months on end; it's just business. Apparently, that justified any and all actions on a moral level.

Why, we should just let the diamond trade in Africa go on as it is! Those mine owners are just out to make money for their companies.

OK, that...is a good case of a company doing something amoral, and getting punished for it. And you haven't heard of EA doing it again, because they know they can't. They know they'd get punished for it. I'm not defending actions like that. What I'm defending is people saying EA is evil because the give incentives to buy games new rather than used that gamers feel should be part of the game.

And comparing EA to the diamond market in Africa is sickening. As far as I know, EA isn't working people to death in a mine to make games, and hasn't killed anyone to prevent them from switching to a rival company. That is what I mean when I say "EA isn't evil". Not that they are good and righteous, or have never done anything bad, but they aren't fucking Bond villains.

 

[hawkeye52]

snip

Thanks mate got that copy pasted into a notepad on my comp in case I want to use it

 

[cerebus23]

I hate them because i have had to try to deal with their customer service over the years.

I hate them because i saw how they started to ruin games, watched as they ripped features out of games to resell them later, spit on the people that pay their wages, treat actual developers like crap, gut studios on a whim even with a top selling game out, so on and so on.

If you love getting fleeced more power to you. EA is a souless corporation run by someone who could not give a shit about games or gamers just how much he can bleed out of you all. Backed by a board that their main concern is how much money they can make, backed by shareholders that mainly like to see their investments go up.

Thank god for kickstarter and open source consoles, there are so many alternative means to make games and share games, and support games we like, it really may be a new golden age of games again, because as long as these mega publishers exist only to bleed you, then we all get skrewed, no matter if we love hate or feel completely indifferent.

Bottom line when money is the most important thing and the only thing that matters, that is evil, would go along the 7 deadlies of greed and gluttony quite possibly. So yes even if you say well they only a company and their main purpose in life is to make money when that is their only and sole purpose that is evil.

The best games have always been made by people that loved the game they were working on, where they put their heart and souls into what they were making, and gave us classics that lasted years, even the EA of old made games like that. Now days it just the most common generic baseline crap they can get aways with and then see how they can nickle and dime you and expansion pack you to death with stuff that back in the day would have been in the full game to begin with.

Just study the sims and its history to see what EA thinks of their loyal customers. Or reach back even further and EA sports which pioneered the recycled feature rebranding crap.

The idea that anyone can be actively pro EA is mind boggling to me because they do nothing for the industry, nothing at all, neither does activision the whole of the industry would be better of if they both collapsed overnight.

All those ips all those developers out there to reorganize and merge into new companies, some would be so awesome as to be mind blowing, then we would get a few decades of great games again until the next EA Activision mega corps manage to absorb, destroy, everyone else and then focus on fing over the consumers again.

 

[Madkipz]

Second point: Closing down studios.

I love this one. Apparently, EA is a vampire that sucks great studios dry, and casts their corpses aside in search for new blood. This ignores a few things. First, how can EA buy a studio that doesn't want the help? They can't.

Ok, first thing: There is another reason companies merge: because they realise they will be stronger if they combine their assets. Look at Activision Blizzard, the result of a merger between two successful companies and five years later they're both doing fantastic. Some of EA's buyouts didn't last two years!
This is an important point, because some of the companies merged into EA did so to take advantage of working within a larger company, and found themselves suffocated.

So, let's take an adventure into the seedy underworld of EA's corporate buyouts!

I'm using hidden text to centre this gif!

We'll start with exhibit A, otherwise known as Origin Systems: Founded by now well-respected game designer Richard Gariott. one of the first EA buyouts, and one of the worst. You are right in saying that they did end up in financial difficulty, and had to either sell to EA or go bankrupt, but what you may not know is that EA put them there. With frivolous lawsuits and corporate bullying they wore them down until they were in debt, and had to settle. Then EA bought them out, and the founder of EA when asked about the tactics they used to aquire it said "This is just business. This is the way we're going to win."

Let's move on to exhibit B, Westwood Studios.

Westwood had 7% of the videogame market share at the time they were bought out, EA had 11%. They were not a floundering company, they were highly successful and doing very very well. In fact they were halfway through the next C&C game. The reason for the buyout lies in money. $122.5 million in cash to be exact, which was what the owners of Westwood were paid by EA for their company. It was a quick money grab, and many of Westwood's employees registered their personal feelings about being betrayed by the owners, and most of them quit their jobs in protest.
What happened to the "awesome C&C" game they were in the middle of developing after EA bought them?

Electronic Arts, who had acquired Westwood Studios in 1998 and published Tiberian Sun, and had no direct part in its development, pushed for Tiberian Sun's release ahead of schedule, resulting in a number of engine and gameplay features being omitted from the game, some of which were later included in Firestorm expansion pack.

Rushed deadlines and putting features meant for the main game in an expensive extra content pack? Start as you mean to go on, I suppose.

And now for Exhibit C, I refer, Your Honour, to the joint acquisition of Bioware/Pandemic, and this juicy tale of corruption runs right the way to the top of the house!

Pandemic were partnered with Bioware, due to them being owned by the same private equity fund (V.G Holdings). By the way, this is another perfect example of two companies merging not because one is on deaths door, but because they realise they can do better together, and it worked really well! Until...

A certain man by the name of John Riccitiello became CEO of EA. He had a very impressive C.V., including working in Haagen Dazs, several previous upper management positions in EA, and co-founding a company called Elevation Partners.

Hold on to your ass, because things are about to get corporate.

Elevation Partners was a large Investment firm, meaning it held a lot of private businesses. Among these businesses was a certain "V.G Holdings". Yes, the same V.G. Holdings that ran Bioware/Pandemic. One of the first acts John made when he became CEO of EA was to buy VG Holdings for $620 million. This gave EA two top quality companies that were just exploding onto the videogame scene.
However, John still held a huge personal interest in Elevation Partners, and so he personally pocketed a $5 million personal bonus by Elevation Partners through his official role there for the merger.

What happened after EA had bought the two companies? Bioware did well... for a while. Now the team that made fantastic singleplayer RPGs are stuck perpetually maintaining a failing MMO loosely based on one of their most successful IPs. Pandemic are... dead. Because EA didn't really have a plan for them.
They lasted one year and a month. How does a company get canned so quickly, especially one that creates such a long term product as a videogame? The Duke Nukem Forever developers lasted ten times as long and they weren't even doing any work!
It's because EA never had a plan for Pandemic, they never had any games reserved for them to make, and they didn't bother to use their talents or name. They didn't factor into EA's business plan, and were canned at the first excuse.
The reason for the merger was John Riccitiello's 5 million dollar handshake, and you know what? For that amount of money you can't really blame him.

"Dear god. An informed consumer."

 

[Andy Shandy]

No, they're not evil. But some of their business practices sure as hell don't endear themselves to the average gamer.

 

[-|-]

I like EA too. They've published some good stuff. I liked DA:O and DAII, Dead space, ME, Crysis 2 etc.

I know they are evil cos people say business practices or some shit like that. But you know what? I really cgaff.

 

[DeimosMasque]

My personal two-cents on this (Warning I only read the first page so if I restate something others have said I apologize.)

EA is not evil. But then I don't think any modern corporation is evil. Short-sighted? Yes. Impatient? Yes. Uncaring? YES!

The sad thing is that EA was started by people who had a real passion for games and wanted to make them. But they were good at making games. Thus, they made a lot of money. Thus, they expanded. As such, the original creators of the company moved away from leadership positions. Then EA became more headed by businessmen rather game lovers.

This has and always will happen. For every three Nintendos: that was, until recently, run by a game lover... you'll get an EA.

One day, it will become about making money, rather than making games. If Westwood, Bioware, Bullfrog etc. etc. etc. were not bought out (BTW despite what people have said on the first page, buy outs need to be approved by the owners or the stockholders meaning it wasn't just EA swooping in and eating them. EA hasn't, to my knowledge, done a hostile takeover.) they would have eventually become similar to EA.

Proof in the pudding is Sierra Games. Sierra was formed by a husband/wife team that just loved writing and games. They made some of the most recognizable point-n-click games of a generation. King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory and Colonel's Bequest.

Okay no one remembers Colonel's Bequest... but I was making a "Quest" joke there.

They took risks with games like Leisure Suit Larry, Gabriel Knight, Phantasmagoria.

They bought up companies like Dynamix and Coktel Vision and Impressions Games. They helped them produce games as well.

And then they were bought out themselves. They did exactly the same thing as EA and they failed at it.

EA has succeeded.

And yes, Online Passes, DMR, Season Passes, etc. they are all mostly bullcrap. But those are recent additions (well not DMR but you get me)

BECAUSE of EA we got games like The Sims (1 and 2 were awesome... 3... less then awesome), System Shock 2, Ultima Online (the prototype for MMOs!), Mass Effect 2 and 3 (ignore the ending controversy and accept that it was a great game), American McGee's Alice and Alice: Madness Returns, Dead Space, Dante's Inferno... and more.

Those games would not exist without EA.

And that is why the EA hate makes no sense to me. It's honestly as stupid as hating Disney for buying Marvel and then complaining that Avengers was awesome.

 

[tautologico]

Remember that time in 2004 when EA was sued after the EA spouse incident? And they settled out of court for $15.6 million? Because one of the arguments was, with the wages paid, the workers were essentially paid slaves wages?

Good times. Totally a hallmark of an on the level, not evil company. But so long as they're a company, they need to make money right? Who cares if they don't pay their employees enough, or force them to work 110 hour weeks for months on end; it's just business. Apparently, that justified any and all actions on a moral level.

Why, we should just let the diamond trade in Africa go on as it is! Those mine owners are just out to make money for their companies.

That's ignoring the fact that most game companies work just like this, even today. This does not mean that we should think it's ok, but EA is not alone in this and very few companies operate without the crunches. The games you most love and cherish in your life? Probably 90% or more of them were created in this kind of work environment.

 

[DeimosMasque]

(ignore the ending controversy and accept that it was a great game)

Okay I know you're trying to make a point beyond this, i'm not trying to pull a Boudica here, but this right here bothers me. It's like saying "Ignore that the car has a busted broken engine and accept that it's a good car!"

I guess I'm saying it more because the ending never bothered me that much. And the EC solved it all for me.

It's like saying last Tuesday was great, except for that I overdrafted my account. It's a big deal but a minor deal in regards to what it means as a whole.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

By the way, I just wanted to drop in a post thanking you guys. Even if you disagreed with my points, you kept it mostly civil. Only two people actually attacked me directly, which was a lot fewer than I expected. So, good job, Escapist.

 

[ATRAYA]

I'm pretty sure it's easy to buy out any company with enough money.
See, because above ALL of the hardworking grunts that make the great products, there are the crafty, rhetorical people that string them along with financing, marketing, and all the other goodies that reality demands. They usually hold most, if not ALL the rights to the studio/manufacturer/business, and are pretty much only in it for the money, but because they DON'T have shareholders to deal with, they let the workers take risks and experiment, usually netting them a profit, one way or the other.
What E.A. does is swoop in, promise the guy(s) holding the rights a shit-ton of money, then assume the "throne" as it were. This would be fine if not for two new factors; shareholders are ALWAYS bad for business because they only want GUARANTEED success - anything less is considered failure - and E.A. can't direct a company worth SHIT.
Then they milk day-one D.L.C., I.P.s, and anything they can get their hands on until whatever studio they've bankrolled dries up, sometimes using said company's battered corpse as a meat-shield to defend against the onslaught of attacking fans.

Sorry, but both E.A. and Activision are still the top two on my boycott list, followed by McDonalds.

 

[ATRAYA]

ITT: A corporation that fucks us over is okay because it needs to make money. It's not like there are ones that fuck us over less and still make fat cheddar cheese.

Which corporations do? Surely you don't mean Valve, who has a clause in their Steam TOS that they can shut down your account at any time, for any reason, and recently put in a clause that states you cannot file a class-action lawsuit, right?

That's my point. A lot of what people hold against EA, other corporations do, but because those other corporations aren't EA, they get a pass. For example, when the stuff I just mentioned was revealed/pointed out, they just shrugged and moved on. In the case of the first, it was "well, that's just how digital distributors work, it's standard". For the latter, it was "well, were you planning to file a class action lawsuit against them?"

But when EA revealed that they would close down your Origin account if it was inactive for two years, people flipped out, talking about how EA had no right to do that. Can you see the double standard there?

Just had to stop by and point out that you can always, always, ALWAYS, under any circumstances, through any number of signatures or agreements, file a lawsuit. You have that right under both Canadian and U.S. law. Companies simply put that in to try and quell those who don't know the law, and will simply think themselves defeated.

*Ahem* Now that that is said; Bookworm, AWAAAAAY!

 

[tautologico]

There are objective rules of storytelling and literature that have been developed and furthered over the last 5,000 years, and both ME1 and ME2 follow one of the most common archetypes (coined as "The Hero's Journey" by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces). Using the rules and patterns laid out for such stories, ME1 is objectively better, insofar as a story can be.

I don't think ME2 tries to follow the Hero's Journey. At all. Where are the elements of the Hero's journey in ME2? ME1 has a kinda-serviceable story, and its biggest problem is, actually, the already tired and old Bioware cliché of having to follow the Hero's Journey. There are many possible and good ways to structure a story and it doesn't have to follow the Hero's Journey all the time.

Edit: Just for an example of the kind of discrepancy that I'm talking about in the quality of the story, when you look at ME1, you have a damn near perfect hero's journey, taking Shepard from ordinary dude to galactic savior. When you look at ME2, you have the protagonist murdered in the first 2 minutes. This is bad storytelling.

Here you seem to imply that how well a story follows the Hero's Journey is, somehow, an "objective" measure of how good a story is? I'm sorry, but this is completely bonkers. If anything, "adherence to the Hero's Journey" can be a sign of poor writing. Film Crit Hulk, a critic I love even though he writes in all-caps and Hulkspeak, wrote a great piece about our current over-reliance on the Hero's Journey as a way to create new stories [https://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/tag/the-epic-of-gilgamesh/]. Campbell was writing about the patterns he saw in existing legends and stories as a way to analyze human cultures, he never tried to make it a prescription on how to write stories. As Hulk says, it's one of the most popular "paint-by-numbers" storytelling schemes we use today. He even cites ME1 (and many other Bioware games) in his piece.

Killing the protagonist is a plot device used to accomplish one or more of a handful of things:

1) Raise the stakes
2) Introduce a new protagonist
3) An example of how depraved the antagonist is
4) Start making extreme changes in how the story is told

I don't like Shepard dying very much, but it does impose some interesting consequences, the biggest of which is that now Shepard's indebted to Cerberus and must work for them. I think ME2 could have explored this better, but they actually used his death to do something which would be very hard to swallow otherwise.

All in all, I don't think Bioware ever wrote really great stories in terms of plots, though of course some were a bit better than others. Their strength is in the characters, some good dialogue (along with some bad dialogue too), and, in the case of Mass Effect, I think it's a good setting. I wouldn't try to say that ME1's story is "objectively better" than ME2, especially not using the Hero's Journey as some kind of metric. But ME1 has a simpler, more well-rounded story than the other 2, even if utterly unoriginal. That's not a surprise, given that Bioware was doing the Hero's Journey over and over for a good number of years when they made ME1. When they try to go outside the structure of the Hero's Journey, things break down, which just proves how bad they are at story writing.

It's no surprise KOTOR2 has a much more interesting story than the first one.