And I'll agree with the Origin Hate, There's a reason not a single EA game lives on my Computers hard drive. Never made sense why they wouldn't want to use steam, when at the time, they had games through steam already. If they died, I'd not hold a single tear for the collapse, but at the absolute least, having the games that aren't being retarded supported will encourage those IP's and studios to be snatched up when they go under.Sansha said:
EA is going to die - and that will improve gaming
- Thread starter Sansha
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I wouldn't be surprised by a AAA industry crash. That's gonna come down to how the next generation of consoles perform. I'm no economist, but I have an ominous feeling that the PS4 and Xbox Whatever They're Calling It will have a rough time, mainly because the mainstream crowd has mostly moved on to cheap casual gaming, and the new consoles are trying to do stuff that computers and smart phones can do easier and cheaper. Gamers will buy the new consoles, but that's not a big enough audience to recoup the huge amount of money companies are pouring into video games nowadays.
And while the big game market flounders, indie and PC gaming will continue to grow because it's cheap, doesn't treat its customers like thieves, and will allow the innovation and creativity that the massive investments of AAA gaming stifled.
And while the big game market flounders, indie and PC gaming will continue to grow because it's cheap, doesn't treat its customers like thieves, and will allow the innovation and creativity that the massive investments of AAA gaming stifled.
You know, I dont actually know that guy. I see him on T-shirts and thats it...Zhukov said:
Imma gonna be back in five...
*goes to wikipedia*
Okay, I still havent a fucking clue about this guy, but now I know that neither does anyone who wears his face on their shirt...
No for something on topic!
Oh look! A thread about EA being evil and the game industry going to crash! What a new and unique thread topic.
*says in sarcastic annoyance*
There is nothing I can really add to this thread, as there is nothing new to add to this topic...
Why don't we have both? yaaaay! It's not noxious, I want to see hardware pushed. 2 years ago there was absolutely no reason to have a high-spec PC because mid-spec could run the most demanding games because of how much consoles pull things back.IamLEAM1983 said:
You might have to wait a while. EA will undoubtedly go bankrupt one day, or get split up or bought out - all companies do, no one lasts forever.
As for boycotting them, you have fair points. You dislike their business practices, so you SHOULD boycott them. That's the right thing to do, if you feel strongly about the way they run their company. Boycott the hell out of them, as your way of sending a message.
I don't feel as strongly as you do - for one, I don't see EA as actually being EVIL. I've dealt with truly evil companies before (cigarette companies, who knew perfectly well how deadly their products were in the 60's and 70's, and HID THEIR OWN TEST RESULTS FROM THE PUBLIC. Now THAT is pure evil).
I admit that EA's DRM is very bad, and I'm not going to buy another game, from any company, that has always online DRM (steam has an off-line mode). I don't like the direction EA has gone.
But EVIL? I mean, that's a pretty strong word. Who have EA killed? The Shell Oil company has actually had protesters and activists in Nigeria killed. As in, they got the Nigerian government to EXECUTE people who tried to speak against their drilling operations. Coca-Cola, which makes a drink I love, has done some shady crap in India - bribing the Indian government to give their bottling plants access to Water that poor farmers technically should have gotten. And let's not forget companies like Enron.
I mean, on the human scale of things, EA aren't evil. Dishonest, yes. Shoddy, yes. Bad... eh, you could say that. But Evil? No.
But yeah, I agree with boycotting them if you dislike their business practices. Absolutely, that's the way to go. That's the good way of sending a message to them. Will EA fall? Hm... probably not for a while yet. It may be possible that they'll go bankrupt in 5 or 10 years, but I'm expecting them to stick around for at least another 12 or so.
As for boycotting them, you have fair points. You dislike their business practices, so you SHOULD boycott them. That's the right thing to do, if you feel strongly about the way they run their company. Boycott the hell out of them, as your way of sending a message.
I don't feel as strongly as you do - for one, I don't see EA as actually being EVIL. I've dealt with truly evil companies before (cigarette companies, who knew perfectly well how deadly their products were in the 60's and 70's, and HID THEIR OWN TEST RESULTS FROM THE PUBLIC. Now THAT is pure evil).
I admit that EA's DRM is very bad, and I'm not going to buy another game, from any company, that has always online DRM (steam has an off-line mode). I don't like the direction EA has gone.
But EVIL? I mean, that's a pretty strong word. Who have EA killed? The Shell Oil company has actually had protesters and activists in Nigeria killed. As in, they got the Nigerian government to EXECUTE people who tried to speak against their drilling operations. Coca-Cola, which makes a drink I love, has done some shady crap in India - bribing the Indian government to give their bottling plants access to Water that poor farmers technically should have gotten. And let's not forget companies like Enron.
I mean, on the human scale of things, EA aren't evil. Dishonest, yes. Shoddy, yes. Bad... eh, you could say that. But Evil? No.
But yeah, I agree with boycotting them if you dislike their business practices. Absolutely, that's the way to go. That's the good way of sending a message to them. Will EA fall? Hm... probably not for a while yet. It may be possible that they'll go bankrupt in 5 or 10 years, but I'm expecting them to stick around for at least another 12 or so.
The most likely loss of permanent IPs, less competitors in the market, servers being shut down for DRM games, many companies shutting down, even less new IPs, more controlled publisher market and 9,000 out of the job making the already hard industry even harder.
No sorry, do NOT want.
No sorry, do NOT want.
It'd be nice to think that, if EA went under, it'd free up developers and their IPS and lead to creative freedom once they found a less monolithic publisher. But it's a mixed bag at best (and that's being generous). The developer/publisher relationship is not always a good one but in many cases it is necessary to secure the type of distribution the market demands right now.
Now, with crowdfunding and digital distribution, the industry starts to have more freedom and developers have a direct line to their customers but even then it is still tricky. At least at this stage. Development has a lot of costs and crowdfunding might not meet what's needed. It does for big projects: Project Infinity, Star Citizen, Wasteland 2, etc. I mean, look at what Tim Schafer and Doublefine managed. The question, however, will be if crowdfunded games...which are generally pointed towards niche interests...will either a) realistically meet the goals to cover development and b) reach enough customers.
There's a shift in the game industry, to be sure. If it comes too suddenly though, it's going to be really rocky for a while.
Now, with crowdfunding and digital distribution, the industry starts to have more freedom and developers have a direct line to their customers but even then it is still tricky. At least at this stage. Development has a lot of costs and crowdfunding might not meet what's needed. It does for big projects: Project Infinity, Star Citizen, Wasteland 2, etc. I mean, look at what Tim Schafer and Doublefine managed. The question, however, will be if crowdfunded games...which are generally pointed towards niche interests...will either a) realistically meet the goals to cover development and b) reach enough customers.
There's a shift in the game industry, to be sure. If it comes too suddenly though, it's going to be really rocky for a while.
EA was once the devil. Then one morning they woke up and thought "why don't we take some of this cashy mountain and make something new?" And thus Deadspace and Mirror's Edge were born, and EA looked set for redemption at the tip of interesting new franchises that were doing new and different things.
Activision, seeing an opening in the market, started making moves on the throne of game industry hell with intrusive, crippling DRM schemes, and by god they made a good effort. Seeing this, EA remembered how much fun it was being despised by all, and used their raised profile as a spring board for an epic dive back down to the depths of offensive mediocrity, where we now find them wallowing in a delicious mire of inept executive decisions, unfulfilled developer promises and outright lies and misdirection from the PR department.
I can't really get worked up about it, it's just been going on so long. I weakened and bought BF3 (and by god was it good), but the bad will generated by having it held hostage to Origin has taken its toll. I've not purchased the conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy, and right from the get-go I'd had Simcity flagged as one to avoid, despite loving the concept, essentially because they're just not a trustworthy publisher (turns out I was right...)
Gotta say, can't wait to find out the next twist in Simcity's tale will be...
Activision, seeing an opening in the market, started making moves on the throne of game industry hell with intrusive, crippling DRM schemes, and by god they made a good effort. Seeing this, EA remembered how much fun it was being despised by all, and used their raised profile as a spring board for an epic dive back down to the depths of offensive mediocrity, where we now find them wallowing in a delicious mire of inept executive decisions, unfulfilled developer promises and outright lies and misdirection from the PR department.
I can't really get worked up about it, it's just been going on so long. I weakened and bought BF3 (and by god was it good), but the bad will generated by having it held hostage to Origin has taken its toll. I've not purchased the conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy, and right from the get-go I'd had Simcity flagged as one to avoid, despite loving the concept, essentially because they're just not a trustworthy publisher (turns out I was right...)
Gotta say, can't wait to find out the next twist in Simcity's tale will be...
Are you serious? This is the problem with these gaming websites and forums, their such a small slice of "gamers" as a whole. An it just creates a total bubble and a false representation of how the market actually feels.Sansha said:
I mean GOOD LORD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA_Sports just look at the unreal amount of HUGE global franchise's EA Sports produces. EA could survive off the back of that catalogue alone. FIFA 13 sold over 12 Million in 3 months, an do you really think even a small percentage give a flying monkey's about DRM on sim city? I'm willing to bet the majority don't even know what DRM is.
There's countless games that have made staggering amounts Battlefield 3 is reported to have made more money out of it's premium service than most game's do with a full release.
"EA is going to die" this just made me laugh so hard it's unreal. EA has assets worth BILLIONS those assets are not going to go away, if they need to they can eat into that nest egg worth BILLIONS to survive they are not going anywhere. Not that they are exactly struggling when compared to anyone else
Share prices are objective as the actual price depends on how many shares are issued but you can still look at the trends.
EA: http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=EA#symbol=ea;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
Ubisoft: http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=UBI.PA#symbol=ubi.pa;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
Wow looks like a trend, look at the value before and after the large spike, game company's are not struggling in the big scheme of things. Besides Financials are far far far more complex than the share prices, I'm not an accountant but talk to one once in a while an it really dawns that the average person have F-all understanding of business financials.
I'm sorry this rant post is just pathetic. I've probably spent more on EA products than any other publisher and I'm very happy with the products I received.
"I love gaming far too much to stand for this shit any longer." What a joke! Sports games have always been a huge part of gaming, EA is easily the NO.1 publisher of sports based video games, by saying you hope EA dies all you are stating is that you don't give a crap about gaming, what you care about is games you are interested in.
The OP's post was a little over-dramatized, EA isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Their stocks have been steadily crashing, but that doesn't mean the DEATH of a company because I'm sure they'll still have enough bank funds to buy a entire country if they wanted.
I will agree that their practices of late have been nothing short of despicable, how they made no efforts to improve their image as the one of the most-hated companies overall in the world with the worst customer satisfaction rates. No company wants to stay like that, doesn't matter whether you call them "evil" or whatever, any organization with low customer satisfaction rates is a dead organization.
I have faith that EA will pull themselves out of this, but some serious things need to be re-written in the way they operate if they want to continue. The CEO stepping down was the first of those steps, I believe. Only good things should follow...
I will agree that their practices of late have been nothing short of despicable, how they made no efforts to improve their image as the one of the most-hated companies overall in the world with the worst customer satisfaction rates. No company wants to stay like that, doesn't matter whether you call them "evil" or whatever, any organization with low customer satisfaction rates is a dead organization.
I have faith that EA will pull themselves out of this, but some serious things need to be re-written in the way they operate if they want to continue. The CEO stepping down was the first of those steps, I believe. Only good things should follow...
How about this? Rather than launch your very own boycott of one, why not do what most reasonable gamers (adults) should do (no matter what rhetoric they put on the forums) and hold off on purchasing day one products? This isn't a new industry any longer, we all know that when shit goes wrong, it'll go wrong on day one.
Let other people get tagged with the problems and buy the damn thing in a month or two after they've patched it. You might pay less for it, you might be spared the irritation of plunking down good money on a shit game and EA and others might quit rushing shit to launch and actually finish beta testing their game if enough people do this. Their reaction to the simcity fiasco (planning for servers to fail) tells you that they know it's not ready. They want to cut out the testing phase and fix it later because it saves them money. If people would quit buying every damn thing day one, the industry might start seeing less profit from failing to test their products.
I will continue to buy good games. I don't really care if you've been playing them for a month already. Your gamerscore might be higher, oh noes! It's an imaginary number, who gives a damn.
Your friends might be having fun with the newest thing while you aren't! Oh Dear! You can still have fun with it without keeping up with them on every purchase and you'll save money and play less shit in the mean time.
It's all shiny and new and I want it now! Learn some self discipline and wait. I will play the newest sim city, provided they ever fix it. I'll have fun with and not feel the least bit cheated by it. Because I'll play it in a few months.
If you can't manage to have a little patience and buy the game after they've fixed the problems, then don't whine about it when your game is unplayable in the first month. You brought this shit on yourself by buying it too early. Is EA (and other devs who pull the same shit) still unreliable dickheads for releasing it in its current state with shitty drm? Sure, but the only reason they do is because they know they'll make more money releasing it before it can be properly tested and assured to work, because they know you'll buy it.
Let other people get tagged with the problems and buy the damn thing in a month or two after they've patched it. You might pay less for it, you might be spared the irritation of plunking down good money on a shit game and EA and others might quit rushing shit to launch and actually finish beta testing their game if enough people do this. Their reaction to the simcity fiasco (planning for servers to fail) tells you that they know it's not ready. They want to cut out the testing phase and fix it later because it saves them money. If people would quit buying every damn thing day one, the industry might start seeing less profit from failing to test their products.
I will continue to buy good games. I don't really care if you've been playing them for a month already. Your gamerscore might be higher, oh noes! It's an imaginary number, who gives a damn.
Your friends might be having fun with the newest thing while you aren't! Oh Dear! You can still have fun with it without keeping up with them on every purchase and you'll save money and play less shit in the mean time.
It's all shiny and new and I want it now! Learn some self discipline and wait. I will play the newest sim city, provided they ever fix it. I'll have fun with and not feel the least bit cheated by it. Because I'll play it in a few months.
If you can't manage to have a little patience and buy the game after they've fixed the problems, then don't whine about it when your game is unplayable in the first month. You brought this shit on yourself by buying it too early. Is EA (and other devs who pull the same shit) still unreliable dickheads for releasing it in its current state with shitty drm? Sure, but the only reason they do is because they know they'll make more money releasing it before it can be properly tested and assured to work, because they know you'll buy it.
And therein lies another problem with EA. They try to apply their release schedule of sports games on non-sports games like RPGs which have more content and longer development times. I've no doubt EA won't crash and burn YET, but the way it looks, EA might shed weight and trim the fat, ie shutdown studios and lay off staff. And who do you think will get cut? Definitely not anyone working on the sports titles. And what happens to the IPs of studios that are shuttered? EA hogs it all until it decides to reboot it somewhere down the line, thus preventing anyone else from having a go at it.Jedi-Hunter4 said:
I know this topic was handled in an article by Shamus Young. An I've got to say it seems like a bit of a blinkered assumption. Take BattleField (proper one not bad company) 6 years between 2 & 3. An there's set to be at the very least 2 years between 3 & 4.Tien Shen said:
Mass effect ---2 years+-->Mass Effect 2-- 2Years+-->Mass Effect 3
Dead Space ---2 years+-->Dead Space 2-- 2Years+-->Dead Space 3
An every sports game except Fight night is every single year so that logic does not really add up, dragon age is the only game I can see that's sequel followed up under 2 years, an if theat resulted in an inferior product the BioWare is equally responsible they signed the contract.
"until it decides to reboot it somewhere down the line" I can see why fan's of particular series might be upset by this, but they own it, it's their property does not really make them Evil to do it.
I get that some people are annoyed for valid X, Y and Z reasons but I'm really fed up of the elaborate assumptions and leaps people are willing to make to try and make everyone hate EA as much as them. I've never seen fans of an industry lever such hate against entire companys for things they didn't like in a small percentage of their products, an I'm a massive Sci-Fi fan boy an everybody knows how critical sci-fi fans can be lol.
I mean it's all perception, most people seem to sing valve's praises, an for me looking from the outside in at Half life fans, the fact that fans have basically begged for the next installment and valve replys by constantly dropping hints but never actually releases anything to me, seems like taunting the fans an not rewarding them at all for their loyalty, but everyone just seems to say "ow that's just qwerky valve, being valve". Where as I can only imagine if EA brought out a massive new IP that fans loved, an then taunted fans with the prospect of a sequel how much hate they would receive.
Hey, look I wish you where right, EA deserves to be pushed too the brink of bankruptcy given a chance to clean up their act and pushed out of the big leagues if they don't start bringing their A game again. But I live in america, I know one thing, there is no shortage of idiots here who will buy fucking anything.
Eh, I don't like the company. They put out good stuff like Mass Effect and they put out really bad stuff.
I'd be happy if they knock a few dollars off their prices, makes their quality/price ratio a little less skewed.
I'd be happy if they knock a few dollars off their prices, makes their quality/price ratio a little less skewed.
BF2 was being developed when DICE was still an independent studio. They released it in 2005, and the same year EA acquired them. In the gap of 6 years between BF2 and BF3, DICE made BF2142(2006), BF:BC(2008),BF1943(2009),)BF:BC2(2010) and then only BF3(2011). Just because the game had something else other than "Battlefield X" in it's title does not change the fact that DICE was kept busy by EA churning out military shooters year after year.Jedi-Hunter4 said:
My statement in EA applying the release schedule planning of EA sports games to non-sports games was probably not clear enough it seems. What I MEANT was that EA was trying to get out these games in a strict regular schedule, similiar to EA sports games coming out every year, not that EA was trying to release ME, DA and Deadspace every year.
ALso are you aware of EA's history of acquiring studios and then shuttering them later. Bullfrog, Origin, Westwood, Pandemic ring a bell? Are you also missing the latest disaster with SimCity and it's always-on DRM? Are you aware for a week EA Maxis said it was impossible to play it offline because some of the complex calculations were done in the cloud, only for testing to show it was possible to run it offline for 20 minutes. Additionally monitoring of network traffic showed that the there wasn't much traffic being sent to the EA's servers casting doubt on the 'calculations done in the cloud' claim. Then a mod showed up allowing offline play (can't save though) and then EA Maxis admits that offline could have been possible. They flat out lied man.
Nice you bring up Valve and their constant teasing at a new Half-Life game. The difference is that Valve didn't release a half-baked Half-Life game with always-on DRM that screws over paying customers. Valve has never done anything remotely comparable to what EA has and is doing right now. Oh did i forget to mention EA saying Deadspace 3 had to sell 5 million copies to be viable when DS1 and 2 only sold 2 million each?
When you add up their long history and recent fiascos.... I haven't yet mentioned Warfighter and the Syndicate reboot...... it's kinda hard not to think that maybe EA are kinda good at getting a rise out of people. Yes the hate does seem over the top and irrational at times, but there's strong basis for it in the first place.