EA: Some Gamers Just Don't Like Change

[Atmos Duality]

"Games are turning into 365 days a year live operation experiences," he continued. "And rightly or wrongly we think it's our job to provide reasons every day to go play that game and enjoy that game. Technology is enabling that. Hardware is enabling that. Different game experiences like open world experiences are enabling that, and we're trying to react to what we believe is what gamers want."

What "open world" experiences?
That Galactic Readiness grindfest in Mass Effect 3?
Social gaming?

This shit might have meaning if your company actually sold games that fit that premise on anything other than the loosest definition.

"I can filter out hate, vitriol, rants, it's cool to rag on EA, it's cool to rag on Zynga, it's cool to rag on Bobby Kotick, it's cool to rag on Peter Moore," he added.

Do you know why it's "cool" to rag on you guys?
Because even when you aren't mismanaging your properties and developers, you still don't add anything but "baggage" to the experience.

Whether it's bullshit DRM (Spore), ludicrous legal stipulations (Origin's EULA), increased emphasis on DLC over main content (you went on the record saying you would charge players for bullets if you thought you could get away with it) or grotesque mismanagement (virtually every developer you've bought out and destroyed), your company's involvement tends to WORSEN the resulting product.

You might have even been vindicated of the haters ragging on you if your company had only recently started pulling this shit. But no, EA has been doing this for over a decade now. You were given a chance to change and do better. But instead your company continues to act like it owns the goddamned gaming business, even as it continues to fall.

You don't have a monopoly EA. You aren't King. So for once, stop pretending that these complaints are just idle haters, and address your obvious issues.

At the very least, stop SAYING you're great when you aren't.

"But the vast majority of people do, and are certainly connected. And then if you go multiplayer, I like to think most games that enhances the experience. But there are some guys who just want things never to change."

It isn't about a few gamers not liking multiplayer (and why should they complain unless the multiplayer was mandatory?), it's about taking games that are, by their nature, TRYING TO ESTABLISH A SPECIFIC MOOD AND TONE, and tacking multiplayer onto them so you can extend their playtime artificially.

"CoD4.x succeeds almost entirely because of its multiplayer, ergo ALL of our games need multiplayer! BUSINESS LOGIC!"

Adding multiplayer to something like Dead Space is stupid, because those are supposedly HORROR GAMES.
Isolation and tension is a core part of horror psychology. Nothing is scary when you break that tension.

Shoehorning multiplayer into every game in this manner is akin to throwing a cake across the room to someone when they ask for some. Sure, the cake technically arrives at its destination, but it's going to make a mess; which is just a waste of otherwise good cake.

 

[Scrustle]

People don't like change. Therefore, any criticism of any change is invalid!

 

[Blunderboy]

EA having shitty PR and the public telling them they are evil while neither side gets anywhere

But at least nothing is changing. Man I hate change. I wish change had a face so I could punch it.

 

[A Username Not In Use]

Moore's right I do fear change.

I'm terrified that one day EA will not release a new (insert favorite sports governing body where applicable) game for me to to buy because EA decided that it would be better to not spend all those millions getting sports licences, followed by millions more to make the same game every bloody year, instead spending all that money to make the sort of decent gmes they used to produce.

How can anyone live with this sort of fear.

 

[Tradjus]

I'm reminded of Officer Barbrady from South Park.
"Nothing to see here people, move along."
You know, I had sort of assumed that E.A talking heads couldn't possibly behave in a more asinine fashion than they already had, but again they've proven me wrong, well done.

 

[Mr. F]

anc[is]

Yeah, the difference was we never got the DLC in the first place.

Give me one good reason that having extra gameplay available for purchase is somehow worse than not being able to get that gameplay under any circumstances.

No, don't go into your fantasy about how if DLC wasn't a thing, developers would have totally included the content just for kicks, stick with reality.

Except we did, they were called expansion packs. It was a good time, when we got more than cheat codes or skin packs for our money. I even hear tales of when map packs were not called map packs, they were just new maps, and they were free.

I don 't recall GTA III, Fallout 2, Spider-Man or KOTOR ever offering expansion packs. Meanwhile the series that actually did offer DLC? Starcraft, The Sims, those gmaes? What a fucking coincidence, they have expansion packs that are still $40 a pop, same as they've always been.


Swing and a miss.

Got anything else?

I bought WC3 years ago. Around release. I bought The Frozen Throne when it was released. Since then I have not spent a penny.

Dozens of maps were handed out free. Entire free campaigns were handed out, again not a penny spent. Hours of gameplay. Free.

When people state that DLC is a bunch of bullshit they are not talking about all DLC. It annoys me when people like you try and state as much. You USED to get free shit. Warcraft is just one example.

If Diablo 2 had been released in the last 2 years the expansion pack would not have existed. It would have been split into the "Lord of Destruction Quest Pack", the "Lord of Destruction Item Pack" etc etc, each item being split off and sold for more then the price of the original expansion.

That is what pisses people off.

Not DLC like "The Pitt" (Looking at you Fallout 3, One of the best examples of DLC that there is) but weapon packs for 4 bucks, map packs for however much morons pay for those things. Back in the day that stuff was just added along with patches, more maps, more weapons, tweaks, shit like that. Now it gets sold off half baked as DLC. True, the DLC costs less than an expansion pack. But it contains far less and companies now expect us to pay for things we got for free.

You want to know why people hate DLC?

Go buy some old games. Like Warcraft. Play them through then download the patches and try and count all the free shit. Try the same with 1942 (Which, admittedly, did start the trend towards "Utterly Pointless Expansion Packs").

Gamers do not MIND paying for DECENT DLC. DLC that plays out more like small expansions (The Pitt, Mothership Zeta, Point Lookout etc) but they DO mind being told to pay for maps, cosmetic shit, horse armour, weapon packs, you know, the shit we used to get in patches.

 

[lancar]

Let's see.. there was a quote I heard somewhere...
Ah, here it is.

?If you want to make enemies, try to change something.?
- Woodrow T. Wilson (American 28th President of the United States 1856-1924)

While this Moore fellow is completely correct in that gamers generally dislike change, this is nothing new for mankind at large. We generally dislike change in all their forms, no matter the subject, and games is no exception.
But I find that computer and other tech folks are usually more accepting of changes than others due to the rapidly changing environment we've grown up in.

The idea that all the vitriol against EA is solely because of them promoting change is ludicrous.
We hate them for reducing variety into the lowest common denominator to sell more. We hate them for stifling creativity and blaming the developers when shit goes wrong. We hate them for making increasingly steep demands of the consumer to follow their every whim so they can wring more money out of us while still keeping all the ownership of the product themselves.

We hate them for being EA.

Because if they don't respect us, why should we respect them?

 

[Treblaine]

Oh, no. We like change. We like what Valve is doing, frequent high value sales, integrated support, major updated free-to-play games with a hat-based economy, indie

EA, we just don't like you! The "it's cool to hate EA" just shows how out of touch they are, like some old jerk thinking they don't have any genuine concerns but are just "trying to be cool".

The problem is EA did not see online as an opportunity to bring something better to your customers, but saw online as a chance to fuck over their customers to impress the stockholders.

Valve saw the internet as a chance to roll out a constant stream of updates making a 2007 game feel fresher than ever, new maps and weapons for Left 4 Dead, integrate user made mods into the game client.

EA saw the internet as a chance to shill the player constantly, nickle and diming them all along the way by chopping up a story and selling it to you piece by piece. To lock everything down and spy on their customers. A browser launch does NOTHING but serve to control, it doesn't GIVE anything. Look at Steam's community update, they are convincing and persuading you to STAY with Steam because it is a BENEFIT.

The investors in Valve are the players.

The investors in EA are greedy bankers.

 

[weirdee]

to make it clear, i'm okay with paying for added content, but i only pay what it's worth, and not more than that

 

[NiPah]

Dear EA,
My major grievances with your company is not change, I may disagree with where you stand on necessity of multiplayer and the dumbing down of core gameplay, but this is not why I'm angry with you. My major grievance is your online service and the seemingly ease at which people can be permanently banned from their game library, and I'm also not happy with several of my favorite studios folding while under your wing. My issues with you have not kept me from enjoying your fine games, but it has kept me from purchasing them over PC on your Origin service.

Sincerely a random gamer you'll never hear

PS. stop with this "we know why you hate us" nonsense, you've gotten it wrong every time in the past and the future does not look bright.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

By that logic, you should hate Steam, because you don't own your Steam games. Which is why Steam can take your games away if you don't agree to the new TOS. The games are not your property.
And I don't think this is a bad thing. This is the future.

You don't own the game even if you have a physical copy. Unless its from like the 80s or very early 90s, most TOSes say that while you own the physical disc, you do not actually own the game but are merely leasing it from the company for a one time payment. This is mainly to protect them legally from your tinkering with and reverse engineering code.

 

[Signa]

-Horrible Attempt at Proof-

May I join you in this laugh?


Hit the benches, Fooly-Cooly, before you hurt yourself.

You guys mind if I join in to?

count me in.


Never once did I think that GTA III was lacking because it didn't offer weapon packs, vehicle packs, or even an extra island. I might have been grateful for an extra island expansion pack, but that is not an argument for the benefits of DLC.

 

[Aeonknight]

Dear EA,
My major grievances with your company is not change, I may disagree with where you stand on necessity of multiplayer and the dumbing down of core gameplay, but this is not why I'm angry with you. My major grievance is your online service and the seemingly ease at which people can be permanently banned from their game library, and I'm also not happy with several of my favorite studios folding while under your wing. My issues with you have not kept me from enjoying your fine games, but it has kept me from purchasing them over PC on your Origin service.

Sincerely a random gamer you'll never hear

PS. stop with this "we know why you hate us" nonsense, you've gotten it wrong every time in the past and the future does not look bright.

how easily it is to be banned? It was a one time incident that someone got very, very loud about, and now you parade it as the norm.

And really, you should know that the exact same thing happens even with Steam. You can google a few stories if you want.

 

[undeadexistentialist]

For better or worse, I may as well throw my opinion out there too. Just fyi, my sense of the time period in which this has been occurring may be off (not being sarcastic) in which case this isn't such a good thought, but here it is for your perusal anyway.

Yes, "people fear change" is a valid point. They do fear change, this has been proven historically I don't know how many times. But here's the thing. While it may be true, it's only relevant so long as you are using in reply to PROPOSED changes. And most of the things people complain about you, EA? They aren't new. Sure, they're different from how things were in 'the good old days', but that doesn't mean they're NEW. We probably complained about the changes before they occurred; we're like that. And then they happened. And we kept complaining, and they kept happening.

You may bring out our complaints about proposed things such as the direction, say, Dead Space 3 (for example) is going. But from what I've heard, it's not change. Yes, you're changing it to something new for the series. Well done. What are you changing it to? The formula you use on so many other games. A formula we were complaining about before you suggested changing even more games to it.

My two cents

 

[teqrevisited]

If change is what they meant when they brutally raped Command & Conquer then as far as I'm concerned they can burn to the ground. I wont miss them.

 

[odBilal]

...Then a tiny insignificant portion of that money goes toward actually paying the creative people who worked on the game...

But isnt giving the developer an "insignificant portion of money" better than not giving them anything? If you buy it new the publisher gets most of the money, if you buy it used Gamestop gets all the money. If you want to go around this I guess you'd have to pirate the game and put the money in the developers mailbox. (not advocating piracy!)

 

[NLS]

"I think people are worried gaming is going in a different direction than they were used to with N64, Sega Mega Drive, PlayStation and PlayStation 2," he said. "Everything was dominated by consoles. Pretty much everything was offline. You bought the game. You owned the game. You sat down. You owned the game. And you played the game until you got tired of the game. And you owned the game. It was all on the disc. That you owned."

There, I fixed that quote for you, Mr. Moore.

You're welcome.

It's not that gamers "fear change" it's that they fear donkey-helmets like you trying to rip them off, which you seem to be doing more and more often these days.

Seems like you should be railing harder against Steam than anything EA does on this front.

True, Valve's been practicing "service, not product" for 9 years now. I'm no super-fan of EA, but people need to chill down a couple of levels every time they see that name.

 

[GoddyofAus]

We dislike change, but we dislike dickheads even more.