They put L4D and L4D 2 on sale a lot, actually. I can't speak for most Valve games because I don't give a damn, but I passed up several L4D2 sales before I finally bought it.thebobmaster said:And how much of the free content, free games, free modding tools, and monthly sales are for Valve games? Not many, with the exception of a couple Left 4 Dead sales, a couple Portal sales, and the fact that Team Fortress 2 went F2P about 4 years after it came out. You have a point with the free updates for TF2, though.
Valve also isn't a company whose stock price has been slipping for years. While correlation does not prove causation, it sureThere are differences between Valve and EA, though. First, Valve is not a publicly owned corporation, with shareholders.
like EA's business practices are hurting its stock price and therefore its shareholders.looks
While this is technically true, allow me to play devil's advocate here. Doesn't giving out free content and supporting games rather than charging for content and locking things kind of earn you points in this category? I don't know. I would view a company that gives me stuff more favourably than a company that locks me out of stuff.Secondly, no matter what they do, gamers love them, while EA can't say a word without gamers twisting them. I'm not saying that EA is better than Valve, but as you said, they are both corporations. Valve just has better PR.
Yes, and again, that's great if you're viewing the history of both companies in a bottle. Valve time and EA time are pretty much opposite ends of a broad spectrum.Let's look at it this way. What would the general reaction be if it took 5+ years to make Dragon Age III? Telling EA to hurry it up, or talking about how it is a sign that EA has killed off Bioware once and for all, and really doesn't care about the fans. With Half-Life 3, it's been basically turned into "Oh, you!" at Valve, with a laugh track.
If you truly think that high metacritic score = high quality/good game, you are terrible, terribly wrong. Check Dragon Age 2 for that. A 82%.thebobmaster said:As for the idea that games produced after EA acquires them being of lower quality, let me point out a few things.
Mass Effect: Metacritic score of 94
Mass Effect 2: Metacritic score of 96
Medal of Honor was a great game yes it was to short but it was super realistic (in a good way) and I really was worried about the characters that I had bonded with and the ending was a punch to the stomachfelbot said:i love the fact that this thread is above the which ultima is your favorite thread, i really do.
speaking of which you seem to ignore the ultima series, you know how they pushed out ultima 8, and the apparent travesty that was ultima 9? i think most people here are far more pissed about that.
or my personal gripe with them, how they utterly fucked the medal of honor series.
super realistic? no dude, arma is realistic, operation flash point is realistic, medal of honor? it was never realistic and this new one certainly is not realistic.David Huff said:Medal of Honor was a great game yes it was to short but it was super realistic (in a good way) and I really was worried about the characters that I had bonded with and the ending was a punch to the stomachfelbot said:i love the fact that this thread is above the which ultima is your favorite thread, i really do.
speaking of which you seem to ignore the ultima series, you know how they pushed out ultima 8, and the apparent travesty that was ultima 9? i think most people here are far more pissed about that.
or my personal gripe with them, how they utterly fucked the medal of honor series.
felbot said:super realistic? no dude, arma is realistic, operation flash point is realistic, medal of honor? it was never realistic and this new one certainly is not realistic.David Huff said:Medal of Honor was a great game yes it was to short but it was super realistic (in a good way) and I really was worried about the characters that I had bonded with and the ending was a punch to the stomachfelbot said:i love the fact that this thread is above the which ultima is your favorite thread, i really do.
speaking of which you seem to ignore the ultima series, you know how they pushed out ultima 8, and the apparent travesty that was ultima 9? i think most people here are far more pissed about that.
or my personal gripe with them, how they utterly fucked the medal of honor series.
and that is not why i hate it, i hate it because its another generic shooter set in the middle east with regen health and arab enemies, the older games had health packs and were set in world war 2, which might not seem more original but it sure beats going around a desert doing anything.
i hate deserts, hell everything else could have been tolerable but fucking deserts man, i hate them.
dude, do you read you post before you post them?, that was a bit of a mess there.David Huff said:felbot said:super realistic? no dude, arma is realistic, operation flash point is realistic, medal of honor? it was never realistic and this new one certainly is not realistic.David Huff said:Medal of Honor was a great game yes it was to short but it was super realistic (in a good way) and I really was worried about the characters that I had bonded with and the ending was a punch to the stomachfelbot said:i love the fact that this thread is above the which ultima is your favorite thread, i really do.
speaking of which you seem to ignore the ultima series, you know how they pushed out ultima 8, and the apparent travesty that was ultima 9? i think most people here are far more pissed about that.
or my personal gripe with them, how they utterly fucked the medal of honor series.
and that is not why i hate it, i hate it because its another generic shooter set in the middle east with regen health and arab enemies, the older games had health packs and were set in world war 2, which might not seem more original but it sure beats going around a desert doing anything.
i hate deserts, hell everything else could have been tolerable but fucking deserts man, i hate them.
I remeber the originals but I really liked the respectfulness and actual when you play on the hardest difficulty it took about one shot to kill you, and yes operation flashpoint was realistic to the fucking max that realism can go but medal og honor kept you there with the different and interesting characters that were fun to listen and interact with
First flaw is that EA can afford to take risks. If you don't know EA grosses 4.5 billion dollars a year, taking a risk and having it be a flow will suck but its not going to be a huge blow to there company. Not to mention they have executives making millions every year, if they really were worried about closing down studios and losing jobs maybe they could take a cut in their income. Even Nintendo executives were willing to do that (and by 55% if I remember correctly). Not to mention they still make multi-million dollar flops all the time. Remember Dante's Inferno?thebobmaster said:Hopefully, the title drew some attention. Now please, read my points before you tell me how much in denial I am about how they act.
First point: EA, as a corporation, needs to make money. Why? They are a publicly owned company, with shareholders. If they start losing a lot of money, shareholders will abandon the company, resulting in layoffs.
Second point: Closing down studios.
I love this one. Apparently, EA is a vampire that sucks great studios dry, and casts their corpses aside in search for new blood. This ignores a few things. First, how can EA buy a studio that doesn't want the help? They can't. Why would a studio be willing to be bought out if they were successful on their own? They wouldn't.