EA is going to die - and that will improve gaming

[Little Gray]

Oh god that is to funny. EA is not going to die because far to many people like their games. While you may see a lot of bitching on forums those people do not represent the gaming community as a whole, they are a small annoying minority who are delusional about their size and power.

The games that EA publishers are overall relatively well liked.

You do realize that being a vocal minority is not a bad thing right?

Sometimes the vocal minority are the ones who change things and get shit done while the so called silent majority act like a bunch of passive obedient sheep while saying"Please sir can I have some more?"while getting fucked in the ass by corporations like EA.

In the corporate world where money talks vocal minorities have no serious power. Sure you can effect the sales of a niche game but you cant do fuck all to a company like EA when you represent less then 1% of their customer base.

I love how you call people who disagree with your stance a bunch of passive obedient sheep. It just serves to further prove my point that you will never have the power to effect anything.

 

[Dryk]

I love how you call people who disagree with your stance a bunch of passive obedient sheep. It just serves to further prove my point that you will never have the power to effect anything.

More power than the people sticking their fingers in their ears and trying to ignore it

 

[Little Gray]

I love how you call people who disagree with your stance a bunch of passive obedient sheep. It just serves to further prove my point that you will never have the power to effect anything.

More power than the people sticking their fingers in their ears and trying to ignore it

Again you are pushing people away from your point of view with your attitude. You are convincing people that you are far worse then the people you are trying to hate on.

People are not sticking tehir fingers in their ears and trying to ignore it they just have different values then you. Some people value quality games over insignificant comments made by corporate heads. Some people think what EA is doing is bettering the gaming industry as a whole. While the people up top might say some silly things that does not change the fact that EA continually releases quality games and supports all levels of development.

 

[Little Gray]

First of all I don't remember actually saying that people who disagree with me being passive obedient sheep I actually said throughout history the silent majority were passive sheep in regards to things like civil rights,genocide being commited and a bunch of other atrocities that could have been prevented if people had spoken up but did'nt.

It took a small group of people just to get basic rights for blacks and other minorities while the white majority did nothing.

And I don't care if I change anything or not but when I see something is wrong I will speak up about it instead of staying quiet.

What while you are saying is true its completely irrelevant to the points at hand. Trying to compare the minorities who started civil rights movements such as basic rights for blacks and getting women to vote to those boycotting EA is pure insanity. Politics thrives based on popularity where as the corporate world thrives based on money.


Oh and sorry I guess you didnt call them obedient sheep but instead idiots, thats so much better.

 

[Murmillos]

It doesn't appear any of these SimCity online issues have spooked investors. Stock has climbed 5% (just shy of $1) since the launch of SimCity. They had their biggest gains since Monday when the servers have been "fixed by 90%"...

Other then a angry few demanding refunds and threatening charge-backs; there hasn't been enough movement to cause any harm to EA bottom line. For the most part, the bulk of SimCity buyers, didn't give a flying fark to care over the launch day (week) issues, and are most likely unaware or have no concern of any of the underlining issues of the game (AI pathing, etc,etc).

EA might be slipping for the "hard-core" crowd whom are willing to make all the noise, but EA is full steam on the casual base; be damned franchise history.

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh God. This video again. It amazes me that on a website where people whine about Tropes vs Women and how anita doesnt'do her research that this factually inaccurate crock of donkey droppings can appear like five times a day and gain user support.

Look, I don't want to go through this again, but I will make one comment specifically:

There was no one game that crashed the market, but he's wrong about ET and Pac-Man. These were major blows, and not because of some grand proletariat uprising. They both sold well from the perspective of game sales at the time, demonstrating that the thesis that the consumer base had had enough is false.

The damage done by both games was by overspeculation and the high cost of production. The fact that they expected the game to sell SO MANY MORE units led to overall losses that were devastating.

The ONLY parallel in modern gaming is THQ, and that gun dun bin fird. That was only possible because they were trying to sell peripheral hardware, something that historically sells poorly anyway.

We won't see a crash because of consumer indifference or anger. And more to the point, EA won't decline any time soon. Oh, it may decline, even go out of business eventually, but they're structured in a way that even a couple big hits won't kill them.

Be realistic, people.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

EA isn't evil. EA isn't going to die anytime soon. Now, I know many have said this and I may just be repeating it, but it seems it needs to be engraved in your skull with an icepick! The ENTIRE POINT of a Company is to MAKE MONEY. Now you may not believe this, but EA is making money. They will continue to do whatever they can to make more money.

Watch this and shut up. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6814-Companies-Exist-To-Make-Money]

Refusing to buy games that you would enjoy just because of the company? Stupid. Very stupid. That lowers the chance of that franchise having future installments. It is even worse if it is a special-type of genre like say Horror or Turn-Based Strategy. Have your petty boycott. I will be over here, playing good games and having fun.

No you won't. You'll be putting up with ridiculous bullshit from a company that doesn't care about the games and treats you like a wallet with legs and depserately trying to convince yourself you're having fun while your game fails to work AGAIN because the company backing it didn't give enough shits to bother making sure it was FUNCTIONAL before they took your money.

Gaming is not an incredibly narrow hobby. If a game sucks, there's always another one to play. Even if a game is part of a series I am very fond of, if it actually sucks because of developer/publisher incompetence/laziness then I'll pass it up without a second thought. I would sooner see a series die than be abused, eploited and shamelessly miled for cash with a shitty installment. You go on flagellating yourself to justify their laziness to them ("Who cares if we fuck up, they'll give us their money anyway!"), I have better things to do. Like play a game that WORKS.

 

[Brainpaint]

We're already ushering the new age of indie and indie-ish gaming, anyway.

It's like every time I see rows of empty shops in Bootle Strand:

All the shops that were previously only part of large chains are closing and making more space for new businesses to thrive.

All the big guns dying out and the gaming industry going through another crash could be the best thing for it in years.
Maybe third time's the charm?

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I fully and totally agree with OP.

EA is a cancer that is long overdue for its surgery.

 

[Zeles]

You know, I'm seeing a lot of arguing in this thread...

Can everyone here at least say that we don't like EA for whatever reason?

 

[Saviordd1]

I swear to god the simple volume of "fuck EA" threads and people is going to make me Pro-EA.

Personally I buy a game if its good, I don't care about the publisher anymore, its not worth my time or effort. If the game is good and doesn't want to skullfuck me I'll lay down the 60 for it, if its okay I'll wait for a sale, if it sucks I'll avoid it.

Are gamers all becoming such drama queens that we need to shout our displeasure about one company so loud that the dead can get annoyed by it?

 

[F-I-D-O]

If EA dies, I will be sad.
Do they have despicable business practices?
Yep.
Do they have extremely difficult requirements for IPs to be successful(see DS3)?
Yep.
Have they made a plethora of idiotic decisions that serve only to alienate the consumer?
Yep.
But I will be sad if they go.
Because regardless of what DS3 became, they took a chance with Dead Space 1.
Because Need for Speed has improved in the last few years.
Because I will always have a place in my heart for the original Medal of Honor.
Because American McGee's Alice series was a big risk.
Because they had the sheer audacity to, in a shooter filled market, release a throwback to classic RPGs in Dragon's Age.
Because if they go out of business, thousands if not millions will lose their jobs. Designers with plenty of talent, and a place to work, even if not with complete control, will be put out on the street. A job in the industry that you love is still a nice job to have.
Yeah, EA might be the popular punching bag. Hell, it's not all unjustified. This new SimCity launch was terrible.
But they still sold millions.
And hell, they took the effort to fix it fast, which is more than Parodox ever does.
But they've also done great things for the industry.
They've moved the game industry forward, and they've taken money from massive cash cows and invested it in experimental projects.
Are they the greatest thing ever right now? No, but it sure doesn't seem balanced to be cheering on their death because of always on-DRM.
Note: I hate always online games just as much as everyone. It's consumer hating, and a terrible practice. I don't buy games with it. But NFS:MW had some of the best online integration I've seen in ANY game. I'll keep buying EA games as long as they keep making interesting, quality titles. And EA's showing no signs of stopping.

 

[CrystalShadow]

SNIP

Thing is, an industry crash doesn't mean that no-one's going to be making games for a period of years. Plenty of companies were making games, even in the immediate aftermath of '83. Nintendo did better than ever, if I remember my history right.

OK, I apologise for the relatively random quote here, but I would like to point out that the crash of '83 wasn't a global crash.

It was a crash of the American gaming market. Nintendo was doing just fine in Japan at the time, because the Japanese gaming market wasn't in trouble. They also planned very carefully around the issues in the US, which can be seen in both the early marketing and the design of the NES (which was quite different from the japanese design, and unlike common game console designs of that era.)

Another unrelated example is that the European gaming market was doing pretty well too. It was dominated by completely different players than America, because the British computing industry in particular was booming at the time.

While you had Atari in the US, the big players in Europe were such things as the Sinclair ZX spectrum, and BBC micro, which while not game consoles as such, compared to say, the Atari 2600, but they had huge numbers of games being developed for them.

Now, admittedly, these British computer companies had their own problems. Sinclair collapsed (but that seems to have been due to trying to develop an electric vehicle), but there is a long list of UK games companies that originate from the early 80's.

(And as for Acorn, who designed the BBC Micro, they may not be around as computer makers anymore, but the CPU they designed for that system is the basis for the most popular CPU family in existence as of this point in time - the ARM series, which powers almost every mobile device in existence, from the later game boys, to the PSP, and pretty much every smart phone and tablet computer that's around...)

Yeah, anyway, getting off on a bit of a tangent there, but it's perhaps worth repeating that the fact that the crash of '83 was localised to the US explains the sudden explosion of European and Japanese companies filling the gap immediately after.

The current situation would probably have to be far more of a global disaster to have similar effect...

 

[Sean Renaud]

And to add to the above they've taken great risks that nobody else can take because if Dead Space 1 had failed spectacularly they can just throw a tin around the next Madden game and call it a day. A dead EA will be a bad day for gamers everywhere.

 

[Darks63]

If EA died its not like they would break up into a bunch or smaller companies and things would be cool hell look at THQs break up most of its stuff got sold to other big publishers and the same would happen if EA died. It would lead to the strengthening of Activision, Blizzard, and Valve and nobody would really win from power in publishing being further centralized.

 

[JagermanXcell]

I could honestly care less if they die. I don't even buy EA products anymore.

If they do, good they kinda deserved it, but what then?

Capcom and Activision I bet will gladly take their place unfortunately. Like a son carrying on his fathers legacy after his death... so beautiful.