Is anyone defending EA at this point?

[Mycroft Holmes]

They create some of the best games on the market. Yeah they make some bad games. But they also make a lot of good ones, because more than other companies they are willing to take bets. For every misstep there is also System Shock 2, The Sims, Battlefield 1942, Dragon Age, Crysis, Mass Effect. They made Ultima Online the first modern MMO that took gaming to a wholly new level.

Every time I've talked to their customer support, they have been courteous, helpful and solved my problem in a short order.

Most every thread I've seen bitching about something is usually proven false in 0 time flat like 'they are banning people who request refunds.' No, they said they would ban him/her if he/she had their bank pull the transaction, which is illegal.

People demand they make DLC for free without paying extra programmers hired onto projects.

They put indi developers games on origin for cheaper than steam did as part of a month long offer.

When people exploited a bug and bought a bunch of free games on origin, they didn't ban accounts or confiscate the games(which on a platform like that wouldn't have been too difficult for them,) they let people keep those games.

 

[Bradeck]

They create some of the best games on the market. Yeah they make some bad games. But they also make a lot of good ones, because more than other companies they are willing to take bets. For every misstep there is also System Shock 2, The Sims, Battlefield 1942, Dragon Age, Crysis, Mass Effect. They made Ultima Online the first modern MMO that took gaming to a wholly new level.

Every time I've talked to their customer support, they have been courteous, helpful and solved my problem in a short order.

Most every thread I've seen bitching about something is usually proven false in 0 time flat like 'they are banning people who request refunds.' No, they said they would ban him/her if he/she had their bank pull the transaction, which is illegal.

People demand they make DLC for free without paying extra programmers hired onto projects.

They put indi developers games on origin for cheaper than steam did as part of a month long offer.

When people exploited a bug and bought a bunch of free games on origin, they didn't ban accounts or confiscate the games(which on a platform like that wouldn't have been too difficult for them,) they let people keep those games.

I understand where you are coming from, but please don't say "They did X" as if this is the exact same company that existed in the 90s. It isn't. That EA died a long painful death many years ago. When the dreams of the company changed from,

"We need to make games for gamers, by gamers."

to

"...we need to think of a way to charge gamers for reloading in multiplayer." (look it up)

This new EA has done nothing to advance gaming in the last decade, nor have they done anything to advance client relationships. I hate to invooke Sterling here, but why are you defending something that doesn't give two shits about you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6-u8OIJTE&feature=youtu.be

 

[upgrayedd]

They make some good Sports games's Not as good as 2k but still good. Thats about it for me

 

[Maeshone]

I understand where you are coming from, but please don't say "They did X" as if this is the exact same company that existed in the 90s. It isn't. That EA died a long painful death many years ago. When the dreams of the company changed from,

"We need to make games for gamers, by gamers."

to

"...we need to think of a way to charge gamers for reloading in multiplayer." (look it up)

This new EA has done nothing to advance gaming in the last decade, nor have they done anything to advance client relationships. I hate to invooke Sterling here, but why are you defending something that doesn't give two shits about you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6-u8OIJTE&feature=youtu.be

He's not really saying that though, it's quite ovious he's just using an analogy to explain the psychology behind why microtransactions are successful. And he's got a point. If you were to end up in that situation, lots of people would react exactly the way he's saying. Another example would be Dead Space. Say you're interested in creating a new weapon, but you're short just a few materials when you find a crafting bench. A lot of people would just buy a pack and get it over with. It's just human nature.

Do I agree with everything EA has done? Hell no, for example the Simcity launch was atrocius and EA/Maxis really should have foreseen it if gamers did. But I get a little irritated when people misrepresent what EA says just because they're EA. This forum in particular is starting to get really ridiculous. It's still miles better than R/Gaming though, jesus christ...

 

[Andrew_C]

After maxis have improved servers

Note "maxis" not "ea"

Because it was maxis who decided that cloud computing would underpin SimCity 5

They're the same company and the same entity.

Yes, what you're missing is that people who make decisions for a publisher aren't the ones who make decisions on the development side. Are you saying that the pubs wore a disguise, crept into a dev meeting and said "CLOUD COMPUTING IS A THING WE MUST DO"?

You are forgetting that before this game was announced EA announced that ALL future titles they published would have a online multiplayer component. So, yes you can blame EA for the game being online. However, Maxis still take the blame for the terrible implementation of online multiplayer.

Publishers make decisions that affect the way a game is programmed all the time. They are the ones who supply the funds to the developers and they reserve the right to withhold further funding if they don't like the direction a games development is taking, or if it fails to hit arbitrary targets, and they do this all the time. Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever are the exceptions that prove the rule.

 

[Raikas]

I don't love EA. I don't hate EA. EA is a company...I nothing EA. If they make a good game, I will purchase said game.

This. If the bad outweighs the good, their business will suffer. If the good outweighs the bad, they'll keep making money and keep making (or producing, distributing, etc.) games. That's it.

Making people aware of defective products is important, but most of the rest of the drama is just drama.

 

[johnnnny guitar]

Not for the Simcity debacle but if anything more people are defending EA now more than ever (on this site anyway).
I've never hidden my dislike for them but I just can't be bothered to complain about them anymore.

I'm so tired of complaining about EA ,So very tired.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I'm not defending EA on the Simcity launch. Anyone can see that it was less a failure, and more Finangle's Law in action.

That said, I am no EA apologist. However, when EA is considered the worst company in America over Bank of America, and when people are still bitching about the ending to ME3 a year later, it gets quite ridiculous. I was irritated with the ending when I played it, I'll admit. There really seems to be a double standard, though. When a developer does something good while being published by EA, it is the developer being awesome. When they make a game that is bad, it is all EA's fault.

Man, I should get hired at Bioware or Maxis. That way, when I screw up, I can just blame EA and have gamers support me because they hate EA.

Oh, and for everyone complaining about how EA kills off gaming studios, let me tell you something: if you had a studio under your control that was losing you money, you wouldn't keep it open because they people who buy their games likes them. They are costing you money. EA wasn't being Snidely Whiplash, twirling their mustache when they closed down Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, and so on. They made a business decision. It wasn't like they waited for them to make one flop, then pounced on the mistake because they eagerly wanted to kill off the companies. Not to mention the tiny detail that they admitted they screwed up with Westwood, but hey, people don't care when companies take blame. They only care when they deflect it.

 

[Cabisco]

I am.

Mostly from the people who fabricate reasons to add more hate to the pile. Or the people who push opinions as facts, such as "All EA games suck!" - Not fact. I've quite enjoyed most of the EA games I've played in the past two years, including Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age II, Crysis 2, Mass Effect 3, Crysis 3, Kingdoms of Amalur (not actually an EA game, but co-published by them, meaning some people probably avoided it just because their name was on the box, even though they had literally zero involvement outside of distribution), Alice: Madness Returns, Bulletstorm, the Dead Space trilogy, Mirror's Edge, etc.

I don't like EA's business practices, and they've given tons of legitimate reasons for people to criticize them, but the hate has quite frankly reached some illogical singularity at this point. People are latching onto any "bad" reports they can to try and bad-mouth EA even further, even when it turns out those reports were completely fake or taken out of context and thus mean nothing like what the people imply. I find it ridiculous.

I agree. There is a blanket hate for everything to do with EA which is undeserved, that everyone wrong is their fault while everything good must of been inspite of them. They have done bad things yes, and do in many ways deserve to be disliked but a large share of the criticism levelled against EA is idiotic, they have given us many great games over the years and people seem to forget their contributions just to focus only on the negatives.

So yes, I'll defend EA to a point but I get why people dislike them.

 

[TheLycanKing144]

I guess you can say I "defend" them but I don't really call it that, more like I think the hate they receive is so blown out of proportion it's silly. To be fair I only see this EA "hate" on the internet, and the internet is not real life so it probably doesn't actually exist. I have never seen or heard any gamer in real life say they hate EA, they just buy their games.

Here are the facts. EA makes/publishes great games, I enjoy them so I buy them. Without EA I would not be able to play these great games, so for that I am thankful to EA. As long as they keep doing this I am happy to keep giving them my money. Sure there are a couple of practices I don't like, online passes and what not, but plenty of other game companies do the same thing. I don't see anyone complaining about them.

Honestly I think the "hate" comes from kids on the internet who are trying to "cool" to hate on the "establishment" (big businesses) just for the sake of it. If EA made a game that deleted my save data, or corrupted my system, or charged me a fee to unlock the last boss, then I would hate them. But they haven't done anything like that, so I see no legetiment reason to "hate" them.

 

[raankh]

I used to be cautious about the brand, but I did like the game dev companies under them and many games they put out. Companies like Digital Illusions / DICE and Bioware, for instance. I haven't had any direct reason to think badly of the brand as such.

I've been sorely disappointed by their releases one time too many now, however, across many different devs and franchises. That's a pattern.

As for SimCity: it's Tuesday, a week after launch, and Cheetah is still not available. When it works, the game doesn't even feel complete; the city size, lack of transportation options etc-- we know it's all coming as DLC right. That's it for me when it comes to bullshit, and I didn't even pre-order. Those poor guys and gals who did must feel downright ripped off. Hopefully they did more than read reviews, which was my mistake.

I've uninstalled Origin, even, since I'm not playing any of the three games I have on there. BF3 was a grindfest I wasn't in the mood for, SW:TOR was an unmitigated failure in so very many ways-- if I wanted good voice acting I'd listen to radio theatre. SimCity is an abject failure.

Guess it's three strikes for Origin.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Oh, and for everyone complaining about how EA kills off gaming studios, let me tell you something: if you had a studio under your control that was losing you money, you wouldn't keep it open because they people who buy their games likes them. They are costing you money. EA wasn't being Snidely Whiplash, twirling their mustache when they closed down Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, and so on. They made a business decision. It wasn't like they waited for them to make one flop, then pounced on the mistake because they eagerly wanted to kill off the companies. Not to mention the tiny detail that they admitted they screwed up with Westwood, but hey, people don't care when companies take blame. They only care when they deflect it.

In fairness to EA, many of those companies were struggling when they were purchased, and continued to struggle under EA's yolk. In fairness to EA detractors, stories from a lot of those closures spoke of a rigid corporate culture that clashed with the companies they purchased, and harsh deadlines that resulted in rushed and compromised games. Whether they meddled as much as it would seem from the outside, there's a clear pattern of developer acquisition by EA - developer releases rushed and/or shoddy product from previously successful series - developer gets shut down. Sad face. Nothing we could do. Unfortunate business decision. There's certainly some correlation there to add fuel to the fire when people hypothesize about EA, the Great Destroyer of gaming studios.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Oh, and for everyone complaining about how EA kills off gaming studios, let me tell you something: if you had a studio under your control that was losing you money, you wouldn't keep it open because they people who buy their games likes them. They are costing you money. EA wasn't being Snidely Whiplash, twirling their mustache when they closed down Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, and so on. They made a business decision. It wasn't like they waited for them to make one flop, then pounced on the mistake because they eagerly wanted to kill off the companies. Not to mention the tiny detail that they admitted they screwed up with Westwood, but hey, people don't care when companies take blame. They only care when they deflect it.

In fairness to EA, many of those companies were struggling when they were purchased, and continued to struggle under EA's yolk. In fairness to EA detractors, stories from a lot of those closures spoke of a rigid corporate culture that clashed with the companies they purchased, and harsh deadlines that resulted in rushed and compromised games. Whether they meddled as much as it would seem from the outside, there's a clear pattern of developer acquisition by EA - developer releases rushed and/or shoddy product from previously successful series - developer gets shut down. Sad face. Nothing we could do. Unfortunate business decision. There's certainly some correlation there to add fuel to the fire when people hypothesize about EA, the Great Destroyer of gaming studios.

That's true, and EA is responsible for at least some of the disasters (Ultima VIII and IX, for example). But people act like EA is, as I said, Snidely Whiplash, buying up companies they don't like just to screw them over. And yes, EA is a very corporate corporation, and I could see how developers could have conflicts. However, gamers act as if EA is worse than Activision, or Ubisoft, or every corporation ever.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

That's true, and EA is responsible for at least some of the disasters (Ultima VIII and IX, for example). But people act like EA is, as I said, Snidely Whiplash, buying up companies they don't like just to screw them over. And yes, EA is a very corporate corporation, and I could see how developers could have conflicts. However, gamers act as if EA is worse than Activision, or Ubisoft, or every corporation ever.

They've left a longer trail of bodies in their wake, and they went through the unfortunate (but well deserved) "EA Widows" scandal over their woeful treatment of their employees. They've done little to nothing to earn anyone's affection. That they're now leading the charge for DRM and microtransactions is just solidifying the community resolve to hate them.

But yes, it's not like they're Monsanto or anything.

 

[aelreth]

Fine, I'll play defense.

Are you a bond holder?

No.

Do you own their stock?

If you do, you had a good last 3 months.

So go away.

A customer?

Jokes on you.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Do what Jim Sterling said: Just wait 2 weeks or a month and then buy the game.
If their release sale "flops", they'll notice hard. Also the shareholders will notice, and the gaming industry does not want the shareholders to be pissed, now they actually take bigger interest in the industry.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I understand where you are coming from, but please don't say "They did X" as if this is the exact same company that existed in the 90s. It isn't. That EA died a long painful death many years ago.

Who's talking about history? This is the company that routinely releases free multiplayer DLC for Mass Effect 3.

The indi games origin free hosting thing was like a year ago.

The decision to honor games purchased because of their bug was even less time ago.

They are throwing tons of money into the development of Dragon Age 3 and a ton more dev time than DA2. They spend more money than most every other publisher on actual game development. They aren't doing this because they are muahaha evil, they are doing it because they believe that the best way to get money(which is how people vote for what they want in a capitalist system) is by developing higher quality products.

When the dreams of the company changed from,

"We need to make games for gamers, by gamers."

to

"...we need to think of a way to charge gamers for reloading in multiplayer." (look it up)

This new EA has done nothing to advance gaming in the last decade, nor have they done anything to advance client relationships. I hate to invooke Sterling here, but why are you defending something that doesn't give two shits about you?

1) No company gives two shits about me, they all want money and have just tried different methods of getting it. I just judge them all without bias. I don't ignore the stupid shit they do, I just don't buy on day one because I'm not an idiot. And I look into products before I buy them, because again, I'm not an idiot.

2) They will not release it for every single game, they will run a test case of one game, like they do with everything. If it's a shitty model people will ***** and it will get changed or the game will just flop and they won't try to do it again.

3) You're not understanding what he is saying. He's talking about f2p full title games that charge you minor amounts of money after significant periods of play. "When you are six hours into playing Battlefield and you run out of ammo in your clip, and we ask you for a dollar to reload, you're really not very price sensitive at that point in time." So if you played 60 hours of his game you would have to spent 10$ on it. For the full fucking game. 10$. If you were super into the game and spent 500 hours playing it then you have to spend about 80$. It's an idea to be able to fund big title games, charge the hardcore games more for getting more out of the product while allowing casual gamers to get into the game very cheaply.

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

Wait until the new Dragon Age comes out.

 

[Agayek]

I am.

Mostly from the people who fabricate reasons to add more hate to the pile. Or the people who push opinions as facts, such as "All EA games suck!" - Not fact. I've quite enjoyed most of the EA games I've played in the past two years, including Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age II, Crysis 2, Mass Effect 3, Crysis 3, Kingdoms of Amalur (not actually an EA game, but co-published by them, meaning some people probably avoided it just because their name was on the box, even though they had literally zero involvement outside of distribution), Alice: Madness Returns, Bulletstorm, the Dead Space trilogy, Mirror's Edge, etc.

I don't like EA's business practices, and they've given tons of legitimate reasons for people to criticize them, but the hate has quite frankly reached some illogical singularity at this point. People are latching onto any "bad" reports they can to try and bad-mouth EA even further, even when it turns out those reports were completely fake or taken out of context and thus mean nothing like what the people imply. I find it ridiculous.

While I quite agree with pretty much everything you've said here, I feel that I must point out that Dragon Age 2 is objectively terrible. The only thing that stopped it from being a Colonial-Marines-esque catastrophe was Bioware's skill(s) as a developer. It failed, to one degree or another, at practically everything it tried to do.

That doesn't mean one can't enjoy it, but it does mean that it does not meet fairly basic standards of quality (read: coherent plot, game mechanics that aren't inherently broken, more than five maps/layouts/whatever for all forty-odd dungeons in the game, etc, etc).

 

[generals3]

That's true, and EA is responsible for at least some of the disasters (Ultima VIII and IX, for example). But people act like EA is, as I said, Snidely Whiplash, buying up companies they don't like just to screw them over. And yes, EA is a very corporate corporation, and I could see how developers could have conflicts. However, gamers act as if EA is worse than Activision, or Ubisoft, or every corporation ever.

Neither activision or Ubisoft pulled a C&C4 on me so yeah i'll stick to EA being worse. Now off course i'm totally biased about this because there are no UBisoft or activision series i love so they won't be able to ruin one and make me a mad panda.