Jimquisition: EA & Ubisoft: A Cycle of Perpetration and Apology
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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Really the only company I see not lying or slinging loads of bs is Nintendo. And when they admit mistakes they apologize and usually fix them. Hell when they realize things go bad they bite the bullet, take pay cuts instead of employee cuts and that sort of thing. Of course it helps that Nintendo rarely ever screws up big time. I mean they do occasionally, region locking I guess is a mistake, but they do it so inconsistently they don't get near as much flack for it because they will fix the problem if there was one.
yeah, more of the dog please. just like lisa showing her cat more.
ok, @ topic.
i still think that ubi is getting worse than EA. sure, EA is far from being an angel but the new BF title is not even out yet so i think its a bit unfair to say that the next shit is coming. probably will be be but i think you should be optimistic about it. they know that BF4 failed (even when it took them over 6 month to admit it) and it would be utterly stupid of them to pull off the same crap.
you can say "the next shit" when the new BF has the same issues.
ok, @ topic.
i still think that ubi is getting worse than EA. sure, EA is far from being an angel but the new BF title is not even out yet so i think its a bit unfair to say that the next shit is coming. probably will be be but i think you should be optimistic about it. they know that BF4 failed (even when it took them over 6 month to admit it) and it would be utterly stupid of them to pull off the same crap.
you can say "the next shit" when the new BF has the same issues.
This is the one thing that gives me some shred of hope that there could possibly be a good Final Fantasy game again someday. Squeenix saw how people reacted to FFXIV's terrible release, apologized for it, and then went and rebuilt the game from its foundation. Maybe they were mostly sorry that people weren't paying them money, but the remorse was sincere enough for them to act on it.
I have a question:Jimothy Sterling said:
Why, if these companies keep doing their "thing" as you say, do the game journalists when speaking with them, never question them on it when the next bestest game ever comes out from them, nor take them to task for it, and warn people to stay away from said games as a "buyer beware" mentality? Why do they not, in their previews, ever give these problems any weight when giving advance "reviews" of an unfinished game?
This isn't a criticism of your video Jim, I just feel as you say, it's a bunch of wind until you are more than just a voice in the darkness unheard by the companies. This is part of the problem, and it won't be fixed until game publications stop promoting these companies shitty tactics. If you want the game industry to improve, you (you the Escapist company, not you in the vernacular), and everyone else in the hype machine, need to be a part of the solution.
They could remove the need to be online to play, you know like the console versionsowbu said:
Seriously EA/Activions/Blizzard/Ubisoft etc are now all losing me as a customer simply because I'm getting sick of the bullcrap. Thankfully I already have more games to keep me busy than I can play and also there's plenty of other great publishers like Paradox, Deep Silver etc that I can always get my new game fix from. (not to mention indies)
I have to wonder where a lot of this originates - yes, it's in the end the entire company, but who's really to blame here? Executives? Marketing? Development? I can almost see perhaps companies being so large and ponderous that the "guys, we've been voted the North Korea of companies for the umteenth time in a row - wtf?" memo might just be getting lost in the shuffle.
On one hand it's easy and very tempting to blame malevolence, but really, I think incompetence deserves more credit for this than perhaps it's getting. Perhaps the right hand is clutching a rosary in penance, unaware that the left is still jerking off. In the end, it's probably a bit of both, but I've just seen too much raw stupid in management in my time to not attribute a good helping of this travesty to that.
On one hand it's easy and very tempting to blame malevolence, but really, I think incompetence deserves more credit for this than perhaps it's getting. Perhaps the right hand is clutching a rosary in penance, unaware that the left is still jerking off. In the end, it's probably a bit of both, but I've just seen too much raw stupid in management in my time to not attribute a good helping of this travesty to that.
Disagree about Battlefield 4.
Believe me, I was FUMING at the state the game was released...but they did a bit more than toss empty apologies.
They released the Community Test Environment (CTE) initiative, an entire separate version/instance of the game created solely for making huge changes, testing them and then rolling them out to the live game. So far multiple patches have gone through it's results have been excellent, though a lot of work is still to be done. There are several devs dedicated to CTE initiative, reading forum feedback through every step and taking lots of suggestions on board.
EADICE definitely had to go out of their way to do something like this, it would not have been cheap.
Yes, CTE came out 7 months too late and should've been part of basic QA before BF4 was even released. Yes, EADICE are basically asking players to beta-test the game for them 7 months after the game's has been on the fucking shelves. I'm not praising EADICE for CTE.
Partly I know it's because they still have 2 DLC's to sell (Dragon's Teeth and Final Stand) and BF4 population is reducing at an alarming rate considering only 2 out of 4 DLC's are out. A LOT more people were playing BF3 when it was 7-8 months into it's life. After BF3's recent free offering the number of people playing BF3 occasionally overtakes the number of people playing BF4. I bet EA pulled that purely to check statistics on how fondly-remembered BF3 was and how many people would play BF3 instead of BF4. I bet they were surprised.
But it's better than nothing, or just having empty apologies thrown at me. Standards have been lowered, I know...but I'll take what I can get since I already blew money on BF4 and the game definitely has it's fun/amazing moments. CTE will only improve it.
There's a limit to how much bullshit EA can pull, there's a limit to how much they can apologize. It has already taken it's toll on Battlefield Hardline. As far as I can see, the reaction to Hardline has been largely a negative one. Based on playing just the beta there is a huge number of people saying they simply aren't interested in buying that game. This is partly due to the fact that the game does look and feel like a lazy BF4 re-skin, but it's also accompanied the massive pile of shit that is EA's reputation.
Believe me, I was FUMING at the state the game was released...but they did a bit more than toss empty apologies.
They released the Community Test Environment (CTE) initiative, an entire separate version/instance of the game created solely for making huge changes, testing them and then rolling them out to the live game. So far multiple patches have gone through it's results have been excellent, though a lot of work is still to be done. There are several devs dedicated to CTE initiative, reading forum feedback through every step and taking lots of suggestions on board.
EADICE definitely had to go out of their way to do something like this, it would not have been cheap.
Yes, CTE came out 7 months too late and should've been part of basic QA before BF4 was even released. Yes, EADICE are basically asking players to beta-test the game for them 7 months after the game's has been on the fucking shelves. I'm not praising EADICE for CTE.
Partly I know it's because they still have 2 DLC's to sell (Dragon's Teeth and Final Stand) and BF4 population is reducing at an alarming rate considering only 2 out of 4 DLC's are out. A LOT more people were playing BF3 when it was 7-8 months into it's life. After BF3's recent free offering the number of people playing BF3 occasionally overtakes the number of people playing BF4. I bet EA pulled that purely to check statistics on how fondly-remembered BF3 was and how many people would play BF3 instead of BF4. I bet they were surprised.
But it's better than nothing, or just having empty apologies thrown at me. Standards have been lowered, I know...but I'll take what I can get since I already blew money on BF4 and the game definitely has it's fun/amazing moments. CTE will only improve it.
There's a limit to how much bullshit EA can pull, there's a limit to how much they can apologize. It has already taken it's toll on Battlefield Hardline. As far as I can see, the reaction to Hardline has been largely a negative one. Based on playing just the beta there is a huge number of people saying they simply aren't interested in buying that game. This is partly due to the fact that the game does look and feel like a lazy BF4 re-skin, but it's also accompanied the massive pile of shit that is EA's reputation.
And then today EA said that it was shipping The Sims 4 without Toddlers or Pools because it focused so darned hard on 'revolutionizing' the game.
So the excuse has been launched. Wait one or three months after launch for the $20 DLC pack that includes toddlers and pools to hit retail :1
While this week's episode is, in some ways, a retread of some of Jim's old points, I think it bears repeating since EA and Ubisoft... well... keep repeating themselves.
So the excuse has been launched. Wait one or three months after launch for the $20 DLC pack that includes toddlers and pools to hit retail :1
While this week's episode is, in some ways, a retread of some of Jim's old points, I think it bears repeating since EA and Ubisoft... well... keep repeating themselves.
Yacht Club Games released Shovel Knight and included a 'butt' mode.Chosenagain said:
Crate Entertainment announced Transmuters, which make some skill viable as LMB instead of auto-attack.
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15216
Perihelion Interactive came up with a partial way to easily rig male/female characters in their upcoming game The Mandate.
http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/3/5863785/ubisoft-female-characters-assassins-creed-the-mandate
Cloud Imperium games asked me to participate in the Arena Commander Multiplayer Alpha test.
If you look past the larger corporations there is a wealth of games made by people who love making them.
Neither genuine malevolence or incompetence. Painting EA, Ubisoft or any other company (gaming industry and otherwise) as 'malevolent' just starts to conjure Pentex-style boardrooms filled with insane vampires, morally dubious werewolves and tentacled monstrosities. I'm pretty sure (well, fairly sure... kinda) that EA board meetings rarely have "How can we fuck our customer base (who we hate) over more and faster?" as their lead agenda point. I am, however, pretty damn sure that they do have "How can we maximize our profits and minimize potential collateral damage to us and our bottom line?" in there somewhere.Necris Omega said:
Put another way; when some thing happens that, from the gaming community's perspective is a terrible outrage for which recompense must be demanded, the reaction of the parts of big companies like EA and Ubisoft who actually make the Big Decisions? is not to ask "How did this happen and what can we do to stop it from happening again?" but instead to say "How many units are we not going to sell because of this and what is the least expensive, least involved and complicated way to make it go away for long enough to get the next product moving?" That's not actually evil or malevolent, it's just selfish and capitalist.
So far, these calculations have always come up in the companies' favour. While there's definitely some stupidity involved somewhere along the line, because these things keep happening and the cycle between them seems to be getting shorter and almost all of them appear to be really simple things to fix or things that should never have been issues to begin with, at the base it's less stupidity and more cupidity that's at fault.
The video game industry thinks you're an idiot... and you're not
Jim's dog lay down, get a treat.
Hardcore Gamers lay down their cash, get shit.
Great job letting your own pooch destroy your argument, Jim.
***
You know who did this right? Square Enix with Final Fantasy XIV. A terrible launch in 2010, but brought forward a redevelopment with what is a great game. They apologized but they made up for it and continue to keep themselves in line.
FF XIV was released way too early so it could be on the shelves before Cataclysm: it's the perfect example of a company's suits screwing the work of its craftsmen.
Jim's dog lay down, get a treat.
Hardcore Gamers lay down their cash, get shit.
Great job letting your own pooch destroy your argument, Jim.
***
You know who did this right? Square Enix with Final Fantasy XIV. A terrible launch in 2010, but brought forward a redevelopment with what is a great game. They apologized but they made up for it and continue to keep themselves in line.
FF XIV was released way too early so it could be on the shelves before Cataclysm: it's the perfect example of a company's suits screwing the work of its craftsmen.
Sony and Microsoft accepting indie developers after they decided to tweet at the company that they want to be one.Chosenagain said:
But you also forget that this forum is only used by a minority. The majority sees the games they sell through their adverts on TV.SnowWookie said:
Yes companies do exist to make money, but that doesn't give them an excuse to screw over their customers in a manner THIS ridiculous. Also "existing to make money" doesn't justify terrible behavior. Dog fighting exists to make money. Illegal drugs exist to make money. Human trafficking and slavery exists to make money, but we don't go around defending those do we?geier said:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6814-Companies-Exist-To-Make-Money
Also we shouldn't need to do as much research as we do for video games these days. It should be someone could just look at a review or two and that would give them as much information as they need, and that's all a lot of people do these days. However, reviews rarely cover all the issues in the game anymore, so before I buy a game I have to dig through forums, reviews, word of mouth, and countless other things before I can be sure the game will even run well, be a stable and somewhat bug-free experience, and not have gratuitous amounts of content cut out to be sold back as DLC. And even THEN, after HOURS of research, there's still a good chance that even with a lot of positive info behind the software, the game will turn out to be a dud. (I'M LOOKING AT YOU FAR CRY 3!)
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/8974-Buyer-Beware
The idea of "Buyer Beware" is a true enough statement, but the AMOUNT of awareness we need these days for fucking video games of all things is just getting absurd.