EA Wants "To Be 90 Plus Metacritic at Everything"

[GreyJedi]

He went on to list a few hard numbers about the Origin service; Over 12 million have downloaded it so far, it's picked up 50 partners in the space of a year and it made an impressive $140 million last year, a 400% increase of the year before.

Yeah, but mostly only because you're obliged to use it if you want to play ME3, Dead Space 2, Dragon Age 2, etc... (Just like I originally just downloaded Steam because HL2 made me do it, of course.)

I'm all for more competition, but I don't see them outclassing Steam any time soon. Primarily because I don't trust EA with my credit card info, either.

 

[Wintermoot]

hmmm EA has metric tons of money so that,s not really going to be hard

 

[5-0]

Yeah good luck with that EA. You've got a long long way to go.

 

[minimacker]

Unlike Valve, which offers matchmaking (not amazing, but alright), Community (good for messaging and organising events) and great customer support, all Origin offers is another platform for buying expensive games.

Don't forget the sales!

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.377755-Origin-Boss-Says-Steam-Sales-Cheapen-Intellectual-Property

 

[Wicky_42]

Unfortunately it never works like you'd think it should for me - I have to go offline whilst I'm still online to get into offline mode when I start up Steam again without an internet connection. Most frustrating, and seriously reduces the entire point. Would be nice if they could fix it so it does what it implies it should (and it's always silly frustrating when you click 'star offline' and it bounces back an error saying 'Unable to connect to Steam'. Well DUH!)

If your connection is spotty, try going into offline mode when your connection is still good, and turning off your computer while its still in offline mode. I find that, though not completely devoid of problems, I run into much fewer problems. I reliably used steam for several months with no internet connection at all that way. Its a weak point definately, but going into offline mode before you need to be offline seems to significantly mitigate the problem.

You misunderstand - it's kinda pointless having the option to start in offline mode if there's no connection, but requiring a connection to do that. If there's no internet connection, but you've previously used the licenses for the games on that machine, why on earth shouldn't you be able to play them if your internet goes down? It just feels like there's something a bit broken with the offline mode.

But yeah, once offline it works fine; it's just getting there that's a bit unintuitive.

 

[Wicky_42]

"There are better mousetraps that ultimately get built out of this innovation,"

"Mousetraps"? See, viewing your system as a 'trap' to hold people against their way is a BAD view point to be launching from.

Just saying.

Unless, of course, this is a really common American saying...

Its a very common American saying. Mousetraps are notoriously effective for a remarkably cheap price, so attempts to improve on the simple design usually ends up needlessly complicating the whole business. If your being cynical, it usually implies that a person is wasting there time trying to compete with something that they just can't improve on. If charitable, it's more like a respectable attempt to improve and innovate something already considered perfect.

However, your interpretation is more appropriate then EAs

Thanks for the info

 

[Riobux]

DeMartini accepts that Origin isn't doing anything particularly new, but argues that it's a worthwhile product nonetheless.

"If MySpace had stayed the one answer in social networking and no one switched to Facebook, then we'd all be stuck on MySpace right now and we wouldn't have had the Facebook phenomenon," he said.

"EA is in a really interesting place," he added. "We have this bar that is set so high, so that whether it is any of our games or services, we want to be 90 plus Metacritic at everything.

EA would be a comedy act, a brilliant satire written about gaming companies by Charlie Brooker and Stewart Lee, if it wasn't oh so real.

 

[Woodsey]

And it's that attitude that (in part) makes people hate them.

Simply put: they won't be better than Valve. They can't be. They're not a private company, and so they have far, far less maneuverability. The best thing they can do is learn to market themselves correctly, and "we won't do big sales because they cheapen IPs" and "we want to be 90+ Metacritic on everything" is not the way to do it.

Didn't they start doing sales on Origin like, a week after making that announcement?

Briefly. Which just made them look more retarded, really.

 

[MyNameIsNowNotMyName]

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
-Ayn Rand-

"Only people who have no leg to stand on quote Ayn Rand"

- Me

What, it's one the better quotes. Also, what you said wasn't even that much of a quote, you need to work on it.

 

[Somebloke]

Yes I do have From Ashes. Yes I have played it offline on a number of occasions. I've even had my connection drop in the middle of the game, it waited a few seconds then switched to offline mode.

O-ho, neat!
I'd be jealous, but since you have similar problems of your own, only elsewhere, I suppose we're both equally stunted.

 

[Thoric485]

I'm sure they'll spare no expense on marketing and bribes to achieve this.

 

[Xanadu84]

Unfortunately it never works like you'd think it should for me - I have to go offline whilst I'm still online to get into offline mode when I start up Steam again without an internet connection. Most frustrating, and seriously reduces the entire point. Would be nice if they could fix it so it does what it implies it should (and it's always silly frustrating when you click 'star offline' and it bounces back an error saying 'Unable to connect to Steam'. Well DUH!)

If your connection is spotty, try going into offline mode when your connection is still good, and turning off your computer while its still in offline mode. I find that, though not completely devoid of problems, I run into much fewer problems. I reliably used steam for several months with no internet connection at all that way. Its a weak point definately, but going into offline mode before you need to be offline seems to significantly mitigate the problem.

You misunderstand - it's kinda pointless having the option to start in offline mode if there's no connection, but requiring a connection to do that. If there's no internet connection, but you've previously used the licenses for the games on that machine, why on earth shouldn't you be able to play them if your internet goes down? It just feels like there's something a bit broken with the offline mode.

But yeah, once offline it works fine; it's just getting there that's a bit unintuitive.

I'm definitely not fixing the issue, and it is a problem, I'm just presenting a preventative measure. If your in online mode on steam, and you want to shut down your computer, go into offline mode before the shutdown. It seems to succeed in starting up in offline mode if you ended your last session in offline mode. If you don't need to use online features, just go into offline mode and leave it their until you do need online features. In fact, I find that often times, if my connection goes down and steam has no connection, I can still go into offline mode, and if I shut down my computer and turn it back on with no connection, Steam will start up in offline mode just fine if it ended in offline mode, but will have troubles if I ended online.

Yes, the glut of off/on/line/mode makes what I just said sound like a mess. I apologize. Hope ythis makes sense, because I do know what your saying.

 

[Canyoureadmydeadpan]

Hey everyone, want to see my impersonation of EA?
"We at EA want to heave 90's on everything, but at the same time we want to piss on our customers and charge them for things like online gaming, or on disk/1st day DLC. I guess what I'm trying to say is, we want to piss on our customers, but we want to trickle just the right amount of piss so that they don't notice. That is why we have Origin. Origin allows you to overpay for games we make that we threaten to take away from other digital distributors if we don't get the things we want. Origin has over 12 million downloads so far... and sure, many of those users quit using it once they realized we were a shitty over priced version of steam, but think of all the money we COULD make if we with hold our games and force people to buy direct from us. We want to be an indy company, that is why we will be bringing you all the most uninspired AAA titles that we wasted so much money on. LOOK GAMES ARE TOO EXPENSIVE UNLESS WE'RE THE ONES SELLING YOU THE UNINSPIRED REPETIVE CRAP OUR ANALYTICS AND MARKETING TEAM DECIDED WOULD SAFELY TURN A PROFIT, AND THE REST OF YOU NEED TO LOWER YOUR PRICES!"

 

[wintercoat]

AAAAAAAhahahahahHAahAhAHAHAHahHAHAHAhaha!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAhahahahahAhHAHAHAhAhHAHAhahHaHA!!!!

Waitwaitwait, let me read that again *wipes tears from eyes while rereading article*

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhahahaHAHAHHAHAHAhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, EA! You know how to make a guy laugh! Hehehe, they so crayzee.

 

[flaviok79]

While I must give kudos to Mr. DeMartini?s enthusiasm, I feel people at EA are failing to understand one key fact about gaming: diversity. There have always been several styles of games (driving, sports, shooters, RPGs, adventure, platform, action, sandbox etc.), and, within those styles, many different approaches to design, aesthetics, atmosphere, pacing. When I read his declaration that ?we want to be 90 plus Metacritic at everything?, coupled with the changes I have been seeing in gaming styles recently, this late in the current console cycle, I see a proof of this tendency of homogenizing gaming styles and approaches, bringing them all to greyish-brownish shooters with driving sessions multiplayer and occasional RPG elements. This may drive people away from AAA games and into niche markets, because games are losing their diversity factor. All feels much the same, nowadays.
To quote a Brazilian popular saying ?the best way to displease everybody is trying to please everybody.? And I just sense that´s the path EA is threading right now.
For instance, I am mostly displeased with Mass Effect 3 and, bad ending aside, forcing players of a RPG franchise to jump in multiplayer in order to get the ?best? ending. It is a great example of the company blending gaming styles and not giving the player an option to not engage in multiplayer. I am playing the multiplayer with my friends, since I ?have? to, but I will be weary of the next title in the franchise, as well as other EA titles, if they don?t review this policy. I wrote all this because current multiplayer numbers may show a success, but that may be because we are forced to play, and that does not spell success for further IP?s.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Metacritic is maybe the worst thing going on in the video game world today.

I would have to agree. The problem with Metacritic is all the zero bombing of games out of anger without clear-headed and logical user reviews and the doing of said bombing because of maybe only one or two aspects of the game.

Examples:

Oh, I didn't like the new battle system of this game or how they made the story more personal with one character story, zero.

I didn't like how the story ended, zero.

(Of course in the zero bomb reviews there would be mountains worth of expletives.)

With such unchecked and unregulated user reviews, games don't get their actual scores.

If I'm making a decision or if I was going to advise somebody on how to research and then choose to buy a game, besides let's plays and other videos, I would recommend the professional reviewers of the Escapist and maybe a few other professional review sources. That's of course because I'm not a paranoid jerk who thinks that all professional reviewers are paid off by the big gaming companies.

 

[MammothBlade]

Yes EA, I'm sure you do.

I'm sure you do.

Poor EA, all it wants is to be loved...


By its shareholders!

 

[zefiris]

Yeah, EA, focus on the score instead of focusing on making good games.

Way to go. Scores are totally what matters here.

The problem with Metacritic is all the zero bombing of games

No, that's a feature. The problem with metacritic is that companies try to max the metacritic score instead of making a good game, usually by pressuring reviewers in some form (from the famous "publish a good review, or get no copy to worse methods).

Another problem is the terrible grading system that are used, where 7/10 is a horrible game and anything below 9/10 gets fanboys raging like crazy.

Another problem is that all review scores are opinions. You cannot actually make an average of two opinions. People pretend these things have scientific accuracy but they really don't. Making averages of them is NONSENSE.

Seriously: Consumers voicing displeasure is never a problem.
Giving a damn about these scores is the problem.