Poll: Evil overlord companies

[Kekon3]

I'm tired of hearing about these companies making bad decisions for us, like how EA (sports) is making us have to pay $10 (USA money, [don't know bout the rest of you guys ^_^;]) for internet playing. Or just recently Activision doing the wrong thing and getting sued for being greedy. It's not that I think they are evil ("yes you do!") it's that they make these choices all the time, and it makes me think that they are just money greedy, ergo I feel like they are the evil overlords.

So if you agree, disagree, want to mention another recent incident like former mentioned, or just want to correct my punctuation errors... fell free to comment!

 

[Proteus214]

Usually when a company does something like this it's to recoup lost overhead. EA Sports has to pay absurd amounts of money for licencing fees to various sports organizations to make more true to life games, something that typical game devs/publishers don't have to do. My guess is that if the online multiplayer aspect was free, they would be slipping into the red.

 

[deus-ex-machina]

It annoys me that there is this idea that companies should charge for the use of online play with their games, considering X-Box live isn't really that cheap unless you're playing most evenings.

But in the UK, game developers just got slightly screwed over with the new tax plans. I don't know whether asking people to get pay more money for online play is a good decision, but I'm sure there are some kids who will force their parents to pay the fees and there will be hardcore gamers who will pay anyway... but it will certainly deter me from buying games when there are extra fees.

I don't play games all that frequently, which is why monthly fees for subscription has put me off games like WoW and CoH/V - even though I used to love them when I played them a lot. I might not play for months now and I know I could cancel the payments, but I'd more than likely opt to pay for a longer period of time to make it cheaper per month. Eh, so yeah, I don't play them at all.

 

[Kekon3]

It annoys me that there is this idea that companies should charge for the use of online play with their games, considering X-Box live isn't really that cheap unless you're playing most evenings.

But in the UK, game developers just got slightly screwed over with the new tax plans. I don't know whether asking people to get pay more money for online play is a good decision, but I'm sure there are some kids who will force their parents to pay the fees and there will be hardcore gamers who will pay anyway... but it will certainly deter me from buying games when there are extra fees.

I don't play games all that frequently, which is why monthly fees for subscription has put me off games like WoW and CoH/V - even though I used to love them when I played them a lot. I might not play for months now and I know I could cancel the payments, but I'd more than likely opt to pay for a longer period of time to make it cheaper per month. Eh, so yeah, I don't play them at all.

Guess your right but I fear they will start to do that for all the EA games

 

[Atmos Duality]

EA's sports titles games fascinate me.
They spend all of that money licensing crap, but it hardly improves their game in any way.
Yet due to the target audience, they have to license the team brands anyway because that's why sports fans play them (from what I've observed).

It's just ironic that the game about the sport isn't about the sport/gameplay it is emulating, but rather the branding present in it. "I bought Madden 09' so I could make the Vikings lose!"

EA is still churning out massive profits; enough to land themselves back into the Fortune 500.
Until then, I really don't have any sympathy for their alleged "money woes".