Give me your opinions about EA (Leave out ME3)
- Thread starter flecker080
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They're certainly not my favorite game developer/publisher, but they do help make/publish the occasional game I like (SSX, as broken as it is, for the former, and Kingdom of Amalur for the latter), so I don't hate them.
You know... I don't really hate any game companies, just the head people for being such short-sighted jackmonkeys.
You know... I don't really hate any game companies, just the head people for being such short-sighted jackmonkeys.
What I think about EA?
If I were a shareholder, I'd be pretty happy with their practices. Hey, they're making shit-tons of money! They must be doing something right, huh? As a company, they're pretty damn efficient. Ruthless, but efficient.
I'm not a shareholder, though. I'm a gamer, just like the rest of you. As such, I don't really consider EA to be a trustworthy publisher. Again - they're profitable; but they step on a lot of customers' toes and take away a lot of fundamental freedoms to maintain that profitability.
To be honest, I can foresee a distant future where EA will have become so huge that the FTC will *have* to consider its operations as monopolistic in structure. If that doesn't happen, then it's going to turn into even more of an unfeeling, lumbering monster than it already is.
I'm more or less hoping for a monster stock market crash, something that'll bring us back to the eighties and the years of the Video Game Crash. If huge corporate entities could be weeded out or be allowed to destroy themselves, then maybe we'd have a tad more soul in our entertainment.
Less budget, yeah, but that also would mean less samey HD corridor crawlers. Which would be a good thing.
So, um, my final thoughts? To any employee from a studio owned by EA who might post here from time to time; I don't hate you. I hate the bosses of your bosses. I'll still buy your games, because I want you coders and modelers and concept artists to feed your families.
With that said, Kickstarter for the win!
If I were a shareholder, I'd be pretty happy with their practices. Hey, they're making shit-tons of money! They must be doing something right, huh? As a company, they're pretty damn efficient. Ruthless, but efficient.
I'm not a shareholder, though. I'm a gamer, just like the rest of you. As such, I don't really consider EA to be a trustworthy publisher. Again - they're profitable; but they step on a lot of customers' toes and take away a lot of fundamental freedoms to maintain that profitability.
To be honest, I can foresee a distant future where EA will have become so huge that the FTC will *have* to consider its operations as monopolistic in structure. If that doesn't happen, then it's going to turn into even more of an unfeeling, lumbering monster than it already is.
I'm more or less hoping for a monster stock market crash, something that'll bring us back to the eighties and the years of the Video Game Crash. If huge corporate entities could be weeded out or be allowed to destroy themselves, then maybe we'd have a tad more soul in our entertainment.
Less budget, yeah, but that also would mean less samey HD corridor crawlers. Which would be a good thing.
So, um, my final thoughts? To any employee from a studio owned by EA who might post here from time to time; I don't hate you. I hate the bosses of your bosses. I'll still buy your games, because I want you coders and modelers and concept artists to feed your families.
With that said, Kickstarter for the win!
It's more profitable in the long run for a business to be well-liked than to scramble for every penny now. This probably wasn't true before the internet, when you had to wait days or weeks to get a good sampling of peers' opinions of a work and it was almost impossible to pirate a product. But today Google is one of the biggest companies in the world, Valve makes money hand-over-fist with Steam, etc. all because they give us things that we like at prices we want to pay, and make it convenient and easy. Heck, the humble bundles and such literally give you the product for whatever you feel like paying, free if you're greedy or poor, and they make hundreds of thousands.
EA doesn't seem to understand this. The only way they can think to deal with piracy is to apply DRM that penalizes anyone trying to actually pay for the game. They refuse to put their products on Steam so they can grab those last few pennies on each purchase, and in the process lose thousands of sales when people don't want to put up with their clumsy, glitchy, insecure replacement. They take good companies like Bioware and franchises with a lot of fans, and then they run them into the ground because they know they can still make money off the people who liked the original games.
In general they seem to hate their customers, refuse to consider better ways of doing things, and have a habit of devouring companies that make art so they can turn them into another medicore revenue stream.
EA doesn't seem to understand this. The only way they can think to deal with piracy is to apply DRM that penalizes anyone trying to actually pay for the game. They refuse to put their products on Steam so they can grab those last few pennies on each purchase, and in the process lose thousands of sales when people don't want to put up with their clumsy, glitchy, insecure replacement. They take good companies like Bioware and franchises with a lot of fans, and then they run them into the ground because they know they can still make money off the people who liked the original games.
In general they seem to hate their customers, refuse to consider better ways of doing things, and have a habit of devouring companies that make art so they can turn them into another medicore revenue stream.
i just dont buy bad games because:Antari said:
1. i do research on the game.
2. i read the back of the box IN FULL!
3. i ask the people at the game store letting them know im not buying anything that day.
following those simple rules ive never bought a bad game, but then a bad game to me is one thats not fun or cant be played.
oh btw im a big C&C fan and i didnt like what they did with C&C 4 so i just didnt buy it.
They published some great games in the past, but then they turned to The Dark Side.
And got infected with The Idiot Virus.
*sigh*
"Hey, hey, EA: How many developers have you killed today?"
And got infected with The Idiot Virus.
*sigh*
"Hey, hey, EA: How many developers have you killed today?"
first i must agree i wish more people looked before the bought. Now as for EA i can never get angry with a company i mean they're running a buisness and if i dont like their product i just dont buy it. heck i liked the ME3 ending and beleave what few problems i had will be solved with the extended cut dlc. more importantly i judge games on their own merits not on those of other games(yes even with sequels) so games like DA2, ME3, C&C, and TOR dont disapoint me because i dont expect the exact same experiance i had with other games like them. Sorry for the mini rantAntari said:
While both EA and Activition have a habit of buying developers and IPs then milking them dry. EA are more apt to risk their money on new IPs eg Deadspace, Mirrors Edge, even Star Wars KOtOR which they pumped an absolute shitload of cash into making.
Apart from that they act like the devil incarnate with how they treat customers and their own staff and only get away with it because they make software and not physical products.
Apart from that they act like the devil incarnate with how they treat customers and their own staff and only get away with it because they make software and not physical products.
I don't know exactly what they will do, but I know they will do something. At this point I wouldn't be shocked if they don't start sending out squads to beat people up who haven't purchased an EA game, because they are obviously pirates. I really can't anticipate the level of insanity they run with. But I do know it will be shocking when they do it. They have a well established pattern for it.ecoho said:first i must agree i wish more people looked before the bought. Now as for EA i can never get angry with a company i mean they're running a buisness and if i dont like their product i just dont buy it. heck i liked the ME3 ending and beleave what few problems i had will be solved with the extended cut dlc. more importantly i judge games on their own merits not on those of other games(yes even with sequels) so games like DA2, ME3, C&C, and TOR dont disapoint me because i dont expect the exact same experiance i had with other games like them. Sorry for the mini rantAntari said:
Well they publish games I like and support giving players the option to have gay characters instead of bowing to pressure from religious nutjobs who want the option gone, so they're good in my book. Yes they want to make money, but they're a company: that's what they're supposed to do. I've never had a bad experience with their customer service, and I find myself using Origin a good amount more than Steam.
They're better than Ubisoft by a country mile in my opinion, and Bobby Kotick has yet to redeem himself to make me consider Activision outside of Blizzard games.
They're better than Ubisoft by a country mile in my opinion, and Bobby Kotick has yet to redeem himself to make me consider Activision outside of Blizzard games.
There are some valid grienvances, I understand the upset over a day 1 DLC for example, and while I like DLC's in general, I also understand why some people find them insulting. Still, gamers seem to have a tendency to make mountains out of molehills. They're not prefect but they've made some good games, so all in all they've never done anything that I personally view as warranting a boycott (not that those work anyways). Origin does suck though, but you can't blame them for trying.
Edit: I forgot about their marketting campaigns.
Edit: I forgot about their marketting campaigns.
I'm a big believer in capitalism, but I believe there is a problem with people getting too greedy and ruining everything for everyone, and that there needs to be some limitations in place for those who don't have the willpower to know when enough is enough, EA is an example of a company that has gone too far.flecker080 said:
I consider EA to be one of the worst companies out there (shared with Activision) due to the way they bring their BS into our homes. They are responsible for starting a lot of the trends like DLC gouging, attacking the used game market (which reduces the value of your games, trade in abillity being one of the things that helps justify the high price), and of course things like "Origin" which are a huge headache to use.
Most recently with EA I had a problem where they screwed up "The Old Republic" pre orders. When I went to gamestop, the code they gave me on my receipt was for a regular edition when I ordered a collector's edition. The problem was rectified but when I got a valid code I found I couldn't insert it into my account given that I had already registered a regular edition. Talking to technical support they said they could not rectify that problem and that I had to create a SECOND account to put in the new account until they worked out the problem. I did this, but they never got around to fixing the problem. This has left me with TWO EA/Origin accounts that I have to switch between to play my games, and I've already accidently installed games (Amalur) into the wrong one and missed out on product-cross promotions (special items and such). Attempts to contact EA have been non-responsive, last time I did it I got no answer and then an E-mail back a week later asking "oh hey we haven't heard back from you about this issue"... of course you bloody didn't you ignored me!!
The basic problem here is that when EA screws up, they don't even take responsibility for their problems, and have created services like "Origin" where you can't even overwrite a registration code, or register more than one version of a product (which is odd given limited installs... I mean what happens if I run out, they refuse to give me more, and in theory I buy another copy of the same product....).
Oh and actually there is a more recent example. I decided to pre-order "The Secret World" on Funcom's site, Funcom working with EA nowadays (unsure of the actual relationship, but I'm guessing EA owns them and acts as their publisher). I used to play Anarchy Online and Conan, due to genius design of their site and modifications of it I've wound up somehow with business account and a forum account with seperate names, but a shared E-mail address and for whatever reason someone disabled my forum account. In trying to rectify this I've gotten questions like "durrr, why don't your forum account and main account match as far as login name despite sharing an e-mail address". I can only assume since it had been years since I was on the site that they screwed it up due to design revisions and that wound up disabling my account. I have now spent nearly a week trying to get my forum access restored with their people.
Or in short, EA sucks eggs.
EA goals:
Money
Money
Money
Money
Bad Marketing
Not EA goals:
Pleasing people
Bring out new ideas
Caring what we think
That's similar to many businesses throughout the world, but the problem is that this isn't what is expected from a gaming company. Since the industry has changed people to expect more than they're getting from them.
If you compare EA to a normal business they rank about par with everyone else. When you compare them to other gaming companies such as Valve[footnote]swap this with any other gaming company you prefer.[/footnote], these are companies that listen to their fan bases, try to further the median and don't alway place money first. They've earned support from us whereas EA hasn't.
My personal opinion is that they're not the worst company in America, but they're pretty high up there mainly because of bad decision that destroyed any positive support they had.
Money
Money
Money
Money
Bad Marketing
Not EA goals:
Pleasing people
Bring out new ideas
Caring what we think
That's similar to many businesses throughout the world, but the problem is that this isn't what is expected from a gaming company. Since the industry has changed people to expect more than they're getting from them.
If you compare EA to a normal business they rank about par with everyone else. When you compare them to other gaming companies such as Valve[footnote]swap this with any other gaming company you prefer.[/footnote], these are companies that listen to their fan bases, try to further the median and don't alway place money first. They've earned support from us whereas EA hasn't.
My personal opinion is that they're not the worst company in America, but they're pretty high up there mainly because of bad decision that destroyed any positive support they had.
question one: has to do with me not giving a shit about EA making money off of shit stained re-res buying madden 20XX over and over again at $60 each, and you shouldn't ether. if you know how to make a bad company change its policy's about not funding shitty games for profit aside from (insert illegal activity here) by all means tell us, but that's basically telling EA to not be the smallest bit profitable anymore because lets face it, they would go under in less then a year if there "loyal customers" all of a sudden got smart and didn't buy there games because there all rehashed repackaged shit on a stick and anything new becomes old pretty quick.DrVornoff said:
question two: want to be.
question three: i don't have anything right now but i always bring enough to share.
lol ah well im glad i live in a state that can still sue them in this state.(part of our state constitution that all legal fileings must be herd in the state of residence of the ofened party, in other words i can sue them here regaurdless of the EULA) and if they send a squad......welll lets just say ive seen texans warped by the amount of firearms out hereAntari said:I don't know exactly what they will do, but I know they will do something. At this point I wouldn't be shocked if they don't start sending out squads to beat people up who haven't purchased an EA game, because they are obviously pirates. I really can't anticipate the level of insanity they run with. But I do know it will be shocking when they do it. They have a well established pattern for it.ecoho said:first i must agree i wish more people looked before the bought. Now as for EA i can never get angry with a company i mean they're running a buisness and if i dont like their product i just dont buy it. heck i liked the ME3 ending and beleave what few problems i had will be solved with the extended cut dlc. more importantly i judge games on their own merits not on those of other games(yes even with sequels) so games like DA2, ME3, C&C, and TOR dont disapoint me because i dont expect the exact same experiance i had with other games like them. Sorry for the mini rantAntari said:
I don't actually play any EA games. Like... ever. (Rock Band counts? Okay, then I guess I play once in a while.) Maybe I played some EA games a little bit when I was younger, but the only one I can really recall being by EA for sure was Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 (which is... okay).
My sisters play The Sims, though, and they've had issues just installing the damn games. And my dad often accused The Sims of eating up all the space on the harddrive of the kitchen computer.
So yeah, about EA, I don't actually care too much about them except when they market their products in ways that would've make Acclaim look sane. ...that's pretty much it.
My sisters play The Sims, though, and they've had issues just installing the damn games. And my dad often accused The Sims of eating up all the space on the harddrive of the kitchen computer.
So yeah, about EA, I don't actually care too much about them except when they market their products in ways that would've make Acclaim look sane. ...that's pretty much it.