Gamers Uncomfortable with Change, Says EA's Peter Moore

[Strazdas]

I have problem with change in gmaing industry. This is because change in gaming industry is very well represented by this picture:

This is the change i am very uncomfortable with. And if you want to push this change, your going to loose me as a costumer.

Not all change is good, and the trend in gaming right now is nowhere near what i would consider good. Fix that and then maybe we could see how people adapt to change. What we got right now is somone taking you into slavery and then complaining you "just dont like the change".

 

[Magmarock]

All I have to say Peter Moore is this. "EA NEEDS GAMERS, BUT GAMERS DON'T NEED EA."

I hope that puts things into prospective for you. Now hurry up and release Crysis 1 and Warhead on GOG already.

 

[thewatergamer]

Translation: Fuck you guys, we don't give a crap about you, instead of trying to make good games we are just going to try to sucker in as many uninformed games as possible, stop trying to foil our plans

Look I don't have a problem with change, change can be a good thing, what I do have a problem with is being lied to, extorted for money, and being treated as a mindless robot that throws money at a company that has good marketing campaigns

We don't need you EA, why can't you understand that?

If EA were to go out of business tomorrow the majority of gamers wouldn't give a shit, Alot of them would be happy because your franchises would have a chance to be bought by a company that might actually do something with them that doesn't involve exploitative and terrible business practices

 

[Sgt Pepper]

In my experience when someone calls people out for not embracing change it's because those changes aren't very good.

If the changes were good, even if the benefits were not immediately obvious, then Mr Moore wouldn't feel the need to say this.

Case in point: Valve - I don't think anyone, upon buying HL2 back in the day, saw the immediate benefit of Steam. But Valve stuck with their vision, turned Steam into something the many of us now consider a great service. They didn't blame us for not embracing change.

As mentioned elsewhere, we gamers have also embraced things like Kickstarter and Early Access. Whilst these do sometimes have problems of their own, especially the latter, we have at least given those things a chance.

 

[themilo504]

No we don?t like bad change, if my government decided to institute a tax for walking outside, I would complain not because I?m conservative, but because that?s a really stupid tax, ea is the government that taxes walking outside.

Also most new gamers don?t actually want your terrible free to play mechanics, most of them simply don?t know any better, if any of those new gamers ever play a good free to play game, then that customer is never going to touch your free to play games again.

 

[VoidWanderer]

Oh, Peter.

Poor, simple Peter.

We are comfortable with change, we just don't like what you call 'change'.

 

[Sansha]

We don't dislike change; we dislike change for change's sake, or messing with a working formula. Look at Banjo Kazooie Nuts n' Bolts for example.

We like change. We like new, interesting environments, stories and gameplay mechanics. World of Warcraft is hugely successful because it constantly changes and adapts, but it ultimately doesn't mess with the core formula - joining forty friends to go stomp on a Night Elf's face.

 

[A-D.]

If you make a black, female, or LGBTQ character for the sole reason to "represent" them, then you are not helping anyone.

I'm just going to say what someone else said on this matter.

As someone who has a total of maybe 5 characters in the entirety of video game history representing me as a whole, I'd rather take one mediocre shoehorned character that represents me than nothing.

So you would be totally okay with a Character in a game who's sole defining trait and feature was that they were gay? Or black? Or if a character was a stereotypical portrayal of a gay person or a black person while not being downright offensive?

After all, you were "represented" but thats hardly what you'd want i imagine. So my point stands, first a character has to be a character, a person cant be reduced to skincolor, gender or sexuality, there is more to it than that and we shouldnt expect less of fictional characters in games.

 

[insanelich]

He's entirely right. This is just gamers being uncomfortable with change.

To be specific, this is gamers being uncomfortable with handing over a chunk of change every few minutes for the game to stop irritating them. And gamers being uncomfortable with spending some change on a game only for the game to be designed to irritate the player unless they spend some more change every so often.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

There are definitely a number of gamers who have a problem with any change, just like you have people like that in any society.

To call them "the core" is jumping to conclusions however.

 

[truckspond]

Well of course we would be uncomforable with change if said change involves attempting to squeeze every cent out of the customer by making them pay upfront for an app and then spend more than the app's initial cost in a single day to actually do anything!

 

[circularlogic88]

Please purchase additional content to continue this rant.

 

[Little Duck]

I don't think we have issues with change (see dota and tf2 for adopters of free to play). I think we have issues with change done poorly (see zynga).

 

[stroopwafel]

Gamers aren't uncomfortable with 'change' just b/c EA's business model sucks. Selling a game at full price and locking away content deliberately left out of the game to sell as overpriced DLC isn't 'games as a service' its ripping your consumers off.

EA only embraces business models that is beneficial to them as a company, which is understandable from their perspective but calling gamers who criticizes their questionable methods 'uncomfortable with change' is really hypocrisy of the highest order.

I'm not gonna lie I really enjoy EA's Need for Speed series(the latest one made by Ghost and all the previous ones by Criterion) but in many ways this company's relentless greed is examplary of everything that's wrong with the current state of the gaming industry.

 

[Little Duck]

I have problem with change in gmaing industry. This is because change in gaming industry is very well represented by this picture:

This is the change i am very uncomfortable with. And if you want to push this change, your going to loose me as a costumer.

Not all change is good, and the trend in gaming right now is nowhere near what i would consider good. Fix that and then maybe we could see how people adapt to change. What we got right now is somone taking you into slavery and then complaining you "just dont like the change".

Bare in mind in the UK it's more like this:

 

[K12]

This is about on the same level as black person (or someone in any disadvantaged minority) saying "you're just racist" when someone disagrees with them.

We don't hate change, we hate your terrible terrible decisions and business practices.

 

[Trishbot]

It's not gamers that fear change, Mr. Moore, it's you guys at EA.

Unless those changes are for the worse, in which case of course we don't like it.

EA's policies are to basically FORCE terrible, universal, anti-consumer business models and features into games, franchises, and genres that have no business having things like online multiplayer, online passes, DLC microtransactions, intrustive DRM, always-on requirements, and the worst in F2P money-grabbing schemes.

Funny how gamers weren't "afraid of change" when companies like Blizzard, Valve, Nintendo, and so many others built empires on bold, daring, original ideas, concepts, and play methods...

... Or could it simply be that those companies put the gamer experience first and married their business with pleasing their fanbases, giving them what they asked for while respecting their intelligence, offering VALUE in return instead of bold-faced attempts to milk a fanbase or a franchise into the ground?

It is actually EA's HOMOGENIZATION that gamers have been most upset about. In fact, it is the LACK of change with this policy that has earned EA so many dubious "worst company" awards.

Take a good, long look back at your history, EA, and do me a favor: count the number of dead franchises and dead studios you personally sent off to die. Look at the reasons why they died. Even if gamers do fear change, almost every dead franchise and studio is dead because you forced terrible changes upon winning game formulas and businesses.

Change must be organic, Mr. Moore. We all know you want to beat Activision at their own game, but changing all your franchises, no matter how unique and beloved, into the same Call of Duty business model and F2P money-grabs is not the answer and will never be the answer.

If anything, I think gamers worldwide would prefer YOU guys change. And soon.