Can EA really pull content out of games?

[Daemonate]

It's simple.

1) Find the point at which the company's bullshit surpasses the quality of the product for you as consumer.

2) STOP BUYING at that point. As in, never buy from them again no matter what. Respect yourself. If a guy rapes your mother, you don't go back and buy your ciggies from him the next week just because he puts on sale.

Let me give you 3 examples.

A) Was Ubisoft's general contempt and hatred of me as pc customer sufficient to get me to stop buying? Let me see...Raven Shield, Asasssin's Creed? No. Keep buying.

Was Ubisoft's introduction of online-only DRM enough? Let's see...AC3, HoMMVI, etc. Well, those were some of my most anticipated games, but, no, the bs exceeds the quality. I have never bought an Ubisoft game since their DRM fiasco, and I will not ever buy another. They are dead to me.

B) Blizzard-Activision. Was their online-only DRM and general cultural degeneration, removal of LAN and other beloved features enough to stop me buying StarCraft2 and Diablo 3 and Cataclysm? Well, it should but they WERE BLIZZARD and we're talking WoW, Diablo and SC. So no, keep buying.

Was their inability to make Diablo 3 a complete, worthy successor to Diablo or even a competent piece of software, combined with future DRM, and Mists of Panderia being basically a new game enough? Yep, done with Blizzard forever. I will never buy another game until they do something drastic.

Other companies with less pedigree in their franchises and less past good will to erode would get a much shorter shrift. For example, iD software exhausted their goodwill tank several years back...so I didn't even consider buying Rage, and then I was rewarded by discovering after that it was uninteresting, bland, buggy and not really designed for my platform. See how great this works? You avoid future pain by making a tough decision today.

Others nearing their break point with me, that point where they are dead to me as a consumer, and the I=don't-care-if-they-produce-the-second-coming-I'm-still-don't-give-a-shit level has been breached:

* 2K AND Irrational. BioShock Infinite is their last shot with me. Irrational should have had several more boo-boos with me because of past glory, but 2k drained their goodwill dry.

* EA: Battlefield was so very, very, good, and I thought ToR was a really solid title, but Origin, then Battlelog, and no LAN or private servers pushed me to the edge, DA2 was rubbish and the ME3 thing was a fucking fiasco. On massive probation, taking it one DLC at a time now. If I was a console gamer primarily, I would have dropped them years ago, but I'm not so EA have made it to 2012 without banning.

Companies with tonnes of stock left. These guys have fucked up recently, but they can blow it a heap more times before I stop caring:

1) Valve
2) Stardock
3) Nintendo
4) Gearbox

See, this is all my personal consumer experience. I don't have to discuss or compare with anyone, it's a personal decision. If *everyone* did this, just got a mental restraining order and treated them as dead once a company fucked with you enough (you know, like real adult consumers do in every other industry), said industry would be cleaned up in a few years.

 

[ElPatron]

I guess why the other examples didn't really work for me was that no manufacturer comes and destroys an object that you have purchased from them after a set period. Even if online servers are shut down (most) games still have their offline single player (and rarely offline local mulitplayer). You don't lose the game, you just lose access to a service after a certain time, longer with more popular games, shorter with games that sell poorly.

Okay, you don't lose the game, just a huge chunk. Fiat will start taking away satnav systems, AC units and turbos so that people buy the new Punto Evo or whatever.

By the way, usually MP modes come for free with the game and you're entitled to it upon purchase. When you buy a satellite dish I don't think you get these perks.

So no, not every industry does the same.

All dedicated online servers eventually shut down once the demand dies off. They shut down the sports game servers often shortly after the next years version comes out. The question to ask is how long is long enough in terms of keeping these servers up and running at no additional cost to the consumer?

Which is why EA could just use a P2P system to host older games. I know this kind of patches have been used in xbox live before.

Also, online passes were supposed to be paying for server support.

 

[ElPatron]

You are still missing the point.
If the servers cannot pay for themselves they will shut down.

Which is why EA could opt by coming up with a P2P system to host competitive and cooperative features of older games. It wouldn't kill them.

It doesn't matter if you are entitled to the service or not if it cannot be run due to financial constraint.

It does matter. I know about the stupid ToS and EULAs but gamers are effectively being stripped out of their content while it could be supported by the community itself for no charge.

It is not the same as someone coming and removing something from your car. It is the same as Someone removing the radio signal to your radio. It is the same as shutting of your power or your water.

Except that the radio signal is completely external to the receiver. Multiplayer content requires data to be saved on the disc/download.

Now let me paint it out for you why P2P isn't a solution. Where do they get the information of where the other Peer is?
From a server.

Doesn't XBL have a matchmaking service that are people pay for?

I mean, Four Delta One is run by a group of "amateurs" who do it on their free time.

Now you mention online passes. Can you tell me a game that lost matchmaking support while still selling online passes because that would be what proves your point.

Online passes are sold with the intent to pay for server costs. But that was what EA told us. And we know that EA is full of horsecrap, because the money is not being used for the servers.

It was just a lame excuse to cut the profits of second-hand purchases.


Also,
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/340496/ea-closing-servers-online-pass-games-affected/

I know that 1% is laughable, I don't think anyone misses Saboteur's multiplayer or games with "tacked-on" MP content for that matter. But the people who paid for those online passes were effectively ripped off.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Although I am loath to defend EA, one has to consider that it is pretty expensive to maintain multiplayer servers for games that no one or at least very few people are playing anymore. So if a game just doesn't have the online player base to justify keeping the servers online (or forking over money to Microsoft to allow it to be run on their servers) they're going to pull the plug.

 

[ElPatron]

Although I am loath to defend EA, one has to consider that it is pretty expensive to maintain multiplayer servers for games that no one or at least very few people are playing anymore. So if a game just doesn't have the online player base to justify keeping the servers online (or forking over money to Microsoft to allow it to be run on their servers) they're going to pull the plug.

But at least the Online Pass travesti should be scraped and people should at least deserve compensation. Because that money was supposed to be paying for the servers that went down.

Or at least they could admit they lied to protect their profits. It would mean *something*.

No

That is just false information. The XBL is a separate service in the same way your internet provider doesn't pay for EA servers. It is separate features.

And yes I am sure Four Delta One is run by amateurs, but they have the advantage of being on PC. In other words not a closed system. Microsoft has no financial gain by paying for EA services. They dont do it for the love for it.

But it would kill EA to code a "direct IP" service? Even if it didn't work for everyone, it wouldn't be a *total* rip-off.

And I don't understand where's the false information if I didn't spit back any information I have read. I just thought that with all the dollarbucks being paid in Online Passes and XBL Gold Memberships they could afford a solution that just didn't screw costumers over.

Signal shuts down you cannot update the information that lets you play with others. That both sides have transmitters and receivers is completely irrelevant since you need a common point of reference. You cant just send your signal everywhere and then hope for it returning with a match.

I don't see how that "signaling everything" relates to the point, but if a game is heavily focused on MP (or even mp only) closing it's servers for the sake of forcing the community to move on would kill the game as a whole.

And no it really doesn't matter. If the car is out of gas it aint going to run. End off. Regardless of what it says in EULA's and ToS's.

I don't see how that relates to the ToS issue, but if Shell closes I can find a BP station. I don't have to buy proprietary gas from the manufacturer.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Although I am loath to defend EA, one has to consider that it is pretty expensive to maintain multiplayer servers for games that no one or at least very few people are playing anymore. So if a game just doesn't have the online player base to justify keeping the servers online (or forking over money to Microsoft to allow it to be run on their servers) they're going to pull the plug.

But at least the Online Pass travesti should be scraped and people should at least deserve compensation. Because that money was supposed to be paying for the servers that went down.

Or at least they could admit they lied to protect their profits. It would mean *something*.

Ok, you've lost me. What does the Online Pass thing have to do with shutting down servers do to insufficient use?

 

[ElPatron]

Ok, you've lost me. What does the Online Pass thing have to do with shutting down servers do to insufficient use?

EA said that the Online Passes would pay for the server support. I think less than a year later they started dropping servers which belonged to games with Online Passes.

I.E.: nothing changed at all, except the extra money they made.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Ok, you've lost me. What does the Online Pass thing have to do with shutting down servers do to insufficient use?

EA said that the Online Passes would pay for the server support. I think less than a year later they started dropping servers which belonged to games with Online Passes.

I.E.: nothing changed at all, except the extra money they made.

I don't know, I don't have an answer for that one. Besides I hate EA and defending them makes my skin crawl.