Andy Chalk said:
Nobody's forcing anyone to buy EA's products, or to pay for their "nickel and dime" DLC, or use Origin, or anything else. EA makes a product and offers that product under certain conditions; consumers then choose whether or not they want to lay out their money for it. And millions upon millions of people say "Yes, please."
If anyone in that equation is "destroying" the industry - which, for the record, is absolute nonsense - it's not EA, it's the purchasing public. It's you.
EA doesn't have a gun to anybody's head, and it's the height of ridiculousness to suggest otherwise.
As for Notch's comments, they're beyond disingenuous. "EA is methodically destroying gaming" is not a statement that needs clarification.
The sad thing is that there are too few people that get what you are saying.
In the past couple of years I've seen the mentality grow leaps and bounds, the mentality of the customer is always right.....also that the customer has absolutely no responsibility for what they buy.
1.)People don't realize/remember that "the customer is always right" isn't a company rule/law, that it was a phrase made and used by companies as a deceiving tactic to keep customers buying. It means that sellers should create an illusion that the customers are right; the customers are happy thinking they are right, even though the sellers got everything they wanted and didn't have to compromise themselves(lose profit). It has been abandoned by most companies these days, because with the way things are, they lose profit in the long run.
2.) Some people that bought Mass Effect 2 complained about all the DLC it had, as well as about points they didn't like about the story and changes in gameplay. The same people bought Dragon Age 2 and went ape shit over things they had problems with in the story and gameplay. The same people complained about things they had problems with in Mass Effect 3, from leaks, before it was released. The same people bought Mass Effect 3 and complained about those "problems" that they saw in the leaks and are still in the game. They went even more ape shit and started petitions, etc, etc, everybody knows the situation by now. These people also go along with Notch, and spout out how EA is destroying the industry.
At what point will these people realize they are also to blame as well? They keep buying and turning around to complain. At what point will they realize that this is what EA has done for years, and it is idiotic for these people to keep buying the stuff and continue to rant?
The sad truth is never, because an idea has slowly taken hold of people, and those people seem to have become a majority voice. That idea is that companies that are looking to make profit are evil and that the only thing companies should look out for is the customers.
Fewer and fewer people understand that the reason people start businesses and make companies is to make profit.
EA is a company, that while having vasts amounts of backlash against them, they are still making huge profits. If they can still make large profits by hardly changing anything, if at all, when people complain, there is no motivation to make the complainers happy. It could get them more profits, but they are already making steady profits so there is no need to change(because change costs money, usually more than the gain in return).
The complainers don't seem to understand the concepts of: "If you don't like what a company does with their products, go buy from someone else." -and- "If you keep buying from a company and keep continuing to complain, the company is going to do nothing because they keep getting your money." They see it as forfeiting your right to complain. And they are right, because
you can go buy from someone else.
Edit: People need more education on how companies work, and how the mentality I discussed is wrong.
