Scrythe said:
You don't see people sending death threats to Michael Bay's personal phones in response to Transformers.
In retrospect... maybe we should have complained more. You know. Before movies 2 and 3. And now Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He's turning them into aliens. Can you believe that? It takes 10 seconds of the opening theme to find out the back story. Teenage. MUTANT. Ninja. Turtles.
And it's repeated ad nausea... ad nuase-... ad nau.... a lot of times. Of course death threats by phone are skipping across the line into crazy land merrily tossing grenades and teddy bears as you go.
But I digress.
It's a shame that people are too stupid to be trusted with their own money these days. Some threw their money at EA Bioware, supporting shady business practise. Some threw their money at a children's charity, expecting them to program a game.
This only goes to show that IQ tests should be given to people, before they are issued with credit or debit cards.
This has been an, as of yet, unmitigated disaster. I've never seen a game release quite so enrage an entire community. And it's entirely the fault of EA Biowares hype-machine. The game was over marketed, with too many add ons and cross linking, leaving consumers confused as to what the final product was.
And now, a children's charity is caught in the cross fire. As is classically the case in high emotion events, people have stopped thinking. Name calling has replaced reasonable arguments (whiny, entitled, and egotistical assholes, and mindless Biodrones to name two). People quickly devolve to CAPS FURY and offensive language, because the issue at hand was badly handled.
Why was it badly handled? Again, the fault lies with EA Bioware. A company hopefully ran by mature adults. They're trying to sell their games to the 'average gamer'. And the average gamer is, and always will be the hormonal teenager with disposable income and free time. All EA Bioware had to do when the first complaints came in, was throw up their hands, and say 'Ok, Ok, give us some time, we'll fix it.' Instead, they decided to get into a pissing contest with said teenagers, who are irrational at the best of times. And why is that?
The DLC and other games they have in the works. They can't afford to scrap their existing plans now, since too much has been invested. Too much work has been done, and since EA Bioware weren't upfront about their intentions, anything released now will just seem like them milking thee franchise... which they are.
The important things to remember here, are that this is not an isolated incident, and that EA Bioware have drastically mis-managed the debacle.
This is resulting backlash to years of discontent about DLC, and the mediocrity of AAA games. Mass Effect when it was first released was almost unique. An RPG shooter, with full dialogue and brand new universes. It was cinematic, with it's slightly grainy visuals. Mass Effect 2 removed a lot of that, and it felt more and more like a standard shooter game. And they introduced the Cerberus network to distribute DLC. And then with the last installment, it basically is a cover based shooter, complete with multi-player, and so much DLC and extras I can't even comfortably write about it, in this already over long post. Not only that, but they ended what was regarded as one of the best series in gaming, not with the bang as it deserves, but more of a 'To be continued...'
When you prod a teenager, with their usual self centred aggresion, with this kind of treatment, what do they expect to happen? EA Bioware has completely mis-understood their target audience, which is kind of shocking since the game is designed so perfectly towards them. They are now clinging to a weak argument of artistic integrity, as they quite happily cut the soul from the old Bioware company to fill up with their own staff.
But I'm quite fully at a tangent now.
The point is that this 'debate' has long since gone past any rational thought or behaviour. We have the consumer base divided, and the company in question banking on their supporters to win, so as to preserve their upcoming line of DLC. It's madness, and will prove either the breaking point of the over marketing of AAA games, or the final head long rush into summer blockbuster games designed to make money. Nothing is particularly wrong with either path, but many older gamers will harp on about the times when gaming was about messing around with code, and not focus groups.
But in the mean time, there will be casualties, and unfortunately, Child's Play is one of those casualties. I'm surprised that EA Bioware didn't issue a statement that they weren't involved with the charity in that regard, but I guess this way, their consumers are the bad guys.
Classy.
Well, that was long and the product of a fevered mind. It would be more sensible to let my feverish ramblings be delted than to post on the net.
But what's one more insane ramble of a mad man on his light box...
*click*
", when really, your doing it because of selfish needs is one of the most amoral things ive ever heard of. Child's Play should refund the money of anyone who wants it returned.
