Update 2: EA Dismisses Dungeon Keeper Mobile Criticism

[Tanis]

"Update: As confirmed by Gamasutra, EA has a rather sneaky way of getting all those 5-star reviews that Skalski values so much. When the game asks you to rate it on Android and you choose to give it less than 5 stars, it doesn't allow you to do so, and instead asks you to message the company with your feedback. Of course, if you pick 5-stars you can still alter your rating later, but nonetheless, it's a pretty underhanded tactic."

Holy...LEE...SHIT.
Wow, just...WOW.

Mind=Blown

 

[Barbas]

Well, ain't that a case of a shitty company doing the same sort of shitty things they've been doing for decades. As for the speculation about how this will affect EA's ranking in the upcoming Golden Poo awards, all I can say is...

[HEADING=2]One more year! One more year! One more year![/HEADING]

 

[Quiet Stranger]

After reading the update on this article and looking at the game on the Google Play Store myself (and figuring out just why the game has so many 5 stars) I'm just becoming more and more depressed. (or should that be really down in the dumps?) Also reading the people's comments on how it was EA that killed Bullfrog and Westwood makes me feel worse, forgot to put that in there.

I never played many of Bullfrog's games, only ever played Magic Carpet on the Playstation and Sim Theme Park on the PC, I can still remember the day I bought Sim Theme Park with my own money, can still remember walking out of the local Staples with it in hand, can still remember the brand new smell of it too, Sim Theme Park was one of my all-time favourite games as a kid (still is I guess) it appealed to me so much, I loved the four different theme parks and all the different theme park rides and I absolutely LOVED being able to walk inside the theme park and go on all the rides, it made me very happy.

I got Magic Carpet for the PS1 for free at my local EB Games because nobody was buying it and so the manager asked me if I wanted it and damn right I took it. I didn't really know what to do in the game but it was pretty fun none the less.


Now onto Westwood, I only ever played one of their games but I still have it today, Nox, what an absolutely amazing game, so much humor in it and so bright and colorful, I love it. I can still remember playing the multiplayer for it on a demo I had downloaded of the game and I had so much fun playing the game with other people but when I had finally bought the game I could never find any servers for it, which made me sad. I still have the CDs from when I very first bought the game so long ago and I have the CDs from when I purchased it off Ebay, maybe 5 years ago now, it's a game that will be in my heart forever.

Now onto what EA has done, I never knew what happened to Bullfrog or Westwood probably until I joined this website and started hearing about it, I always wanted there to be a sequel to Nox but now I know there never will be one, ooohhhh this is just crippling me emotionally, I think I may actually cry.

I remember I had a chance to buy Dungeon Keeper 2, one day when I was at my local Microplay (don't know if anyone remembers Microplay, best damn game store ever, WAY better than EB Games ever was and ever will be) they had a revolving shelf display thingy full of different PC games and on that rack/shelf thingy was Dungeon Keeper 2 AND Sim Theme Park, I now regret not buying both of them when I had the chance, I would give anything to play Sim Theme Park again.

This whole mess with the DK Mobile game just disgusts me, fuck EA. How can they live with themselves, how can anyone work with these evil bastards?

 

[Reyold]

Well, this is a new low, and that's saying a lot.

But hey, when you treat video games as purely a business instead of an art form, it's easier for corrupt practices to slip through.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Update: As confirmed by Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/210168/EA_downplays_Dungeon_Keeper_freetoplay_criticisms.php], EA has a rather sneaky way of getting all those 5-star reviews that Skalski values so much. When the game asks you to rate it on Android and you choose to give it less than 5 stars, it doesn't allow you to do so, and instead asks you to message the company with your feedback. Of course, if you pick 5-stars you can still alter your rating later, but nonetheless, it's a pretty underhanded tactic.

lol, wow ...

I now this is EA, so them doing something shady is about as shocking as the sun coming up but this ...

this really smacks of, well,

Spoiler: this

EA guy 1: Hey?! No ones bitching about us?!

EA guy 2: What?! Why the hell not?!

EA guy 1:*rummages online for a bit* They seem more pissed at Microsoft right now.

Ea guy 2: Can't have that, QUICK!! Find me a beloved old IP for us to ruin.

EA guy 1: BRILLIANT!! I know just the one, whats your plan?

EA guy 2: I poorly thought out port to a noble device.

EA guy 1: Perfect!!, I'll have the boys make it so it can't be rated lower then 5 stars as well.

Which would be really sad if it where some one else

 

[Jaylo69]

deleted sorry

 

[Nimcha]

I don't see the problem really. If you wanna play, you pay. Simple as.

So you're perfectly okay with paying more than twice as much as the original games AT LAUNCH to play this piece of crap like the original games for a time span of maybe an hour?

Congratulations, you are EA's target audience, far more money than intelligence.

No, I am not. But other people clearly are, and that's apparently where the money is. Market makes the value.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Well, I'm not the first to say this and I won't be the last, but... REALLY, EA? Of course you're getting mostly 5-star ratings, because you're only RIGGING the fucking thing.

Disgusting. Not only did you make this pile of shit knowing it was a clusterfuck of insults to the original fanbase, and not only did you say that it's their own fault for expecting a game called Dungeon Keeper to play like Dungeon Keeper, but you also planned for the inevitable backlash of anyone unfortunate to play it and attempt to mark it as the POS it is. For this alone you deserve the golden poop award for the third year in a row.

 

[Reyold]

If I know anything about community-gathered ratings, it's that they can be manipulated. You can buy those 4.5 stars, just like you can buy those "downloads".

Nobody knows what "in-game engagement" means, because it probably doesn't mean anything.

This guy's career is probably over if he speaks out against it, especially so early on.

Maybe keep that in mind before anyone decides to talk shit about him.

Are you implying that one's career should be worth more than one's pride, character and honesty?

Ideally, one's integrity should be more important than the job, but that's not always an easy decision to make, especially with other mouths to feed.

That doesn't excuse him, of course, but that is something to consider.

 

[loa]

Update: As confirmed by Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/210168/EA_downplays_Dungeon_Keeper_freetoplay_criticisms.php], EA has a rather sneaky way of getting all those 5-star reviews that Skalski values so much. When the game asks you to rate it on Android and you choose to give it less than 5 stars, it doesn't allow you to do so, and instead asks you to message the company with your feedback. Of course, if you pick 5-stars you can still alter your rating later, but nonetheless, it's a pretty underhanded tactic.

And that idiot Jeff Skalski rubs the ratings of this game in our face like it's some sort of achievement.
I don't get it. What was the point of this? Did he think we won't notice?
Did he want to baffle us with bullshit because he was all out of brilliance to daze us with?
Now their little fraud is pretty public, good job calling attention to it.

Somehow I think he wanted to sabotage the whole thing but couldn't directly speak out against it because he did more damage than good by speaking up.

I also heard you get in-game currency when you rate the game 5 stars. True?

 

[Therumancer]

Update: As confirmed by Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/210168/EA_downplays_Dungeon_Keeper_freetoplay_criticisms.php], EA has a rather sneaky way of getting all those 5-star reviews that Skalski values so much. When the game asks you to rate it on Android and you choose to give it less than 5 stars, it doesn't allow you to do so, and instead asks you to message the company with your feedback. Of course, if you pick 5-stars you can still alter your rating later, but nonetheless, it's a pretty underhanded tactic.

And that idiot Jeff Skalski rubs the ratings of this game in our face like it's some sort of achievement.
I don't get it. What was the point of this? Did he think we won't notice?
Did he want to baffle us with bullshit because he was all out of brilliance to daze us with?
Now their little fraud is pretty public, good job calling attention to it.

Somehow I think he wanted to sabotage the whole thing but couldn't directly speak out against it because he did more damage than good by speaking up.

I also heard you get in-game currency when you rate the game 5 stars. True?

Hmmm, can't find my post now, but I said last night that I suspected something like this might be going on. EA after all was caught in another scandal trying to pump up the metacritic scores of "Dragon Age 2" years ago. It went pretty much nowhere, but I still remember it.

EA's internal justification used for DA2, which also applies here, is that they felt that having their people shill the game to make it look better received than it was, was merely just "balancing" things due to all of the alledged trolls who would show up and give it 1 star (or none) to "metabomb" it especially if they disliked EA. Their argument being that it all "balances out". Of course this is the same EA that had a Bioware rep once say more or less that they simply dismissed negative feedback and ignored their own forums due to it being a "toxic, self-perpetuating environment", not because you know... people were genuinely and justifiably mad at them. On a lot of levels I think EA and the companies it controls live in their own little self contained world with it's own rules and standards of right and wrong where what they are doing is heroic and justified. I'd imagine in the brains of EA's people the simple fact that you can alter the rating afterwards means that some people will give it a 1 arbitrarily, so the 5s forced through simple laziness make it fair.

That said it would be funny if it wasn't so sad, and being done for real. It sounds like something out of a business comedy from the 1980s with people fixing survey results. Even more amazing is EA will still wonder why everyone hates them, and feel that just justifies more of the same kind of behavior. I know a lot of people wonder at EA's title given so many more destructive companies out there, but at the end of the day it's not the huge, global, impact, but the casual malevolence and disregard that really sets them apart. I mean Exxon might cut corners and cause problems when one of it's tankers wrecks, but it doesn't deliberately set out to wreck the environment like a Captain Planet villain for example. They tend to mostly just be greedy and stupid. EA on the other hand willfully sits there and creates a rigged rating system which it then employs to defend it's products, and sits there knowing this saying "we can ignore our critics because well.. the positive ratings show them to be in a distinct minority". I'd almost expect Catbert runs EA, but Catbert is too competent about what he does, and rarely gets caught (he just brags about it to a certain audience).

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

If I know anything about community-gathered ratings, it's that they can be manipulated. You can buy those 4.5 stars, just like you can buy those "downloads".

Nobody knows what "in-game engagement" means, because it probably doesn't mean anything.

This guy's career is probably over if he speaks out against it, especially so early on.

Maybe keep that in mind before anyone decides to talk shit about him.

Are you implying that one's career should be worth more than one's pride, character and honesty?

Ideally, one's integrity should be more important than the job, but that's not always an easy decision to make, especially with other mouths to feed.

That doesn't excuse him, of course, but that is something to consider.

Another point to consider is that such statements could render him 'toxic' and unhireable due to the stench of this fiasco following him long afterwards. I mean would want to hire someone that could potentially cause your game to be boycotted and reviewbombed?

 

[Hero in a half shell]

So what they're basically saying is "Our game isn't bad becuase look at all the downloads it has gotten and look at all the people discussing this game, that obviously means that our game is fantastic and does not need changing we have definitely decided."

Honestly it wouldn't be the first time...

(Yes that's an official EA advertisement created and released after the ME3 ending controversy went viral.)

Looks like the new boss is the same as the old boss, and to think all that "We want to be the best company" "We can change" crap EA came out with was only a few months ago.

Welcome to EA, where words are worth nothing, and Free to Play has a $100 payment option.

 

[Altorin]

Ah, I see EA is going all out for a hat-trick in the 'Worst Company in America' award.

Indeed, what the hell happened to this:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130075-Electronic-Arts-Wants-To-Be-Voted-Best-Company-In-America

I mean really, this is an odd way of going about scraping back that goodwill, fellas.

when it comes time for the voting, the ballot will be like this

"Is EA the Best Company?

Yes
No"

and clicking No will lead you to a website apologizing for their faults and asking you to help them be better, without even casting your ballot.

Easy to be the best when you act like that.

So what they're basically saying is "Our game isn't bad becuase look at all the downloads it has gotten and look at all the people discussing this game, that obviously means that our game is fantastic and does not need changing we have definitely decided."

Honestly it wouldn't be the first time...

(Yes that's an official EA advertisement created and released after the ME3 ending controversy went viral.)

Looks like the new boss is the same as the old boss, and to think all that "We want to be the best company" "We can change" crap EA came out with was only a few months ago.

Welcome to EA, where words are worth nothing, and Free to Play has a $100 payment option.

wow, they actually used Mass Effect 3's ending controversy and a quote taken ENTIRELY out of context to sell the game? That's just golden.

 

[CorvusFerreum]

If I know anything about community-gathered ratings, it's that they can be manipulated. You can buy those 4.5 stars, just like you can buy those "downloads".

Nobody knows what "in-game engagement" means, because it probably doesn't mean anything.

This guy's career is probably over if he speaks out against it, especially so early on.

Maybe keep that in mind before anyone decides to talk shit about him.

Are you implying that one's career should be worth more than one's pride, character and honesty?

Ideally, one's integrity should be more important than the job, but that's not always an easy decision to make, especially with other mouths to feed.

That doesn't excuse him, of course, but that is something to consider.

Another point to consider is that such statements could render him 'toxic' and unhireable due to the stench of this fiasco following him long afterwards. I mean would want to hire someone that could potentially cause your game to be boycotted and reviewbombed?

EA?
Okay, joking aside.... Microsoft?



On a more serious note: Isn't it kinda sad that people consider it necessary to be a complete dick to survice in the modern buisness world? Not just taking a small hit on your personal ethics, not just maybe keeping quiet that one time even if you want to speak out. No I mean being a completely toxic plonker towards your consumerbase and grinning self satisfied while shitting in their faces. Honestly: Someone who choses a career path where this kind of behaviour is seen as necissary deserves no compassion if the shit gets flung back into his face.
Forgive me for being a bit rash, I've just seen this sort of thing to often and I'm really getting tired of it.

 

[Colt47]

So I think we can all conclude that EA is not only socially irresponsible, they are unethical to top it all off.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Proving once more EA is that Ex who always comes around once every couple of months, teary-eyed saying that they've changed or have changed and then BAM, kidneys on the black market AGAIN.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Fucking clown. If it's meant to be played with a few minutes here and there, why are the timers days long and not hours? Perhaps more importantly, why the fuck is Dungeon Keeper, the continuation of a proud legacy, a game meant to be played with a few minutes here and there?

After the whole 'Sim City is a game meant to be played online and in tiny building areas' trainwreck, I'm not fucking surprised that they'd think a strategy game was the sort of thing you want to play a couple of minutes at a time. And then of course they react to any criticism with 'you fanboys wouldn't be happy with anything but a re-skin of the original.'

Combine all this with their hilariously obvious system of rigging the votes, and you have to wonder where they keep finding new feet to shoot themselves in.

 

[truckspond]

Thank goodness for people making videos on the internet! They can articulate the frustrations with the game way better than I can! http://www.nerdcubed.co.uk/videos/nerdcubed-101-dungeon-keeper-mobile/

 

[neonsword13-ops]

Hey

Hey, EA


Seriously. Tampering with review scores, fucking with the gameplay, and just overall ruining a classic is just too much. This shit should not be acceptable. Like, at all.

I just hate that people will actually PAY to play more of this microtransaction-riddled mess.

More power to 'em I suppose.