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

Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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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

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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.
 

ShogunGino

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Moth_Monk said:
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

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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

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Jan 8, 2009
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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

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Zeh Don said:
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

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Acrisius said:
rob_simple said:
Adam Locking said:
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

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Acrisius said:
rob_simple said:
Acrisius said:
rob_simple said:
Adam Locking said:
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.
 

Mike Richards

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There isn't a lot I can single EA for that I can't also accuse other major publishers of doing as well. They all more or less have the same problem of being good businesses but bad entertainment services, and eventually that's going start effecting their business standing as well.

It's important for any company to recognize that they work for their customers above their stockholders but in an entertainment industry it's absolutely crucial, and while I can call them out on certain specific acts of stupidity on a whole they don't really seem any worse then anyone else.

Besides, I still think Bioware is one of the greatest developers working today. Just because they aren't making the kind of games they used to doesn't mean they're making bad games, just different ones. Whether you happen to like that style or not is entirely your own problem.
 

Helmholtz Watson

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Moonlight Butterfly said:
Okay here is an up close example of how incredibly insane EA can be.

I play the Sims 3 (shutupimagirl) and the exchange was borked for a long time. The people who found it fun to make houses and took pleasure in sharing their sims were getting a little antsy after like 2-3 months of it not getting fixed.

A couple of my friends wrote about how shitty it was on their personal blog. EA banned their accounts and made it so they couldn't play the game.

From what they wrote

On their personal blog.

With no links to EA or anything.

:|
Um....how did EA know that they wrote those things? o_O
 

setting_son

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Command and Conquer 4. What in the hell that was about, I have no idea.

Completely awful on every level from storyline to mechanics.

As an ending to the story of Kane vs GDI... urgh. I know that the storyline in C&C has always been incredibly cheesy and over the top - and it's not like I'm hugely emotionally invested in how the saga ends but even then I'm still a huge fan of C&C and having that 'game' finish off the series was, in my opinion, a worse finale to a beloved game than Mass Effect 3's ending sequence (Which, in fairness, I actually didn't mind after the extended cut).
 

ThriKreen

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rob_simple said:
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?
Because sometimes the alternatives could have been much worse (see: THQ, Activision).

Other factors are in play as well than just the shady reputation. Gamers only see the one but on the employment side there's benefits, stock options, adequate funding for the current and future games, etc., stuff a small studio might have difficulty with, vs. a huge multimillion dollar publisher who gets bulk discounts for health benefits.

Did they actually allow a degree of creative freedom (DA:O to DA2) or are forced to make a sequel with little change (CoD:MW)? Allow for experimental game design (Spore, The Sims)?
 

rob_simple

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Aug 8, 2010
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Acrisius said:
You're definitely on to something big with that last paragraph though. Gamers are idiots, and non-gamers even more so. EA only does what they get away with, though I hardly think that excuses anything. Maybe some people like it that way, but I prefer a world where everyone is NOT constantly forced to fight each other to get as much as possible at someone else's expense.
Amen to that friend, that's why I think digital distribution is a future we should all be supporting because it gives little developers more options to distribution and, most importantly, has the potential to cut out the money-counting middlemen. It's worked brilliantly for the music industry, so I think it's a seriously viable option for gamers, as well.

ThriKreen said:
rob_simple said:
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?
Because sometimes the alternatives could have been much worse (see: THQ, Activision).

Other factors are in play as well than just the shady reputation. Gamers only see the one but on the employment side there's benefits, stock options, adequate funding for the current and future games, etc., stuff a small studio might have difficulty with, vs. a huge multimillion dollar publisher who gets bulk discounts for health benefits.

Did they actually allow a degree of creative freedom (DA:O to DA2) or are forced to make a sequel with little change (CoD:MW)? Allow for experimental game design (Spore, The Sims)?
This is pretty much what I'm driving at. EA aren't a perfect company (because there is no such thing) but there are clearly benefits to the developers that choose to work with them, (otherwise they wouldn't be doing it,) and there are other publishers who are just as shitty but don't take nearly the same amount of flak.
 

Hero in a half shell

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Do you know how the CEO talked about those studios that they had castrated and burned in the recent PR Abomination that was the IGN Why do people hate EA? abomination of journalism?

He said this:
Peter Moore says, ?In gaming the highway of innovation is littered with roadkill, developers and publishers that just couldn't figure it out, couldn't find ways to bring money in so they could pay their employees and pay their rent and keep the electricity on and everything else you need to do. That's why we try different things.
I'll highlight the important part, because this is how the current CEO of EA sees all those studios.

Pandemic,
Westwood,
Origin,
Maxi,
Bullfrog,
Mythic,

the highway of innovation is littered with roadkill
You are roadkill to him. He sees your contribution to gaming as a stinking, rotten dead animal that is best flung as far away as possible, and forgotten about.

Apparently Westwoods 6% share of the entire gaming market wasn't enough to keep them afloat at the time EA bought them.
Bioware's highly successful raft of RPG's that were legendary in gamer circles were just not 'innovative' enough for EA?
Maybe they needed more DLC and Online passes, or more First Person segments with cover based shooting?
Those companies were successful and popular when EA bought them over.

To call them 'roadkill' and accuse them of not being innovative enough is absolutely disgusting, disrespectful and dishonest.
 

Starik20X6

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DoPo said:
The one TC talked about in the OP and said it didn't give him the information? Yes, I'm sure watching that would help.
MFW:


Ok, I have no personal gripes with EA, though that's probably got something to do with not being able to recall how long it's been since I bought an EA game. That said, online passes are pretty sleazy, and I still don't see how DRM punishes anyone but the paying customers.
 

Hero in a half shell

It's not easy being green
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Draech said:
Hero in a half shell said:
To call them 'roadkill' and accuse them of not being innovative enough is absolutely disgusting, disrespectful and dishonest.
Well they dont say Innovative enough. They say couldn't figure it out.

Maybe for ideological reasons, maybe for being to innovative, maybe for not being innovative enough. Either way you are drawing a conclusion he didn't say.

The overall message in the statement is if you cannot capitalize on your skills you will not survive, and in that sense he is right.
That is manipulation of semantics taken to such a thick level that you could tin it and sell it as molasses.

He is talking about innovation, his point is that EA is innovative and constantly trying new things, and the 'roadkill' are the studios EA had bought out and integrated into themselves. He says their failure was innovation, so EA innovated for them.
Although we do not have the financial information to know how well these companies were doing financially, we do know that Westwood had 6% of the market share when EA bought them, I think EA had 11% at that time, and was a much larger company, so Westwood were doing fine financially.

Someone earlier in the thread also mentioned how EA admitted that they forced Origin to partner with them through unfair lawsuits and manipulation, basically bullying them into financial instability so they could come along and buy them out. For these companies it wasn't a matter of not being able to innovate, in fact these were some of the key innovators of videogame history. It was not a matter of money trouble, or at least it wasn't until EA got them in their sights and created that money trouble.
It's not just the CEO saying that it was totally their fault and their failings that these companies are not around (When Origin proves that it wasn't) It is his complete lack of any emotional attachment to them. There is no pity, no thoughts of lost opportunity, or shame. He just calls them roadkill and then says EA is much better because they foster innovation and change. (especially jarring since it has been hypothesised that it is highly likely these companies failed because EA makes it harder to innovate and be original due to their unreasonable deadlines and work ethic.)

It shows the cold, calculating way EA look at games. They no longer believe a computer can make you cry.