EA: Some Gamers Just Don't Like Change

[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.

 

[Durgiun]

Never buy any new game published by a public corporation. Borrow it, rent it, get it used. Remember for every EA game you buy new the vast majority of the money you spend is going toward financing this guy, and the other executives and board members' lavish lifestyles. And another large part is going toward major stockholders many of which are hedge funds which are also mostly owned by other super rich dudes.

Then a tiny insignificant portion of that money goes toward actually paying the creative people who worked on the game, and the reality is the SOP for most publishers is to gut non "celebrity" studios after a game is released and also try to weasel out of contractually obligated bonuses and residuals.

Better spend your money on independent games, contribute to kickstarters, or add an extra couple of dollars to the humble bundle, or buy some friend's kid a copy of minecraft.

EA, Activision and corporate gaming can't crash and burn fast enough.

Pretty much the logic I used for when I decided to never buy an EA product ever again.

 

[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.

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.

No, it was multiple incidents that I've read about from various sources, and no they weren't all about the "single instance" but a myriad of instances, each followed by poor automated customer service. Thank you for bringing Steam into the picture, since you mentioned it no I haven't read a single story of them banning every user associated with the computer of a banned user, nor have I heard them perma banning a player for quoting offensive words on a blog.

I stated originally that it was seemingly easy to be permanently banned from their game library, I did not as you say "parade it as the norm", all EA has to do is show me that steps have been taken to make sure another user won't be banned in the same way and I'd be happy. Instead I get EA being rather presumptuous stating that I'm afraid of change, all the while sounding very much like a prick.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

"It's cool to rag on EA"

Is it? Really?

Well no one told me, but I guess nothing will change anyway.

Also, I fear change sure, but if you just released a fucking demo for your games I'd be more willing to give them a try rather than spending £40-£45 on it. I fear wasting money more than anything, and seeing as EA is the best at taking money, I fear them the most.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

You know what given EA's stock values lately, if was a EA investor I'd be dragging Peter Moore into the office to tell him to keep his bloody mouth shut.

Gamers do like change, Activision would still make Guitar Hero games if didn't. What we don't like is being ripped off with "services" provided when we want to buy products.

EDIT

Wait I got one! Well looking at EA's yearly release schedule, they don't like change either

 

[Avalanche91]

you know EA, releasing a statement every week saying that it's not your fault but that we simply don't understand will not make us suddenly join hands and realize what fools we've been for not giving you our every penny.

Edit: Also; it's cool to hate EA? Well I've been hating EA before it was cool.

 

[Thammuz]

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.

THIS. SO. MUCH. THIS.

 

[Griffolion]

I love change, but I never get any out of your products because your prices are so damn high.

 

[BrotherRool]

It is cool to rag on EA but saying that when you're EA is just going to make people go on the defensive and solidfy their position and bring up the arguments. This has already happened in this thread