Poll: Blacklisting Game Companies

4RM3D

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This thread has been inspired by the rage (from myself included) I see on these (and other) forums about games companies turning more evil the bigger (more corporate) they get.

I have always had this imagine of the film industry where the big 4 studios come together in a dark musky room; men wearing $4000 suits, all of them smoking cigars and all of them nearing the end of their lifespan; seating at a table you see in poker games. When one of them speaks up and says in a deep voice: "What is our next step in world domination?"

Okay, that is overkill. But I do believe the film industry is ruled and hold back by old men. Given 10-20 more years, we will see a new generation of management. One that is more open and innovative.

But I digress... Game companies are fairly young and have more young people pushing for an open community and more innovation. But when game companies grow (and merge together), a more stale corporate spirit is starting to emergence; becoming a bureaucracy where greed has taken over the place and where you are being ruled with an iron fist.

*Points at EA, Activision, Ubisoft*

It is a shame really. But fortunately there are still enough smaller companies that do make good games and care for their customers. So not all hope is lost.

Have you stopped buying games from companies you don't like aka have you blacklisted any companies? And what is your general opinion on the situation?
 

sifffffff

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Blacklisting a games company is stupid. The best example for me that comes to mind is Bioware. I see a TON of hatred spewed towards Bioware and I really can't understand it.

If a game isn't good don't buy it. You don't need to swear off the company at large. Oftentimes different teams make different products within a company.
 

The_Blue_Rider

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As long as the games are good I cant say I care too much, I mean unless they were doing something really evil, like using my money to fund a kitten safari where the executives hunt kittens for sport and food.
 

targren

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Well, I'm the odd-man-out, it would seem, since I certainly will stop giving money to a company, (any company, not just game publishers) that screws me over. I guess I'm old enough that a semblance of self-respect is more important than being able to play the latest "Call of Honor Battlefronts 16 SuperHD Redux" edition.

Both Ubisoft and EA are on that list (but then, so are AOL, Comcast, and Sweetbay grocery stores) and, depending on the E3 showing, it may well be expanded to include Nintendo, Sony, Squeenix, and Microsoft (members of the ESA I can think of off-hand).
 

sifffffff

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As an addendum to my previous point I feel I should mention that many gamers who take the position of "blacklisting" a game company always seem to feel that the game company somehow "screwed them."

Dude. I'm sorry but I don't think it's fair to claim you have more "self-respect" than other gamers because you were at one point or another disappointed by a company or a game and took it as a personal attack on you, your family and society at large.

I've seen this attitude proudly on display by many people who didn't like Dragon Age 2. It went beyond disappointment or disliking the game. It was like Bioware made them kill and eat their cherished family pet.
 

Steampunk Viking

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I hate EA and Activision, but unfortunately they have bought a bunch of companies I love, and they occassionally make games that I feel I need to buy. I do, however, have a system when it comes to games made by EA (my least favourite company) and Bioware (my absolute favourite company). If it's good, it's because Bioware made it good. If its's bad, it's EA's fault for interferring. That's right, I blame EA for Dragon Age II's drop in quality (although it was still an ok game despite that).

I will refuse to play most PC games made by EA or Ubisoft however.... Ubisoft for their dumb anti-piracy crap and EA because of Origin.
 

Clive Howlitzer

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I don't swear off game developers but I will swear off game publishers. At the moment that is EA. I am not purchasing any more EA titles until they stop being insane. When they stop forcing me to install spyware on my computer to play games, I will consider purchasing them again.
 

dimensional

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I dont blacklist games companies as such or havent yet anyway but saying that I think the last game I bought that was published by EA was Alice madness returns (before that was Strangers wrath), Activision was Guitar hero world Tour and Ubisoft was Assasins Creed they just make very few games I want to buy generally so I dont give then money, simple.

I am slightly adverse to buying EA products traditionally stemming from the 90s while Activision really pissed me off when they destroyed the guitar hero franchise so although I dont blacklist these companies as such I am less likely to buy it if it has their logo on the box.
 

hazabaza1

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If I like the look of a game I'll get it. Doesn't much bother me who developed or published it.
 

Wolfram23

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Well, EA I dislike mostly for forcing Origin on us. Any game that requires Origin I'll think twice about. I also dislike having to "log in" to play a game that isn't on Origin, like the Kingdom of Amalur demo.

Ubisoft I think are stupid and I very much dislike their DRM schemes. I don't see myself buying their products anytime soon.

Codemasters I'm more frustrated with than anything. Their racing games are getting worse and worse, and they keep using Games for Windows Live. Fuck that, unless they come out with an exceptional new racing game I'm not buying their shit anymore.

Activision I don't really have a big problem with, but I do very much dislike that CoD is re-released every year and sells so much. Basically I won't buy any CoD games, but other Activision games I'm ok with.

Blizzard I find is definitely going down the wrong path. I won't be getting SC2.2. SC2.1 was sucky enough, and I don't play it online. I am looking forward to Diablo 3, but at the same time I'm not holding my breath for it. Definitely playing the wait game with that one.

I'm also not buying any BioWare games. Their games suck. I know that now. I'll read reviews on them and see if they changed anything, but for now, not happening. ME3? Don't care. DA3? Don't care.
 

sifffffff

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Wolfram01 said:
Well, EA I dislike mostly for forcing Origin on us. Any game that requires Origin I'll think twice about.
Not trying to be rude here or call you out but I'm curious. How do you feel about games that force Steam on us?
 

Wolfram23

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aftohsix said:
Wolfram01 said:
Well, EA I dislike mostly for forcing Origin on us. Any game that requires Origin I'll think twice about.
Not trying to be rude here or call you out but I'm curious. How do you feel about games that force Steam on us?
If I choose to purchase a game on Steam, then fine. But, yeah, if I purchase a physical game like I did with RAGE, I do not want to be forced to use Steam either. Having the option of adding a game to Steam (or if I liked Origin, then to that) and have Steam auto patch it and basically take care of it for me would be a nice feature, but being forced to use any program sucks.

That said, since I use Steam a fair bit, I don't entirely mind it. Plus, their EULA isn't as open ended about info stealing lol. I also dislike having multiple "game platforms" on my PC - currently I have Steam, Origin, GFWL, and Impulse. Fortunately Direct2drive doesn't force their system on us too - Comrade or something?

So, basically, we should have the option of using or not using a game platform, and if we do choose to use one, we should be able to add any and all games to it. I know Steam lets me add the ability to launch a game from it, but for example I have Race Driver GRID that I bought somewhere else a long time ago, and I cannot activate it on Steam at all, even though Steam sells it as well. That's annoying.
 

4RM3D

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aftohsix said:
As an addendum to my previous point I feel I should mention that many gamers who take the position of "blacklisting" a game company always seem to feel that the game company somehow "screwed them."
Not "somehow screwed them". Ubisoft's initial DRM was screwing customers over. People who bought the game couldn't play because the Ubisoft servers were down a few times. And we are talking about a single player game here.

aftohsix said:
Dude. I'm sorry but I don't think it's fair to claim you have more "self-respect" than other gamers because you were at one point or another disappointed by a company or a game and took it as a personal attack on you, your family and society at large.
You have two brands of eggs. One puts all the chickens together in tiny cages. The other lets the chickens roam free. Do you care only about the taste of the eggs? Or are you also looking at how the chickens are being treated?

Game companies do not abuse animals (I hope), but there have been a lot of cases where developers have been mistreated. This is just an example. There are also other messed up things happening at game studios.

aftohsix said:
I've seen this attitude proudly on display by many people who didn't like Dragon Age 2. It went beyond disappointment or disliking the game. It was like Bioware made them kill and eat their cherished family pet.
People were disappointed. It will happen once, it might happen even twice. But a third time people would just ignore (blacklist) the company.
 

kyogen

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I don't do business with EA, Ubisoft, and Activision/Blizzard. I would rather do without their games--no, I won't pirate them, either--than tolerate their business practices. They don't care about one lost sale, of course, but that's also fair.
 

sifffffff

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I think that's a fair attitude to have. I agree the ideal situation for me would be to buy a PC game, input a cd-key or authentication code on the publisher's website and then if I wanted to choose to bring the game into Steam, Origin or whatever else.

It's unfortunate that some games are now requiring one platform or the other but it doesn't matter enough to me to not buy a game based on that factor alone. The game itself has to suck.

EDIT: If I believed that most gamers were "blacklisting" game companies based on the treatment of their employees I'd have no issue but let's not pretend that's the case for the majority of people.

No for the majority it comes down to flat out irrational offense over some perceived slight or another.

I'm not saying that's the case for you. I'm just saying it's probably the case for MANY gamers. If you're against buying EA products because they over-work their employees then I commend you.
 

Steppin Razor

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Nope, no blacklisting for me. If a game comes out that looks like something I'd enjoy, I do a quick search for some reviews on it to get an idea of what other people think and what they liked and disliked, and I make a decision from there. I don't particularly give a shit who made a game, I only care if it's fun.

Except if it has that always on internet bullshit. In a world with better internet, where disconnections from the server were rare, than I would buy those games. But we don't live in that world, so they can fuck off and die.
 

TPiddy

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I won't touch anything with Activision's name on it... they ruined CoD, they ruined Guitar Hero, Spiderman and Tony Hawk... all of their properties are shit now...

I am torn on EA... I hate what they've done to their sports franchises and I won't touch them, but I've invested too much into Mass Effect to allow my hatred for EA to interfere with me finding out what happens to my Shepard....

Ubisoft.... well, I stopped buying Assassin's Creed because I just got tired of them.... no hatred there.