Can EA really pull content out of games?

[wabbbit]

I love playing COOP games and there's nothing better than couch co-op with a friend but sometimes this isn't possible and we need to play over Xbox Live or Steam.

I picked up Army of Two despite it being an average game purely as it has COOP only to discover that the colossal ass-hats which are EA have pulled support for online coop. I can understand that support should be pulled for old games and could possibly get over the fact that the matchmaking for coop partners is gone, but why can't I setup a private game with someone on my friends list? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't I be the host of the game? Not EA? Surely this wouldn't be hard to patch? I'm yet to find an old PC game that I can't still play online!

At first I didn't know support was pulled, so I checked the list of games that aren't supported any longer. Seems that another game I own - Saboteur- was featured on the list(Or rather it's DLC) This one confused me even more as saboteur is a single player game and even though the DLC isn't that good and the game is quite old, surely they can't just pull it? I know it's probably in their license agreement for the game but surely this violates Xbox TOS? How long till they start doing this with other EA titles?

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand why games like FIFA etc. would be pulled as the people that play those sort of games tend to 'upgrade' each year (and I know it's a well known fact that EA are terrible at this) but has anybody actually read over their agreements? Do they publish their agreement with Microsoft regarding this?

Correct me if i'm wrong, but originally the point of paying for XBL was that you could play any game regardless?

 

[Dendio]

Not sure what the original purpose of live was, but nowadays its mearly a "tax" to play online through the xbox console. Its a ripoff, when Playstation and the PC both offer free online, instead of being another payment on top of your internet/ game subscription costs

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well if they made it directly connectible then the game would work fine, but if you hang it all on one EA service then they retain full control of which games will work and which will not, this is a most useful byproduct when trying to push new games.
They could also patch it now... but where is the money in that for them.
Obviously you can take them to court but I have the sneaking suspicion they got more money for lawyers.

Always always double an triple check on any EA game you might purchase, because their server lifespans have been coming down at a staggering pace.

 

[Dandark]

Here is some sound advice sure to improve your gaming experience and reduce rage.

Do not buy from EA. It's like making a deal with the devil.

 

[Sennune]

Well, to address The Saboteur, the developer of the game, Pandemic, went under in 2009. I know the DLC ran a while after that. I think EA owns the IP now, so it makes sense they could pull support for a game from XBL and PSN.

I don't think this violates any TOS for either service. It just comes down to licensing from either side. The agreement EA and XBL/PSN had might have been up for renewal but instead of paying either provider to host their DLC/Online services for games like Army of Two (which is outdated) and The Saboteur (not a large critical success and a defunct developer) they could just let the license run out and have their stuff pulled.

I'm no expert but I think that's probably what ended up happening.

 

[crazyrabbits]

I don't think this violates any TOS for either service. It just comes down to licensing from either side. The agreement EA and XBL/PSN had might have been up for renewal but instead of paying either provider to host their DLC/Online services for games like Army of Two (which is outdated) and The Saboteur (not a large critical success and a defunct developer) they could just let the license run out and have their stuff pulled.

Their internal ToS? No. They can write however they please. Copyright/consumer laws? It's likely skirting it, if not outright breaking it.

This is what I said in another topic. Game publishers are trying to make the move from selling physical products to going all-digital. They'll control the content, and they'll charge you whatever they want to buy a bonafide licence for their games. They're trying to avoid the whole "first-sale doctrine" law (which states that any consumer who buys a physical product can resell it someone else afterwards, provided they're not copying and selling it for personal gain), and seems more a way to get back at retailers like Gamestop because they're not getting a cut of the secondary-sale market.

 

[Shadowstar38]

This is a textbook case of a company being greedy bastards.

I can only guess they dropped it for Army of Two so you pick up 40th Day, same as the sports games.

 

[Kargathia]

EA has been pulling online content for years now, severs for co-op or competitive multiplayer have been turned off after as little as Six months. Six months! Many games barely last 12 months and 18 months seems to be the cutt-off for non mega hit games. This is unacceptable as it effectively does cut content. Hell EA has even been turning off games that required an online pass. thats right folks, EA is making you pay a $10 6-18 month rental for online play for having the balls to exercise your consumer rights and buy/sell a used game.

This is why i hate many current games, you don't have a shed of ownership over them and it makes me want to find the EA/Ubisoft/Activision employees responsible for this and put them through a fucking wall.

The only reason you dont have full ownership is because a server involves a service. The clue is in the name. You need to drop every game that involves some sort of matchmaking. Essentially everything that goes through a console these days.

Now people. Services cost money. They just do. Someone needs to keep machines running and maintain those services. However everyone seems to throw a fit when the bill arrives. We dont want micro trans actions because that cuts content. We dont want an ingame AH where takes a cut because that makes it pay to win. We dont want to pay subscription because that is just no.

Having servers running indefinitely will raise the bill over time, and the console market especially has this thing where the used games industry cuts off profit after 3 months because the retailers stops ordering new copies by that point. This may come as a surprise to some people out there, but video games not making money will cut cost. Maintaining servers is a cost.

Now if you want the to stop this crap here is what you need to do. You need to do like the PC market and increase the shelf life of the title. In crease the shelf life and you will increase the time it is worth the company to maintain the services.

Taken in isolation all of your arguments make sense. The only problem, however, is that they're squeezing both sides, by simultaneously raising costs (micro-transactions, AH's, subscriptions, online passes), and cutting service off shortly after release anyhow.

Personally I really couldn't care less for excuses: if they can't turn a profit without blithely ignoring all standards of customer service and acceptable price points, then that's their problem, not mine. I'm certainly not going to make excuses on their behalf for behaviour that's disadvantageous for me as gamer.

Acceptable value for money is something the consumer should decide, not the producer.

 

[cerebus23]

then begs the question why not just patch games to use gamespy or hell even support server client tcp/ip play.

back in the good ole days we did not need developers to either support or not support the game we just used the actual tools in the game to play multiplayer, then there automated services that do the same deal.

there is no good excuse for a developers supporting games for such a short period and not providing alternatives.

but in a market glutted with online play, seems every game that comes out has to have some kind of online tacked onto it, like ME3, for zero good reason. all games are doomed to have a brief flash of online play and then 90% of them drop to nothing quickly.

do not see any reason either why consoles could not use tcp/ip for online play, tho running server side clients probably would be more difficult. long as your house had a internet connect and your console had the most basic of networking protocols there is no real burning need to use a service to go online other than thats the way they want it.

 

[Blazing Steel]

This isn't what you asked for, but it shows that EA has a habbit of doing bad, bad, bad things.

[video=5946]

OT: It sucks for the people that want to access that content, but EA has the right to do what ever it likes with their servers. I guess it's just another way to get us to buy their games asap.

 

[Kargathia]

Ah yes, but trade isn't a 1 way street. It is in fact your problem because if they cannot turn a profit your service still stops. They are not cutting services on tiles that have successful ways of supporting the title.

You are always walking the knife edge between customer satisfaction and loss of profit. The customer wouldn't pay anything and get everything if it were completely up to them. Afterall they are just trying to get the best deal. Just like the publisher.

The key is to cut the cake so both side walk away happy. Its not just about making the customer happy. Yeah the customer has the power to buy, but the publisher has the power to sell. The value must be determined by both parties. It reminds me of Jim Sterling's video about "Games are to expensive" that boiled the argument down to "If games were cheaper more people could get them". Yeah well its not just about getting more people to get them. If the publishers made everything free then everyone would be able to get them, but the publisher wouldn't get any money.

Now Valve has done this brilliantly. How do they subsidize old services that uses Steamworks for their matchmaking, but forcing you to use Steam. By getting Steam on your computer they increase the chance of you buying something on Steam increasing profits overall. In other words. Titles become worth maintaining by adding value to the Steam service that then gets subsidize by future purchases.

It certainly tends to be the producer who always is walking the knife's edge when it comes to gaming, as gamers not buying their products means they go out of business, while them not making games is hardly going to make a dent in any customer's life (obsessive fanboys should die anyway).

But when it comes to actual reality I'm all in favour of customers aggressively pushing for terms most favourable to them - mostly as nobody else is going to do it - but also because it breeds innovation, both in artistic terms, and business strategies.
It's exactly the same thing as we're seeing at the piracy debate next door: companies either try and forcefully suppress it, or they evolve and adapt.

In that context I'd call it a good thing for companies to be walking a knife's edge. The problem, however, is when you get large multinationals such as EA trying to steamroll their way over the knife by squeezing every last cent from their customers because they can.

And while I'm somewhat reluctant to consider any argument posed by Jim Sterling for anything but its comedic value, I'll point out that "if X is cheaper more people will buy it" really is nothing more than basic economics. The same basic economics as the ones that are getting horribly mangled when it comes to gaming: things just don't seem to work that way over here.
On one side EA and its ilk are constantly proving just how much you can get away with before people collectively call you out as a fraud.
On the other hand you see Valve gleefully disproving the basic inverted linear relation between price and units moved: it appears that a 75% discount increases sales by about 5000%.

Consumers also are perfectly willing to pay for entertainment: Radiohead had their own little experiment on the music side of things, and the humble bundle is doing something compatible on this corner of the entertainment block.

It of course would be heresy to suggest that good customer services (and the simple act of not being a dick) in any way, shape, or form increases the amount of people willing to pay for your products.

Which concludes our detour into the wild thickets of my rambling, and brings us right back to the whole issue of cutting support for games relatively soon after release - especially when combined with online passes.

It makes you look like a dick, and thereby effectively shoots long-term planning in the foot. Which is pretty much what EA appears to be doing right now - and I for one can't wait to kiss this particular dinosaur goodbye.

(Somehow I doubt anyone managed to hang on to that train of thought. My apologies - cerebral functions seem to be somewhat... different at 6am.)

 

[Twilight_guy]

It'd be much hard to patch the game to work on private server then you'd think. Especially so if the game happens to be structured such that you don't have any of the server side code. The company, since they are providing a service through multipalyer, has the right to drop it at any point, the same way they stop releasing patches and updates at any point. If they couldn't you'd essentially be twisting their arm to make them do what you want, something no company is going to do (even nice companies keep an eject button to get out of dodge if the game goes south). It sucks but its how things work when the game is run from company servers.

 

[Kargathia]

Spoiler: snip snap

Ah yes, but trade isn't a 1 way street. It is in fact your problem because if they cannot turn a profit your service still stops. They are not cutting services on tiles that have successful ways of supporting the title.

You are always walking the knife edge between customer satisfaction and loss of profit. The customer wouldn't pay anything and get everything if it were completely up to them. Afterall they are just trying to get the best deal. Just like the publisher.

The key is to cut the cake so both side walk away happy. Its not just about making the customer happy. Yeah the customer has the power to buy, but the publisher has the power to sell. The value must be determined by both parties. It reminds me of Jim Sterling's video about "Games are to expensive" that boiled the argument down to "If games were cheaper more people could get them". Yeah well its not just about getting more people to get them. If the publishers made everything free then everyone would be able to get them, but the publisher wouldn't get any money.

Now Valve has done this brilliantly. How do they subsidize old services that uses Steamworks for their matchmaking, but forcing you to use Steam. By getting Steam on your computer they increase the chance of you buying something on Steam increasing profits overall. In other words. Titles become worth maintaining by adding value to the Steam service that then gets subsidize by future purchases.

It certainly tends to be the producer who always is walking the knife's edge when it comes to gaming, as gamers not buying their products means they go out of business, while them not making games is hardly going to make a dent in any customer's life (obsessive fanboys should die anyway).

But when it comes to actual reality I'm all in favour of customers aggressively pushing for terms most favourable to them - mostly as nobody else is going to do it - but also because it breeds innovation, both in artistic terms, and business strategies.
It's exactly the same thing as we're seeing at the piracy debate next door: companies either try and forcefully suppress it, or they evolve and adapt.

In that context I'd call it a good thing for companies to be walking a knife's edge. The problem, however, is when you get large multinationals such as EA trying to steamroll their way over the knife by squeezing every last cent from their customers because they can.

And while I'm somewhat reluctant to consider any argument posed by Jim Sterling for anything but its comedic value, I'll point out that "if X is cheaper more people will buy it" really is nothing more than basic economics. The same basic economics as the ones that are getting horribly mangled when it comes to gaming: things just don't seem to work that way over here.
On one side EA and its ilk are constantly proving just how much you can get away with before people collectively call you out as a fraud.
On the other hand you see Valve gleefully disproving the basic inverted linear relation between price and units moved: it appears that a 75% discount increases sales by about 5000%.

Consumers also are perfectly willing to pay for entertainment: Radiohead had their own little experiment on the music side of things, and the humble bundle is doing something compatible on this corner of the entertainment block.

It of course would be heresy to suggest that good customer services (and the simple act of not being a dick) in any way, shape, or form increases the amount of people willing to pay for your products.

Which concludes our detour into the wild thickets of my rambling, and brings us right back to the whole issue of cutting support for games relatively soon after release - especially when combined with online passes.

It makes you look like a dick, and thereby effectively shoots long-term planning in the foot. Which is pretty much what EA appears to be doing right now - and I for one can't wait to kiss this particular dinosaur goodbye.

(Somehow I doubt anyone managed to hang on to that train of thought. My apologies - cerebral functions seem to be somewhat... different at 6am.)

I think you are going off my message.

Extremely likely. sleep deprivation does funny things. But I've had some sleep now, and suddenly things seem a lot less... purple.

I am not saying anything about being against customers trying to get a better deal.

What I am saying is that with the spread of online gaming a large amount of services showed up. In the customers mind they were free, but in reality they cost money.

Now we are at an crossroad. Give up on the service or find a method for paying for them. We cannot expect to have services and then not pay for them. And before you go "it was paid for when we bought the game", no... that is the whole point of a service... you dont get to own it.

If the customer will keep stomping his feet and saying "NO I WANT THE SERVICE! BUT YOU ARE DICKS FOR BILLING ME!" then the choice will be made for you.

These are your options:
- Give up on your service
- Find a way to pay for them

Actual costs, and business models of online services will vary heavily, which is why I'll stick with debating this purely on the customer side of things for a moment.

Setting the impression that online match-making is a freebie included with the game, only to present the bill a few months later, or pull support entirely is a bad move that was badly communicated.

First of all it doesn't even need to happen: clients are perfectly capable of match-making[footnote]It won't be as sophisticated as eg. Steam's, but even a "connect to IP" function beats having fuck-all[/footnote] and hosting small games such as Army of Two.
Even if client versions of the game couldn't handle simultaneously playing and hosting the game, then a server client - while not required - is not an unreasonable thing to release, certainly if you don't want to foot the bill of dedicated servers years into a game's lifespan.

Secondly: while charging customers for services could easily be construed as reasonable, we are in a situation where "reasonable" seems to be nothing but faint nostalgia.
In triple-A land there's the magic of online passes, cut content, reams of DLC, and the complete and utter absence of any adjustment to RRP to reflect reduced costs of digital distribution(PC only, that one).
With an in-depth explanation many of these things can be understood, but that doesn't diminish the fact they're badly communicated towards the customer, who increasingly feels like he's being squeezed. This is further aggravated by a steadily increasing customer sophistication, who really do want to hear about what's going on - and not just have things like this sprung on them without any kind of advance warning. Many of them (not all) are not stupid, and yet are treated as such.

In the end it's nothing more than yet another drop in the bucket of patience people will have with these old business models.

 

[TrevHead]

snip moving to own thread

 

[Thoric485]

Yeah, they have the right, since they provide the servers.

The only way this would change is if dedicated servers became the norm for consoles, but that's highly unlikely.