Hope for EA yet?

[PxDn Ninja]

Plus, whenever you play a game released by them but developed by another, you get to see the ominous EA logo, so basically they take credit for tons of things they don't really do.

EA foots the bill for manufacturing the title, for the production of the title via the developer (wages, equipment, utilities), they handle shipping deals and also licensing of names and music in some situations. They earn the right to place their EA logo at the front of the game.

 

[Blayze]

While other people have described the EA Process, I believe there are actually two different EA Processes. The first is the Quality Osmosis Process, where they find a good company and drain the quality out of it (This is what happened with Bullfrog and Westwood). The second is the Failure Osmosis Process, where they find a company that *used* to be good and absorb it into their being (Bioware).

It's like the Midas Touch, but with shit instead of gold.

Seriously. We've just been lucky so far that The Sims and Madden have lasted them for so long. God forbid they actually go after more companies who would otherwise give us quality entertainment (Interplay, although they might end up absorbing them if Interplay find it too hard to get back on their feet). They churn out so much over-hyped, vapid shit it's a wonder Peter Molyneux isn't one of their bitches.

...Oh.

They stick their noses in where they're not welcome ("Leave us alone! We're busy making the game better!" "NO! NEED MONEY NOW! PATCH LATER!" "That's what you said about the last game, before you stopped us offering support for the bugs!") and if given the opportunity to do what they wanted, they would gladly destroy everything this industry has worked towards in exchange for cold, hard cash.

Electronic Arts? Iscariot Arts is more like it.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

^Wow, glad you are unbiased. We haven't even seen a Bioware/EA project, and you are already assuming that EA has stomped all the quality out of them and sucked their corpse dry, leaving only a shell behind. The point is, EA has screwed up. The DRM was a load of shit. But Everything or Nothing was an incredible Bond game. Oh wait, that was only published by EA. You can't congratulate them on a successful game they published, only blame them for a failure they published. Bit of a double standard, ja?

 

[M3707ik]

Ea in my opinion is way too spread out. I know they're more of a publisher but they should keep Maxis, and a few others and specialize in one or two genres like Blizzard.

Edit- Not that im a huge Blizzard fan but they push their Genres forward. I used to played wow and i used to play other MMO's but Wow still tops. Starcraft and Warcraft, 2 great series made by Blizzard. Diablo, great ORPG. See they stick to what they know hile EA is in every single genre.

 

[klc0100]

EA make Fifa there for I love them

 

[Anarchemitis]

EA Employs my cousin therefore I love them.

 

[the monopoly guy]

Dead Space-It's RE4, but in space! You guys liked RE4 right? And you like space right? Well then you'll love this!

 

[Blayze]

Wow, glad you are unbiased. We haven't even seen a Bioware/EA project, and you are already assuming that EA has stomped all the quality out of them and sucked their corpse dry, leaving only a shell behind.

Funny how that turns out to not be anything I posted at all, isn't it? I said that with Bioware, it was failure first, THEN absorption. As for Everything or Nothing, I've never played it. Hell, I can't remember ever having heard of it. Besides, any assumption on my part that EA has stomped all the quality out of Bioware and sucked their corpse dry is vindicated by past evidence and habits. Need I go on?

"Mr Fritzl's reformed! He's promised not to abuse his family members again!"

"Oh, well I suppose he can move back in with them. Try not to lock anybody in the cellar this time, though. That was rather silly of you."

 

[Gormers1]

Im not that against EA as I feel others are, mainly because I liked many of the games they made themselves (or EA canada/blackbox, etc). I also think that they are very good when it comes to picking out licensed soundtracks for their games (take ssx or burnout as examples). But I do think that new copy-protection thing was a bit over the line. And it seems that every gamestudio they buy end up producing shitty games for some reason, even when the studio has a great history.

 

[some random guy]

We shouldn't really give any credit to EA for the games they just publish. Games like Mirror's Edge, Battlefield: Bad Company and Spore were/are not developed by EA.
EA has the potential to be a great developer but the potential mainly being wasted on crappy sports games.

I've heard a lot of great stuff about Dead Space but it doesn't seem as innovative as people are claiming.

Tactical dismemberment? Sounds ok but cutting limbs off isn't a particularly innovative.

No HUD, yeah, pretty innovative but nothing brilliant.

Although maybe in a slightly different way, I'm sure that anti gravity has been done before.

Games like Dead Space and Skate (which, in my opinion, is a brilliant and slightly underrated game) show that EA is perfectly capable of creating good games but their constant crappy sports games, DRM and the attempted Take 2 takeover mean that EA is still a crappy company.

 

[meece]

EA is, in my opinion is to freaking MASSIVE,

Too much cash, not enough originality, currently they've reached the top (like nintendo) and feel they don't need to do anything since their past successes will keep the money rolling in (like nintendo).

The fact is while they do publish games the publishers seem generally to always have made better games before they were subsumed. Wish they'd stop expanding and forget about the corportate motto: "we need MOAR CASH!!!" and think like gamers: "We like quality", Valve is annoying for ALWAYS RELEASING SOOOO SLOWLY!! but at least they have quality. Which is why I almost certainly going to finish the HL series. Because it rocks.

Hell it probably bolsters their sails since I know I'm never buying another DICE game unless they actually.... y'know sort out the bugs, wall glitches, get some decent anti-hack stuff etc. etc. *before* release.

The future now is with Valve and smaller game publishers right now (like stardock etc. etc.) because currently EA, unless it makes major changes probably doesn't have a hope in hell. (Like nintendo)

 

[Destromas]

EA publishes Rock Band, the hugest music game released so far, with tons of peripherals, and downloadable content. They can probably afford to box up a free hooker with the next game.

 

[Silent Biohazard Solid]

EA publishes Rock Band, the hugest music game released so far, with tons of peripherals, and downloadable content. They can probably afford to box up a free hooker with the next game.

They're called groupies.

 

[PersianLlama]

Tell me, is anyone else getting the impression that EA might be actually improving?

They seem to be making the effort to produce original games, rather than just churn out the same old tired sports games with a few tweaks.
Well, we did have Bad company, while, not being an excellent game was an improvement on their usual standards at least.

But their line-up is impressing me, they actually have two original games on the way, Mirror's edge and Dead space.

So, what does the escapist readership reckon? Could EA actually manage to improve themselves?

And please, do not come in here and say 'lol EA sux' give some valid reasons, we all know how popular EA hating is, it accomplishes nothing.

I didn't read what you said, I just laughed at the title.

In all seriousness, Madden 09 (Another shitty sports game the same as the previous), and other sports games. (Sorry I don't name them, I just have a lot of stupid friends obsessed with Madden) Dead space doesn't interest me at all, Mirror's Edge looks like an excellent way to get motion sickness. (But it does seem good, doesn't change my thoughts about EA though, 1 good game and thousands of shitty games just doesn't even out.)

there are some things out there by ea that they do good, their sports games are pretty good

Good sports games? That's an oxymoron.

I love you.

 

[Pyro Paul]

EA is a game Developer and Publisher.

as a Publisher they are freaking god like, producing ARG, viral, and generic promo campaignes which are memerable and impressionable to the point that even people whom dislike the company will still cave in and buy the game.



as a Developer, EA is HORRIBLE.
to the companies which subsidize and stay independent, they put massive aounts of pressure on them forcing them to release their good games Way too early. this often causes the game to suffer major cut backs or even for the game to feel incomplete. (Maxis' Spore is an example of this)


to the Companies which EA owns outright, they are often just down right horrible. on Par with Microsoft when releasing a product. they take tried and true concepts, rehash them untill they are broken, then sell them with their massive campaigning might as a publisher. these missurable games often released buggy and broken straight out of the box requiring patches in order to simply Work on a majority of computers. they are left unsupported and broken beyond a handful of patches, and suffer from horrible 'Now shut up' patch syndrom in which the developers simply take what ever is whined about most on their offical forums and applies that to the game with little to no thought into the subject.

EA DICE, EA Mythic, EA LA and a handful of other studios which are started by 'EA' all suffer from this.



now while it is a step in the right direction as they release new and orginal content, the fact of the matter is that they are years behind the curve as several companies have long since been producing content that is pushing boundries.


just remember, when buying EA games you are not buying quality, you are buying mediocrity.