Jimquisition: EA & Ubisoft: A Cycle of Perpetration and Apology

LiMaSaRe

New member
Mar 6, 2012
86
0
0
I've mentioned this on the Escapist before, but really, I don't understand the huge backlash against Battlefield 4. Its a great game with small but intelligent advancements from the last, and I never once experienced a glitch or any interruption of play. I bought it the month it was released. Either I'm the luckiest man in the world or the issues weren't as calamitous as the Escapist in particular out of all gaming zines seems to think.
 

Iceklimber

New member
Feb 5, 2013
52
0
0
I think "Sorry" means "We will do something else with ultimately the same result"

So for Example Blizzard removed Real Money AH from Diablo but instead they sell the Expansion at a higher price, and gate content so that some of it is sold on another Expansion(s)and also exploring paid DLC, even publicly asking their cusomer what they would like to pay for post-launch.
 

Thanatos2k

New member
Aug 12, 2013
820
0
0
Lord_Jaroh said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
EA & Ubisoft: A Cycle of Perpetration and Apology

The industry loves saying sorry without actually ever being sorry.

Watch Video
I have a question:

Why, if these companies keep doing their "thing" as you say, do the game journalists when speaking with them, never question them on it when the next bestest game ever comes out from them, nor take them to task for it, and warn people to stay away from said games as a "buyer beware" mentality? Why do they not, in their previews, ever give these problems any weight when giving advance "reviews" of an unfinished game?

This isn't a criticism of your video Jim, I just feel as you say, it's a bunch of wind until you are more than just a voice in the darkness unheard by the companies. This is part of the problem, and it won't be fixed until game publications stop promoting these companies shitty tactics. If you want the game industry to improve, you (you the Escapist company, not you in the vernacular), and everyone else in the hype machine, need to be a part of the solution.
Because video game journalists are a dime a dozen. If you try to hold a company responsible they simply don't speak to you anymore, and stop sending you games to review.

There's plenty of game "journalists" willing and eager to take your place and suck the publisher's teat.
 

maximara

New member
Jul 13, 2008
237
0
0
owbu said:
the diablo 3 comment seems slightly weird in the context of the rest of the episode (Just saying sorry to boost sales, but not changing anything)
Blizzard removed the auction house and completely remodeled the lootsystem towards what customers wanted, instead of saying sorry and then bringing out RoS with the auction house intact to keep making money with it.


Not sure how much more they can do at the point where they realised their mistake.



I am still waiting for the "sry for the long wait times for our WoW expansions, we will do better!" apology to mean something though^^
Given how this keeps happening I sometimes wonder if Blizzard takes a page from Peter Molyneux putting mouth in gear before the brain has even had time to wake up. Blizzard did this with Path of the Titans which once they started actually working on the thing turned into little more than the existing glyph system on massive steroids and they rightly killed it. Many of the numerous changed in Warlords can be put down to practicality (allowing garrisons anywhere was going to be a coding nightmare) mixed in with a good amount of 'let's trim the bloat and fix various issues with classes while we are at it.
 

Artaneius

New member
Dec 9, 2013
255
0
0
This is why I only buy games when they are very cheap either through Steam or GOG. I haven't bought an EA game other than dragon age origins since they screwed up the Ultima and Ultima Online series with Ultima IX and Ultima Online Age of Shadows. I hope EA dies a horrible death one of these days for killing my favorite franchise. And this happened back in the early 2000s btw.
 

Demonchaser27

New member
Mar 20, 2014
197
0
0
trouble_gum said:
I'm pretty sure (well, fairly sure... kinda) that EA board meetings rarely have "How can we fuck our customer base (who we hate) over more and faster?" as their lead agenda point. I am, however, pretty damn sure that they do have "How can we maximize our profits and minimize potential collateral damage to us and our bottom line?" in there somewhere.
In the business world that's essentially saying the same thing. These business', as shown in practice, do want to get you paying as much as they can while having to give you as little as possible. In fact that is the best way to maximize profit. Anyone who has decided that they will put their benefit exclusively above others, which in this case is actually directly detrimental to the opposite party, is saying that they just don't care whether you die and rot. And to be fair they aren't exactly expected to care but when your actions, directly or indirectly, cause you to have to lie, cheat, or rip off people then you are responsible for that. Holding these companies accountable for that isn't by any means wrong or unjust. In fact its really the only thing that makes sense.


Put another way; when some thing happens that, from the gaming community's perspective is a terrible outrage for which recompense must be demanded, the reaction of the parts of big companies like EA and Ubisoft who actually make the Big Decisions? is not to ask "How did this happen and what can we do to stop it from happening again?" but instead to say "How many units are we not going to sell because of this and what is the least expensive, least involved and complicated way to make it go away for long enough to get the next product moving?" That's not actually evil or malevolent, it's just selfish and capitalist.
Being selfish or capitalist isn't a justification for any of this. This is as much the "gamers" culture as it is theirs. What they release and what practices they inflict on us does have an effect on the 'whole' community. That's the entire point of getting outraged about it in the first place. This doesn't just happen in a vacuum. You can't cut corners, take out features, and "monetize" your users and expect the games to be okay and the industry to go untarnished. Especially when there are plenty of examples, past and present of games that were fantastic games. And before the old "you aren't owed a game" comes out, these companies aren't owed money or appraisal for what they do.

So far, these calculations have always come up in the companies' favour. While there's definitely some stupidity involved somewhere along the line, because these things keep happening and the cycle between them seems to be getting shorter and almost all of them appear to be really simple things to fix or things that should never have been issues to begin with, at the base it's less stupidity and more cupidity that's at fault.
And they (calculations) will continue to come up in their favor alone and no one else's for as long as they are allowed to be 'selfish' as you said earlier. They can't be allowed to screw people and lie to them and it just "be okay" simply because its a company. Playing to victim blaming doesn't work.

I completely understand that our current "economic system" (if it can be called that) allows lying, cheating, and manipulation but it certainly doesn't make it okay or justified. And a lot of us here will continue to fight it until something is done about it. Personally I would love to see the day when its no longer allowed to manipulate people at all in the market.
 

SnowWookie

New member
Nov 22, 2012
41
0
0
hydrolythe said:
SnowWookie said:
"The video game industry thinks you're an idiot... and you're not"

When it comes to the average gamer, all evidence would seem to point to the contrary. EA, Ubisoft (and let's not forget Activision!) keep pulling this shit and people keep buying their games. A glance at the top selling games and you're bound to find multiple games by these guys in the top 20 on any given week
But you also forget that this forum is only used by a minority. The majority sees the games they sell through their adverts on TV.
Which is my point. The majority of gamers (like the majority of people) *are* idiots.
 

Ihateregistering1

New member
Mar 30, 2011
2,034
0
0
The entire crux of Jim's rant seems to be "gamers are smart but game companies think you're dumb", but then his rant goes and basically proves the complete opposite point.

I hate to tar all gamers with a large brush, but if these companies continue to release broken and problematic games that don't do what they're supposed to do, then apologize and say they'll fix it next time but NEVER do, but people KEEP buying them by the millions, over and over and over again, who are the dumb one(s) here?

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, it sounds to me like it's the gamers here who are the crazy ones, not the companies. The companies have simply figured out that they can continuously get away with it.
 

immortalfrieza

Elite Member
Legacy
May 12, 2011
2,336
270
88
Country
USA
gamegod25 said:
This. The real issue is not that video game companies keep doing this blatantly exploitative crap, they're just taking the path that gets them the most benefit with the least amount of effort, just like every other person on the planet. The REAL problem is that there's pretty much an endless wellspring of idiots out there that don't know or don't care that they're being screwed over who will still buy their games, most often referred to as blind fans and/or casual "gamers". The actually smart, actual gamers out there that actually give a damn about their entertainment and thus boycott when the industry pulls that sort of crap are in the end a microscopic minority compared to the endless legions of lemmings who will buy into this crap year after year, and it's those legions that the industry is going to listen to. It's yet another case in human history of the uninformed and stupid masses screwing it up for everybody that isn't uninformed and stupid.

As incidents like the ME3 ending and Xbox One debacle have shown, a video game company has to screw up to absolutely epic levels for anything resembling a united front that might actually hurt the company's bottom line and thus possibly accomplish something to appear. Things like that should be happening on a routine basis whenever the video game industry steps out of line, but that's not what happens. As long as the many many idiots continue to drown out the voices of the intelligent it will not only stay as bad as it has been but will continue to get worse.

Hell, that's pretty much the world in a nutshell.
 

Thanatos2k

New member
Aug 12, 2013
820
0
0
uanime5 said:
Thanatos2k said:
uanime5 said:
1) How exactly was the console version better? Are you referring to smart loot because they introduced that on the PC version before they released the console version.

2) Why would anyone buy the console version when they could play the PC version and chose not use the auction house?

3) Blizzard closed the auction house before the expansion came out because they didn't want people to sell expansion items on the auction house.

4) Why would anyone buy the console version of a game they already had? If they wanted to start from level 0 with no items they could have simply made a new character.
1. No always online DRM.

2. Because the console version didn't have always online DRM, a feature Blizzard claimed was impossible to implement. Another blatant bald faced lie.
Citation needed. When did Blizzard ever say they couldn't make a version without always online DRM? Versions that require always online DRM to prevent the auction house being abused don't count.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/09/blizzard-reaffirms-that-diablo-3-for-pc-will-not-have-an-offline-version/

For people who didn't care about the auction house or battle.net integration and didn't want it in their SINGLE PLAYER GAME, they were SOL. Blizzard could have made an offline mode that disallowed an offline character access to the auction house. They didn't.

3. Why did it take 7 months again? Again - SEVEN. MONTHS. All they had to do was flip a switch and block everyone from clicking the button. Or go a little further and revoke all outstanding auctions and return the items to their owners. Not complicated at all. But they didn't do that - because it made them money.
If they removed the auction house before introducing Reaper of Souls (RoS) then new players would be at a disadvantage because players who had access to the auction house would have better equipment than them. However by removing the auction house shortly before RoS was released they allowed players to buy some good level equipment before all the level 60 equipment became less valuable because you could find better 70 equipment.
Disadvantage over who? So what? People in Diablo 2 had amazing hacked equipment. (Dual-Isted Oculus for the win!) People in Diablo 1 duped things left and right (Godly Plate of the Whales for everyone!) No one cared. The fact that the auction house was the easiest and trivial way to improve your character is exactly why it broke the game.

4. Because it was better than the PC version at that time for reasons previously mentioned.
You failed to provide any evidence to back up those reasons.
Yes I did. It has a single player mode, a feature desired by a huge number of people. Simple as that.

They got their money from the PC people so they didn't care about them - UNTIL, that is, they needed to sell them something again (the expansion).
Care to provide any evidence that Blizzard did get any significant amount of money from the auction house.
http://rpg-exploiters.com/diablo-3-diablo-series/discussing-the-profits-of-diablo-3s-real-money-auction-house/

Then suddenly having the game destroying auction house feature would have made them less money so they removed it.
Citation needed. If they were making money from the auction house then they would have made more money from the auction house if they introduced new items. People who didn't like the auction house would have just ignored it, they wouldn't have refused to buy RoS.
Think of it this way. Millions of players stopped playing Diablo 3 soon after purchasing it for $60. Documented fact. Many of them quit because of the auction house ruining the game. Now Blizzard needed these players to purchase the expansion, so they discontinued the auction house which, while it was making them money, would not have made as much money as the increased sales from the expansion from people who swore off the game because of the auction house. Also it really WAS ruining the game.

They admitted their mistake and then kept on doing what they were doing.
So they removed the auction house, then somehow kept doing what they were doing? What are you talking about?
They announced they made a mistake, then kept on doing what they were doing for SEVEN MONTHS. Over half a year of which they could have disabled the auction house but didn't. Because it was never about doing the right thing with the auction house - it was about the money, as always.

By the way, they might not even be patching future editions on the console:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/13272817274?page=3#57
Well it's difficult to patch a game when the player is always offline. You also ignores that patching games on consoles is more difficult than patching it on PCs because console games aren't installed on consoles.
Uh, what? My console games get patched all the time. You start the game, and if you're connected to the internet, it notifies you an update exists, you download the update, and it installs it locally. Patching on the console is the same as on the PC. Where have you been?
 

geizr

New member
Oct 9, 2008
850
0
0
"...while making as much money as possible..."

"...because these companies think gamers are stupid..."

In my opinion, there's the root of the problem. Gamers keep buying into it, so the companies keep selling it. Here's a thought: these companies are, in my opinion, putting into practice the very behavior I often see gamers evince in online economies, namely, find every way possible to exploit the system and prey upon the lazy stupidity of other gamers to make sales.

*****, cry, complain all you want, but I will simply repeat the mantra I have said multiple times (though I haven't said it in a while): a company hears and understands only two sounds, the creak of your wallet opening and the slap of your wallet closing. All other sounds are considered noise to be ignored. I should probably add some specificity to this mantra to say "a Triple-A game company", as there actually are some companies out there (the smart, successful ones with extremely high customer satisfaction ratings) who DO listen to customer complaints and address them without the need to see the revenue stream dry-up before they are sent into a crisis reaction to understand why no one buys their shit anymore. Of course, there are companies that don't even listen to and understand the wallet creaks and slaps; these companies usually die a painful, if sometimes protracted, death.

Honestly, my advice is to stop buying from EA and Ubisoft, quit bitching on about them, and move on to better games. Just ignore them as an existent entity, paying attention only enough to make sure you're not buying a game from them. In my opinion, EA and Ubisoft are unrepentant, and, as such, we as gamers should just cease raising our blood-pressure about them. Don't even talk about them, at all, neither the company nor their games. Let those companies suffer the agonizing, protracted death of inevitable bankruptcy and oblivion. Don't even go on about how you want to show them the way to improve in the hopes that they'll get better. They won't because they have no reasoning or motivation to do so. Reserve energy and effort for better companies and better games.
 

ZippyDSMlee

New member
Sep 1, 2007
3,959
0
0
Obligatory Peter Molyneux posting! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/zippydsmlee/PeterMfableIAMGOD.jpg

------

That aside this and lack of gameplay depth is what has been driving me away from gaming.
 

GonzoGamer

New member
Apr 9, 2008
7,063
0
0
Not really a dog guy but that is one damn adorable dog. I can't believe I watched that whole ending.

The game industry is learning lessons all the time: most of those lessons are in how much gamers will put up with or even make excuses for them. Of course MS tried that opening stunt with the XBone, they thought they could get away with anything after selling people a defective console for half a generation...and people kept buying a lot of them. I was scared the XBone was going to be a cardboard box with xmas lights twinkling in it. I bet you there are fanboys who would've actually paid $500 for that.
 

Roxor

New member
Nov 4, 2010
747
0
0
Our reaction to a corporation attempting to apologise should be rejection, not acceptance. We should be taking offence at the fact that they would even try.

We're a collective case of battered spouse syndrome. We need to be woken up to the fact that those apologies from corporations are entirely insincere, always have been, and always will be.

Until we adopt that attitude, we will deserve every piece of crap the bastards dish out.
 

Atmos Duality

New member
Mar 3, 2010
8,473
0
0
uanime5 said:
If they removed the auction house before introducing Reaper of Souls (RoS) then new players would be at a disadvantage because players who had access to the auction house would have better equipment than them.
Sorry, but I laughed my ass off at this. Not for any reasons you intended, I assure you, just my own insanity.

When I first read that, it sounded like you just cited the digital equivalent of "penis envy" as the main reason why Blizzard wouldn't fix something.

geizr said:
"...while making as much money as possible..."

"...because these companies think gamers are stupid..."

In my opinion, there's the root of the problem. Gamers keep buying into it, so the companies keep selling it. Here's a thought: these companies are, in my opinion, putting into practice the very behavior I often see gamers evince in online economies, namely, find every way possible to exploit the system and prey upon the lazy stupidity of other gamers to make sales.
Yup, they're exploiting what they believe is excess demand and nothing more. When market growth outpaces their growth (relative to market share), that tells them that someone, somewhere is making money that they aren't. So they seek out who or what is making the most, and try to copy them: aka, "Tit-for-tat" (game theory, as in the actual economic "game theory", not that annoying web show).

To demonstrate what I mean and reinforce what you said, I'll use EA's recent comments about Dungeon Keeper as an example.

Right now, one of biggest moneymakers are those exploiting the shit out of the mobile Freemium market, where the most financially successful games aren't really games but things resembling games owned by companies run by assholes (read: King and co).

If I had to guess, Dungeon Keeper wasn't trying to be a fun game so much as it was trying to ape the success of crap like Clash of Clans; which itself is just an elaborate Pay2Win scheme hidden behind what looks like a competitive strategy game.

All the same elements are in place; In this model, Money is time, and time is Power. You need Power to compete.
Either sit around for weeks hoping you don't get raided into the dirt while trying to build up, or pay real money to rapidly acquire power.

Of course, Dunegon Keeper failed miserably while Clash continues to succeed. Why? I dunno. I'm not psychic, but if I had to make an educated guess, I'd say EA's awful reputation was a major contributor. The public is likely more aware of EA's bullshit due to their history (two time winner of the Golden Poo), while Supercell as a company is scarcely a blip on the outrage radar despite making a horrible, yet inexplicably popular "game".

So when EA finally admitted to Dungeon Keeper's failure...they cited reasons no customer (or any sane person) expected.

To EA, the mistake wasn't in exploiting a horrible Pay2Win scenario; Clash of Clans continues to get away with that bullshit to this day. From EA's perspective, the issue is that they didn't exploit the players correctly.

Which is why the response they gave to us sounds incredibly detached.

"We innovated too much" sounds self-congratulatory to anyone with a soul, but from their perspective, with the corpspeak translated, means "We pushed the customer too hard too fast, but our long term business model is correct."

"The market wasn't ready for this yet" sounds insane, since no gamer wants to be "ready" for the horrible price gouging offered. But from EA's perspective, again, the complaints are just another sign that they pushed the envelope too quickly.

Next time, I expect them to pull the same shit, only they are going to initially offer better up front while eventually introducing the Pay2Win bullshit they want to exploit in easier to swallow increments.

This practice isn't without precedent. Companies already managed to pull that off for price-gouging DLC schemes.

(*Oh, and it's no coincidence that the same argument was made for Always Online by the now infamous Adam Orth. Large companies know the kind of clout they can wield over the market, and will try to pressure the market into accepting things that are strictly worse for it. Essentially, it's an effect stemming from "monopolization" of a market, or more accurately, one that's slowly degenerating into an oligopoly.

The USA telecoms market is a good example of a market deep into that process; if I want broadband, my choices are shitty DSL, or overpriced shitty cable. Cable companies in particular are doing everything they can to stifle competition and development because they have an oligopoly.

In fact, net-based services are expected to jump in price across the board for no other reason than extortion due to the death of net-neutrality; a feat only made possible by corruption and a lack of competition.

On the cellphone provider front, well, I can't even buy a new supported phone now from my provider at a reasonable cost without "upgrading" to a smartphone...which includes an extra $360 USD/year for a shitty data plan. My options relative to my needs are being eliminated solely to pressure me into paying extra for shit I don't want or need.)

They aren't listening to customers anymore; they're just trying to trick or pressure them into buying a worse deal.
I'd say expect the lies, boasts and claims to become more outlandish the longer this absurd process continues. Of course, it only continues because the market foolishly keeps these assclowns in business. Speaking of..

Honestly, my advice is to stop buying from EA and Ubisoft, quit bitching on about them, and move on to better games. Just ignore them as an existent entity, paying attention only enough to make sure you're not buying a game from them.
..I completely agree to stop buying their games (something I put into practice; I haven't done any business with EA, Ubisoft or Blizzard for 4 years now; 7 years for EA) but I don't believe in remaining silent.

If even one gamer becomes more informed of the increasingly deceptive and exploitative practices of the AAA industry, it is worth the effort.