What, specifically, has E.A. done? *I seriously don't know*

[rob_simple]

Also, this is something I've always wondered, if EA is so bad and everyone knows it, why do these companies keep allowing themselves to be bought up?

 

[RipRoaringWaterfowl]

And to think EA buying you out saved you at first, now your teetering on the verge of death.

Soon you may just end up like your other great bretheren, dead, gutted... oh wait, you've already been half gutted, great.

YOU'LL BE MISSED!

 

[ThriKreen]

Also, this is something I've always wondered, if EA is so bad and everyone knows it, why do these companies keep allowing themselves to be bought up?

Sometimes they had no choice - like I said, maybe they were going to go under anyway and the buy-out was preferable.

Say you are a beloved developer, and made a number of decent or critically acclaimed games. But then made a couple mediocre ones due to whatever reason (hubris, new features didn't work well, etc.) or were overshadowed by another developer, thus your sales were lower for the next titles. You're suffering losses as you have payroll to maintain, vs. doing layoffs.

A big name publisher comes along and offers to buy your studio up for $$$ due to your pedigree.

Then after the buy-out, you and other seniors cash out, leaving the inexperienced devs still at the studio to pick up the pieces, thus the line of mediocre games continues, and quality continues to drop.

OH HEY, sounds similar to what happened to Westwood! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westwood_studios]

In August 1998, Westwood was acquired by Electronic Arts for $122.5 million in cash. At the time, Westwood had 5% to 6% of the PC game market.[1] In response to EA's buyout, many long-time Westwood employees quit and left Westwood Studios.

One could argue they were doing well, but I suspect Blizzard taking a chunk of the RTS market with WarCraft and StarCraft wasn't helping their bottom line. I know I saw more people playing SC than C&C back then, you hardly saw competitions for C&C, meanwhile look at Korea for SC.

Again, I'm not saying EA is absolved of all blame and fault, continuing the same snippet:

Because of this and EA's newly imposed demands, games being developed by Westwood Studios at the time were rushed and left unfinished upon their release, namely Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun.[2] All the subsequent games developed by Westwood were also heavily subjected to increased control by Electronic Arts, with some of them being cancelled.

But a studio losing a lot of veteran developers is a HUGE blow to the studio. Losing a lot of veteran experience which would have made sure the project kept on scope, something inexperienced, new devs tend to fall into a trap of too much feature creep (hence the unfinished, unpolished feel).

So back to my original point, neither side is wholly at fault, it's just that the parent owner publisher, EA, does what it does to survive, which means things like deadlines, trying to get as much profit as possible, moving and merging studios to cut costs, and sometimes it might mean closing an unprofitable, expensive studio. Fans of the studio only see the end result, but not the "Why", and thus direct a lot of their hatred towards EA as the cause, since they're still standing.

I would also point out that EA is huge, and suffers the problem when you get a company with 2000+ employees: communication break-down. It's not that they're evil on purpose, but that because they're so big with so many people (re: middle managers) in positions of power, you often get situations where the left hand (VP saying deep discounts cheapen IP in an interview) doesn't know what the right hand is doing (Origin Europe has an 80% off summer sale the same week as the fore mentioned interview). So you can sometimes get cross purposes with people playing political games with the studio caught in-between, or just aren't aware of what's going on from the other side (asking for feature A, while other manager asks for feature B, but said features don't mesh well).

 

[Judgement101]

They got rid of Bullfrog which is why I hate them.

 

[malestrithe]

Pandemic Studios: The geniuses behind "Star Wars: Battlefront" and "Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction". Partnered with Bioware in 2005, making "Destroy All Humans!". Bought by EA in 2007 when EA bought Bioware. Went on to make "Mercenaries 2: World in Flames", "Lord of the Rings: Conquest", and "The Saboteur", all of which did not meet sales expectations, before being closed down.

Also, EA has a reputation for making the same game over and over, such as with "Madden NFL."

What you told me is that EA did not just shut down Pandemic. EA allowed Pandemic to fail three times before shutting them down. That's not evil. That's sound business sense.

Remember that you are only as good as your last project in a business model. It does not matter if these "geniuses" made three good games first. What matters is their final three games failed miserably.

Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Rock Band are essentially the same game. EA has released them every year. Is is somehow better for the "core" approved games to be repetitive and not the much derided casual games.

 

[DEAD34345]

What have they done?

What have they done!?

They killed BULLFROG, you fool! No new Syndicate, no new Populous, but worst of all... No Dungeon Keeper 3...

No punishment is harsh enough for those people. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to re-suppress these memories before my urge-to-kill reaches critical levels.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Basically, it's because they have a reputation for running smaller companies into the ground, like you said. Here are some examples.

Westwood Studios: Well known and loved for their Command and Conquer series. Bought out by EA in 1998. EA maintained a lot of control in the game making side of things. Last game was "Command and Conquer: Renegade", a complete departure for the series, and not well received, causing Westwood to be shut down.

Origin Systems: Known for "Ultima" and "Wing Commander". Bought out in 1992. "Ultima VII Part 2: The Serpent Isle" was well received, but "Ultima VII: Pagan" and "Ultima IX: Ascension", were...not. Meanwhile, Wing Commander III was considered the peak of the series, with Wing Commander IV being rushed by EA to meet a 12-month deadline (failing to do so by 2 months). Closed down in 2004.

Bullfrog Productions: The original company of Peter "mouth too big for his own good" Molyneux. Bought by EA in 1995. Molyneux left to form Lionhead two years later, with Bullfrog closing down in 2004 after being merged with EA UK.

Maxis: The mind behind "Simcity". After being bought by EA, they went on to make "The Sims", which has a reputation for being dragged down with expansion packs. "Spore" did not go over too well either, being massively pirated. Nowadays, pretty much nothing other than an EA brand name.

Pandemic Studios: The geniuses behind "Star Wars: Battlefront" and "Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction". Partnered with Bioware in 2005, making "Destroy All Humans!". Bought by EA in 2007 when EA bought Bioware. Went on to make "Mercenaries 2: World in Flames", "Lord of the Rings: Conquest", and "The Saboteur", all of which did not meet sales expectations, before being closed down.

Also, EA has a reputation for making the same game over and over, such as with "Madden NFL."

If I give you credit for this can I use this in a video on youtube? Cos that was just a perfect summing up.

Go for it. It would be weird to hear my username on youtube, but I can deal with that.

 

[rob_simple]

Also, this is something I've always wondered, if EA is so bad and everyone knows it, why do these companies keep allowing themselves to be bought up?

Sometimes they had no choice - like I said, maybe they were going to go under anyway and the buy-out was preferable.

Say you are a beloved developer, and made a number of decent or critically acclaimed games. But then made a couple mediocre ones due to whatever reason (hubris, new features didn't work well, etc.) or were overshadowed by another developer, thus your sales were lower for the next titles. You're suffering losses as you have payroll to maintain, vs. doing layoffs.

A big name publisher comes along and offers to buy your studio up for $$$ due to your pedigree.

Then after the buy-out, you and other seniors cash out, leaving the inexperienced devs still at the studio to pick up the pieces, thus the line of mediocre games continues, and quality continues to drop.

See, this is exactly what I suspected, so surely that makes whoever was in charge of making the deal on the smaller developers side every bit as guilty as EA? (I did actually read your whole post, I just wanted to acknowledge that I agreed with you.)

People seem to have started using EA as a scapegoat for the far greater problems that are inherent in the entire industry, and I don't think they deserve to shoulder anywhere near the huge amount of blame they are given.

 

[ProtoChimp]

Snip

I'm probably not gonna have any proper recording equipment for a while anyway, but thanks

 

[Thoric485]

What you told me is that EA did not just shut down Pandemic. EA allowed Pandemic to fail three times before shutting them down. That's not evil. That's sound business sense.

Remember that you are only as good as your last project in a business model. It does not matter if these "geniuses" made three good games first. What matters is their final three games failed miserably.

Pandemic's only failure was in having joined up with BioWare 2 years earlier, thus becoming the unwanted bastard child of the deal between Riccitiello's investment firm and EA.

Fact is the three "failures" have 5 million sales between them. If we assume $25 returns per sale, that's a cool $125 million dollars revenue from a studio EA had for less than two years. So it's clear they just didn't have any long-term plans for Pandemic [http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/701123/ea-says-pandemic-closed-because-it-was-too-expensive-not-bad-games/]. They finished up whatever projects were already started (not really generous with resources either [http://gafferongames.com/2009/11/22/pandemic-shut-down/]), axed one office after LOTR: Conquest launched, axed the other one before Saboteur even hit shelves, and focused on their golden child - BioWare, with the $300 million MMO dream and all that.

Soon BioWare will also turn to ashes, and then maybe, hopefully, the investors or at least the so called gaming journalists and critics, will finally realize sports and the Sims is all EA was ever good for.

 

[Moth_Monk]

If the OP really wanted to know the answer to the question, the OP would have, at the very least searched Wikipedia. The OP really just wanted to post a thread and get replies.

Here is EA's "Criticism" section on their wiki page

Spoiler

Studio acquisition and management practices
See also: List of acquisitions by Electronic Arts
During its period of fastest growth, EA was often criticized for buying smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then producing drastically changed games of their franchises. For example, Origin-produced Ultima VIII: Pagan and Ultima IX: Ascension were developed quickly under EA's ownership, over the protests of Ultima creator Richard Garriott,[58] and these two are widely considered[59] to be subpar compared to the rest of the series.[60][61]
In early 2008, current CEO John Riccitiello acknowledged that this practice by EA was wrong and that the company now gives acquired studios greater autonomy without "meddling" in their corporate culture.[29]
In 2008, John D. Carmack of id Software said that EA is no longer the "Evil Empire"[62] and decided to go with EA Partners, despite having a poor opinion of the publisher's past record.
"I'll admit that, if you asked me years ago, I still had thoughts that EA was the Evil Empire, the company that crushes the small studios...I'd have been surprised, if you told me a year ago that we'd end up with EA as a publisher. When we went out and talked to people, especially EA Partners people like Valve, we got almost uniformly positive responses from them."
Like other EA Partners, such as Harmonix/MTV Games, Carmack stressed that EA Partners deal "isn't really a publishing arrangement. Instead, they really offer a menu of services?Valve takes one set of things, Crytek takes a different set, and we're probably taking a third set".[62]
EA was criticized for shutting down some of its acquired studios after they released poorly performing games (for instance, Origin).[63] Though, in some of the cases, the shutdown was merely a reformation of teams working at different small studios into a single studio.[64][65] In the past, Magic Carpet 2 was rushed to completion over the objections of designer Peter Molyneux and it shipped during the holiday season with several major bugs. Studios such as Origin and Bullfrog Productions had previously produced games attracting significant fanbases. Many fans also became annoyed that their favorite developers were closed down, but some developers, for example the EALA studio, have stated that they try to carry on the legacy of the old studio (Westwood Studios). Once EA received criticism from labor groups for its dismissals of large groups of employees during the closure of a studio. However, later, it was confirmed that layoffs were not heavily confined to one team or another, countering early rumors that the teams were specifically targeted?countering the implication that the under performance of certain games might have been the catalyst.[66]
EA was once criticized for the acquisition of 19.9 percent of shares of its competitor Ubisoft, a move that many[who?] felt would lead to a hostile takeover but has not yet materialized. However, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot later indicated that a merger with EA was a possibility. "The first option for us is to manage our own company and grow it. The second option is to work with the movie industry, and the third is to merge," he said.[67] However in July 2010, EA elected to sell its reduced 15 percent share in Ubisoft[68] That share equated to roughly ?94 million (US$122 million).[69]
Treatment of employees
In 2004, Electronic Arts was criticized for employees working extraordinarily long hours?up to 100 hours per week?and not just at "crunch" times leading up to the scheduled releases of products. The publication of the EA Spouse blog, with criticisms such as "The current mandatory hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.?seven days a week?with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30 p.m.)".[70] The company has since settled a class action lawsuit brought by game artists to compensate for unpaid overtime.[71] The class was awarded US$15.6 million. As a result, many of the lower-level developers (artists, programmers, producers, and designers) are now working at an hourly rate. A similar suit brought by programmers was settled for US$14.9 million.[72]
Since these criticisms first aired, it's been reported that EA has taken steps to positively address work-life balance concerns by focusing on long-term project planning, compensation, and communication with employees. These efforts accelerated with the arrival of John Riccitiello as CEO in February 2007. In December 2007, an internal EA employee survey showed a 13% increase in employee morale and a 21% jump in management recognition over a three year period.[73]
In May 2008, 'EA_Spouse' blog author Erin Hoffman, speaking to videogame industry news site Gamasutra, stated that EA had made significant progress, but may now be falling into old patterns again. Hoffman said that "I think EA is tremendously reformed, having made some real strong efforts to get the right people into their human resources department," and "I've been hearing from people who have gotten overtime pay there and I think that makes a great deal of difference. In fact, I've actually recommended to a few people I know to apply for jobs there," but also claims that she's begun to hear "horror stories" once again.[74]
Game quality
For 2006, the games review aggregation site Metacritic gives the average of EA games as 72.0 (out of 100); 2.5 points behind Nintendo (74.5) but ahead of the other first-party publishers Microsoft (71.6) and Sony (71.2). The closest third-party publisher is Take-Two Interactive (publishing as 2K Games and Rockstar Games) at 70.3. The remaining top 10[75][when?] publishers (Sega, THQ, Ubisoft, Activision, Square Enix) all rate in the mid 60s. Since 2005, EA has published seven games that received "Universal Acclaim" (Metacritic score 90 or greater): Battlefield 2, Crysis, Rock Band, FIFA 12, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age: Origins.
EA's aggregate review performance had shown a downward trend in quality over recent years and was expected to affect market shares during competitive seasons. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson had said, "Poor reviews and quality are beginning to tarnish the EA brand. According to our ongoing survey of GameRankings.com aggregated review data, Electronic Arts' overall game quality continues to fall...Although market share has not declined dramatically to date, in years such as 2007, which promises to have tremendous competition, it seems likely if quality does not improve."[76][77]
EA had also received criticism for developing games that lack innovation vis-à-vis the number of gaming titles produced under the EA brand that show a history of yearly updates, particularly in their sporting franchises. These typically retail as new games at full market price and feature only updated team rosters in addition to incremental changes to game mechanics, the user interface, and graphics. One critique compared EA to companies like Ubisoft and concluded that EA's innovation in new and old IPs "Crawls along at a snail's pace,"[78] while even the company's own CEO, John Riccitiello, acknowledged the lack of innovation seen in the industry generally, saying, "We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play. For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before." EA has announced that it is turning its attention to creating new game IPs in order to stem this trend, with recently acquired and critically acclaimed studios BioWare and Pandemic would be contributing to this process.[79][80]
Anti-trust lawsuit
On June 5, 2008, a lawsuit was filed in Oakland, California alleging Electronic Arts is breaking United States anti-trust laws by signing exclusive contracts with the NFL Players Association, the NCAA and Arena Football League, to use players' names, likenesses and team logos. This keeps other companies from being able to sign the same agreements. The suit further accuses EA of raising the price of games associated with these licenses as a result of this action.[81] However, in an interview with GameTap, Peter Moore claims it was the NFL that sought the deal. "To be clear, the NFL was the entity that wanted the exclusive relationship. EA bid, as did a number of other companies, for the exclusive relationship," Moore explained. "It wasn't on our behest that this went exclusive... We bid and we were very fortunate and lucky and delighted to be the winning licensee."[82] More recently, EA has been sued by former NCAA players for allegedly using their images without compensation.[83]
EULA agreements and DRM
In the September 2008 release of EA's game Spore it was revealed that the DRM scheme included a program called SecuROM and a lifetime machine-activation limit of three (3) instances. A huge public outcry over this DRM scheme broke out over the Internet and swarmed Amazon.com with one-star ratings and critical reviews of the game in order to get EA to "pay attention to their consumers".[84] This DRM scheme, which was intended to hinder the efforts of pirates to illegally use and distribute EA software, instead mainly affected paying customers, as the game itself was pirated well before release.[85] On September 13, 2008, it was announced[by whom?] that Spore was the most pirated game ever with over half a million illegal downloads within the first week of release.[86] In response to customer reaction, EA officially announced its release of upcoming Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 would increase the installation limit to 5 rather than 3.[87]
On September 22, 2008, a global class action law suit was filed against EA regarding the DRM in Spore, complaining about EA not disclosing the existence of SecuROM from the game manual, and addresses how SecuROM runs with the nature of a rootkit, including how it remains on the hard drive even after Spore is uninstalled.[88][89][90] On October 14, 2008, a similar class action lawsuit was filed against EA for the inclusion of DRM software in the free demo version of the Creature Creator.[91]
On March 31, 2009, EA released a "De-Authorization Management Tool" that allows customers who have installed games containing the SecuROM activation scheme to "de-authorize" a computer, freeing up one of the five machine "slots" to be used on another machine.[92]
On June 24, 2009, EA announced and formalized a change in its approach to preventing piracy of PC games. The company plans to drop all DRM from its games, replacing it with a traditional CD-key check. However, games will include content that is not present on the disc, requiring a download during the activation of the game. The intent is to create an incentive to buy a legitimate copy of the game. A general policy has been laid out with plans envisioning games more as services with a lot of content to freely download or buy linked to the game, some goodies and regular updates as a way to coax players to use the genuine copies of EA games.[93]
Sexism and ageism in advertising
EA's advertising campaign for Dead Space 2 was decried as sexist and ageist, with gamers claiming that it was reinforcing out-dated stereotypes against female and older gamers.[94][95] The game is rated M for Mature, and is therefore only recommended for players over the age of seventeen. Others thought the advertisements were pointless and would hurt market share.[96] "The video game's campaign hinges on a unique premise ? one that ignores how much the culture of gaming has changed."[97] As of 2010, 40% of console-only gamers were women and the average game player was 34 years old.[98]
For the advertising campaign, 200 women were selected for their conservative values and lack of familiarity with video games. Their reactions to a screening of the game were featured in EA's web and TV advertisements with the campaign slogan "Your mom hates Dead Space 2".[99]
On February 24, 2011, the Extra Credits team (at the time on The Escapist) published the episode "An Open Letter to EA Marketing", denouncing Electronic Arts' marketing decisions for the Dante's Inferno, Medal of Honor and Dead Space 2 releases. They argue that EA's decisions to hire fake protesters and market games solely on shock value, while neglecting to defend the Medal of Honor on a 1st Amendment basis for letting the player play as the Taliban, have been hurtful to the gaming industry. They also argue that the advertisements are counterproductive to Electronic Arts' wishes to elevate games to an art medium as demonstrated in the 1980s Electronic Arts ad 'Can a Computer Make You Cry?'.[100][101]
The Consumerist poll
In April of 2012, The Consumerist awarded EA with the title of "Worst Company in America" along with a ceremonial Golden Poo trophy.[102] The record breaking poll drew in more than 250,000 votes and saw EA beating out such regulars as AT&T and Walmart. The final round of voting pitted EA against Bank of America. EA won with 50,575 votes or 64.03%.[103] This result came in the aftermath of the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy which several commentators viewed as a significant contribution to EA's win in the poll.[103][104] Other explanations include use of day-one DLC and EA's habit of acquiring smaller developers to squash competition.[105] EA spokesman John Reseburg responded to the poll by saying, "We?re sure that British Petroleum, AIG, Philip Morris, and Halliburton are all relieved they weren?t nominated this year. We?re going to continue making award-winning games and services played by more than 300 million people worldwide."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_arts#Criticism

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Now those of you blaming EA for shutting down studios... Who's more at fault, EA for purchasing those studios or the studios themselves for selling out to EA?
Seems to me if said studios were doing JUST FINE on their own, they would have done the smarter long term thing and stayed independent from EA. But in truth, those studios most likely weren't doing well financially and were contemplating shutting down prior to being bought and given a chance to continue making games which they then failed at.
Now EA is very disconnected from their customer base, true on that, but most corporations are like that these days. It comes from having people with marketing degrees and no personal knowledge or real love for the product they are selling.
I do see the industry hitting a second slump, and out of the ashes will come something newer and better. #Phoenixrising

 

[Aeonknight]

Meh, EA never did much wrong by my standing.

Bad advertising? It's advertising, big deal. Go watch modern commercials for 15 minutes and you'll see what I mean.

gutting of loved developers? .... what loved developers? I could give a damn about any of the ones people have mentioned so far. The only one on that list that I care about is Westwood with the C&C series. But I'm also not naive enough to blame their downfall entirely on EA, they already had 1 foot in the grave. After all, if they were doing well before the buyout, they wouldn't have needed to be bought out in the first place.

DLC practices? Varies on a case by case basis. I see no problem with the way they handled BF3's DLC. Again, don't care about ME3 or what alien race had a price tag on him.

Remaking of the Madden series? Now you're just being petty. It's a fucking sports game, what were you expecting?

I've said my piece. EA hasn't done any damage that's relevant to my interests that warrants any ire from myself. Some of you may feel differently, that's fine. I already know I'm not about to change anyone's opinions with my post, I'm just putting it out there that EA is not as universally hated as everyone would like.

 

[JaceArveduin]

BFME II: ROTWK got ONE patch. That's it, one whole shitty patch.

I rest my case

 

[ShogunGino]

If the OP really wanted to know the answer to the question, the OP would have, at the very least searched Wikipedia. The OP really just wanted to post a thread and get replies.

I will thank you not to make baseless assumptions.

I did not go to wikipedia because I thought people on the Escapist would have a bit more detail than a wikipedia article. Regardless, I am surprised at the length and number of sources on the wikipedia page that you have shown, but I thought asking here would be better as this is a site primarily about games.

 

[Deadman Walkin]

I never really followed what EA did, but I saw what they did with battlefield 3 and I must say I was heavily disappointed. Releasing DLCs every month-couple months and the premium stuff? So many of my old favourite servers went "premium only" like many servers, so I don't have the privilege to play there anymore because I didn't pay $50 for premium. I gave up on the game after that.

 

[Khada]

In short, I hate EA because they are an old fashioned, apathetic, profit driven, corporate and business-as-usual publisher in an industry where that attitude and approach ends up fucking the consumer and the developers. I've met EA's founder Trip before and he's the kind of douche that belongs back in the 60's.

 

[CarlMin]

This nicely sums it up.

EA Games requires year-on-year growth, like all publicly traded companies. Games, and I mean good ones, can take over five or six years to actually complete, not including any R&D that went into them.
EA Games allows a developer two years from conception to release. Two years for the entire project - engine development, asset construction, marketing, internal testing, etc. - is simply not enough time.

It's as simple as that. EA Games buys developers, owns their I.P.s, and forces them to work to impossible deadlines.
They're not the only ones, of course. Activision Blizzard has closed eight high profile studios in six years. We're unable to determine how many smaller studios it has acquired, robbed, and closed.

I don't understand.

All those developers made the decision to work with EA, so either they they figured that working with EA as their publisher is still beneficial to them, whether marginally or substantially, or they just didn't have strong enough IP or enough resources to continue the development on their own, in which case EA can hardly be blamed for scooping them up.

Now you could argue that EA essentially force these smaller game developers to continue to work for them by purchasing their IP, but that doesn't make any difference seeing as even the decision to sell their IP was the choice of the game developers at some point. If any of the studies mentioned in that picture would have been better off without EA, they would be working without EA. But they weren't, so I have to assume that these companies were depending on EA for their own survival, so to say.

Now, EA does not have the responsibility to keep them alive, or continuously invest resources into their IP's, or even to allow them their desired amount of time and resources to meet deadlines. Their are not in the business of charity, after all. Had it been better if EA simply refused to renew contracts with these game studios instead? I don't think it would.

 

[rob_simple]

That and the fact that the game had nonexistant advertising and tanked despite reasonable-to-mildly-positive reviews makes it all the more likely that EA's reputation for meddling sabotaged it.

Complete and utter conjecture. I bought the game after I watched some Achievement Hunter videos and it looked/is fun. But you could be right as far as advertising goes, because I certainly hadn't heard of it prior to AH or the ZP review.

OT: I can understand why a lot of people have an axe to grind with EA, but for the majority of people it's like the unpopular kids at school hearing that Katy Perry is popular now and coming in the next day wearing a Katy Perry shirt and hat, saying they've bought a ticket to everyone one of her shows etc...what I'm getting at is that most people use EA as a punching bag to sound clever or fit in, when they actually know nothing about how a business is run or that most of their choices are done out of necessity rather than just to be bastards.

It is interesting to note that, in the post somewhere above which laid out many of the smaller companies EA consumed, most of them had been churning out nothing but sequels for several years, meaning that there's every chance they'd have gone under because no one cared anymore as opposed to EA's 'meddling'.

Be careful when you accuse people of not understanding business. It can backfire. For example, you seem to not understand why a big publisher would want to acquire a successful, smaller developer. They don't do it so that the developer can make original IP, they do it so they can keep making lucrative sequels of their previously successful IP's. Original IP's are risky. The payoff is higher if you play it safe. So saying that those developers would have tanked because nobody cared anymore or whatever, is wrong. If nobody cared anymore, they wouldn't be making sequels and would have made originals instead. But when they were part of EA, what happened was that they were instead liquidated into the company, most even before their IP's stopped being relevant or popular. People don't understand business? I certainly share that opinion sometimes, but I always think very hard before I share it, because it's a very arrogant thing to say. EA don't understand business because many of their top people don't understand the industry they're working in, which is why everyone who DOES know the industry hates them or dislikes them.

EA is largely run by suits and moneycounters, rather than people who are actually competent in this line of business. The horror stories I've read about what it's like working for them, at least in their customer support, are enough to give a guy nightmares. There are many ways to successfully run a business, and EA is taking the most exploitative way. That's why I hate them.

Okay, let's say that everything you have said is correct, I will ask again: why do these companies keep going to EA? If everyone who knows the business knows that EA are bad news then why do so many companies keep allowing themselves to be bought over buy them?

And I didn't say anything like what you are accusing me of in my post; I merely pointed out that it's complete speculation to say that a company would have continued to pump out classic after classic if only they hadn't been bought out by sinister old EA who locked them into endless sequel mode.

As I said, most of the companies listed were already churning out sequels like there was no tomorrow and the fact they allowed themselves to be consumed by the gaming giant would suggest to me it they were already in a poor financial standing and needed the money. If it was some sort of hostile takeover involving the buying of majority shares or whatever then the staff could have just as easily left and formed a new company as I understand many other people have done.

EA quite possibly are largely motivated by money/greed, but no doubt so are many of the smaller companies that they took under their wing, which is why I say that while EA's hands may not be clean, they are not the only set of fingerprints on the gun.

 

[rob_simple]

That and the fact that the game had nonexistant advertising and tanked despite reasonable-to-mildly-positive reviews makes it all the more likely that EA's reputation for meddling sabotaged it.

Complete and utter conjecture. I bought the game after I watched some Achievement Hunter videos and it looked/is fun. But you could be right as far as advertising goes, because I certainly hadn't heard of it prior to AH or the ZP review.

OT: I can understand why a lot of people have an axe to grind with EA, but for the majority of people it's like the unpopular kids at school hearing that Katy Perry is popular now and coming in the next day wearing a Katy Perry shirt and hat, saying they've bought a ticket to everyone one of her shows etc...what I'm getting at is that most people use EA as a punching bag to sound clever or fit in, when they actually know nothing about how a business is run or that most of their choices are done out of necessity rather than just to be bastards.

It is interesting to note that, in the post somewhere above which laid out many of the smaller companies EA consumed, most of them had been churning out nothing but sequels for several years, meaning that there's every chance they'd have gone under because no one cared anymore as opposed to EA's 'meddling'.

Be careful when you accuse people of not understanding business. It can backfire. For example, you seem to not understand why a big publisher would want to acquire a successful, smaller developer. They don't do it so that the developer can make original IP, they do it so they can keep making lucrative sequels of their previously successful IP's. Original IP's are risky. The payoff is higher if you play it safe. So saying that those developers would have tanked because nobody cared anymore or whatever, is wrong. If nobody cared anymore, they wouldn't be making sequels and would have made originals instead. But when they were part of EA, what happened was that they were instead liquidated into the company, most even before their IP's stopped being relevant or popular. People don't understand business? I certainly share that opinion sometimes, but I always think very hard before I share it, because it's a very arrogant thing to say. EA don't understand business because many of their top people don't understand the industry they're working in, which is why everyone who DOES know the industry hates them or dislikes them.

EA is largely run by suits and moneycounters, rather than people who are actually competent in this line of business. The horror stories I've read about what it's like working for them, at least in their customer support, are enough to give a guy nightmares. There are many ways to successfully run a business, and EA is taking the most exploitative way. That's why I hate them.

Okay, let's say that everything you have said is correct, I will ask again: why do these companies keep going to EA? If everyone who knows the business knows that EA are bad news then why do so many companies keep allowing themselves to be bought over buy them?

And I didn't say anything like what you are accusing me of in my post; I merely pointed out that it's complete speculation to say that a company would have continued to pump out classic after classic if only they hadn't been bought out by sinister old EA who locked them into endless sequel mode.

As I said, most of the companies listed were already churning out sequels like there was no tomorrow and the fact they allowed themselves to be consumed by the gaming giant would suggest to me it they were already in a poor financial standing and needed the money. If it was some sort of hostile takeover involving the buying of majority shares or whatever then the staff could have just as easily left and formed a new company as I understand many other people have done.

EA quite possibly are largely motivated by money/greed, but no doubt so are many of the smaller companies that they took under their wing, which is why I say that while EA's hands may not be clean, they are not the only set of fingerprints on the gun.

There are many ways to compete in business. By offering better quality of product, service, price, etc. Then there's also the EA way, which is to compete by simply having more capital. EA is easily the biggest publisher. They can use their capital to basically do what they want, figuratively. All developers require funding and investments to do what they do. And as I've said, EA has that more than anyone. They can afford to distribute, advertise and fund any project. Sounds like a pretty damn sweet deal for some studio looking to expand, doesn't it? That's the answer to your question. Though I have to admit, I think people exaggerate a bit when they describe EA as The Grim Reaper of studios, I doubt it's their official plan to disband studios. But they do have a way of interfering and running things very centrally from the top, and I think that's what's wrong and causing most of the problems. It's like a movie where the producer and investors call more shots than the director and writers.

I don't want you to misunderstand, I actually agree with you that EA are dickbags when it comes to their business tactics, but even with what you just described it still doesn't really answer my question which is, even with the benefits you mentioned, why would a company still sign up with EA when apparently everyone in the industry knows them to be these financially motivated, interfering, creativity-stifling morons? And given that the majority of consumers associate the EA brand with poor quality now, why would any developer want to be associated with them?

If the aim of these developers seeking investment is to publish their games, then why would they sign on with the one company that has a supposed track record of crushing new IP into dust? Why don't all the small developers pool their resources together and make their own, relatively powerful publishing company instead?

What I'm driving at is, if EA is really as bad as the majority of people make it out to be, then why are there no alternatives? Why does the industry as whole allow them to get away with it instead of shunning them and forming new bonds based on respect and creativity rather than just maximum profit?

The only thing I can think of is that every company would like to be exactly like EA: Hated almost universally but still raking in millions every single year because, despite the um's and ah's, gamers are a tiredly predictable bunch who will piss and moan til the cows come home but still happily lap up whatever is thrown down in front of them at the end of the day.