Why we do let EA abuse us and get all hyped up for TitanFall?

[RJ 17]

I will wear my Tinfoil hat in pride!!!

And I can certainly respect that.

Getting back to the point at hand, though, the fact remains that Respawn isn't EA. To better answer your question as to why people are getting so hyped up about this game, it's because most people tend to agree that Modern Warfare and MW2 were the best CoD's in recent memory, both were made by Infinity Ward, and the majority of Infinity Ward's best people broke off to form Respawn. It's that pedigree that's allowing people to get so hyped up about this. In short: they trust Respawn more than they distrust EA.

 

[The Crispy Tiger]

I will wear my Tinfoil hat in pride!!!

And I can certainly respect that.

Getting back to the point at hand, though, the fact remains that Respawn isn't EA. To better answer your question as to why people are getting so hyped up about this game, it's because most people tend to agree that Modern Warfare and MW2 were the best CoD's in recent memory, both were made by Infinity Ward, and the majority of Infinity Ward's best people broke off to form Respawn. It's that pedigree that's allowing people to get so hyped up about this. In short: they trust Respawn more than they distrust EA.

Yeah, that's fair. I actually can see that. EA are fucking cretins sure, but it really does depend on how much faith you have in Respwan to make a good game.

 

[Idsertian]

Personally, I keep buying games with EA on them in the (oft unrewarded) hope that they (the company) will get better. That they won't be dicks this time, that the game won't have turned even more bland on this outing. I remember when EA published good, original games that weren't multiplayer focused, were allowed to be developed in their own time and weren't fed to us piecemeal fashion. I remember when EA weren't hated, when EA games were lauded because they deserve it.

Then The Sims happened.

It was like crack, for them. They just wanted more, and more, and more, and more. And they kept getting it. Pretty soon, EA had become bigger than anything anyone could have imagined and they reached some sort of corporate critical mass before imploding on themselves. Now, they're a barely recognisable husk, standing on the street corner of gaming, offering the same old tricks to earn the money to get their fix. For whatever reason, in some sick twist of logic, people keep giving them money for it and they're not getting any better. I throw them some cash every now and then for the original stuff they come out with, even though I know they'll just use it for more crack, and turn on me later when they decide to gut any originality out of a game.

Maybe the glory days will return. Maybe. For that to happen, EA need to focus merely on publishing games and not making them. They've proved they can't do that with any skill or finesse. Or Valve need to put them out of their misery and purchase the company. An ironic outcome that would be, indeed. For now, though, it seems EA will forever be stood on that street corner, begging for (and getting) that sweet, sweet DLC and franchise crack money.

Occasionally, however rare that is, a gem does appear with an EA name on it. It's not often, the game usually fades into obscurity afterwards, probably because it can't be turned into CallOfTheWarOfGearsOfDuty, but it does happen. When it does, and it's interesting, I buy it. Because I care.

That is the sad story of EA.

Also, some of you may be surprised to know they don't stick their name on everything. The PS3 version of a certain Portal 2 was distributed by EA (at least here in the UK), but their badge is not on the box. Possibly because Valve threw large sums of money at them so they wouldn't.

 

[shrekfan246]

1: EA doesn't "abuse" me.

2: I'm not hyped for Titanfall.

I think a better question is why have people completely forgotten about Activision? You know the only difference between them and EA? EA hasn't learned when to shut up yet. When I laugh the most is when people think Call of Duty is published by EA. But that's getting off-topic.

Want to hear something completely crazy? I've enjoyed every game with the EA name on it I've played in the last five years. Alice: Madness Returns, the Crysis franchise, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Kingdoms of Amalur, Mass Effect trilogy, Dragon Age II, Shank, Mirror's Edge, the Dead Space trilogy, Bulletstorm, even Syndicate. So tell me more about how they're "abusing" me.

They have terrible business practices, yes. They have some worrying ideas for their properties as well, such as what they did with Dungeon Keeper Mobile or SimCity. And I don't like or approve of those. But those are mostly independent of the games they release, and when they do affect the games, I avoid them.

 

[The Crispy Tiger]

1: EA doesn't "abuse" me.

2: I'm not hyped for Titanfall.

I think a better question is why have people completely forgotten about Activision? You know the only difference between them and EA? EA hasn't learned when to shut up yet. When I laugh the most is when people think Call of Duty is published by EA. But that's getting off-topic.

Want to hear something completely crazy? I've enjoyed every game with the EA name on it I've played in the last five years. Alice: Madness Returns, the Crysis franchise, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Kingdoms of Amalur, Mass Effect trilogy, Dragon Age II, Shank, Mirror's Edge, the Dead Space trilogy, Bulletstorm, even Syndicate. So tell me more about how they're "abusing" me.

They have terrible business practices, yes. They have some worrying ideas for their properties as well, such as what they did with Dungeon Keeper Mobile or SimCity. And I don't like or approve of those. But those are mostly independent of the games they release, and when they do affect the games, I avoid them.

To address number one SimCity, On Disk DLC on Army of Two; Devil's Cartel, and the abuse of Casual Gamers with Dungeon Keeper, they are abusing the fanbases of those respectibe games. If you're not hyped for TitanFall, you're the person I'm asking the question to, but it's nice to see your insight.

EDIT: I haven't forgotten of Activision, but that's another time for another discussion.

 

[shrekfan246]

To address number one SimCity, On Disk DLC on Army of Two; Devil's Cartel, and the abuse of Casual Gamers with Dungeon Keeper, they are abusing the fanbases of those respectibe games.

You're asking for my opinion. Your thread title is inferring two different things, one of which is that EA is "abusing" me as a consumer. While I acknowledge all of the things they do which are insulting to established fanbases of their franchises, I am not a part of them. Therefore I am not impacted by their actions.

I'm not going to get affronted on another person's behalf. Dungeon Keeper Mobile is a predatory piece of crap on top of being openly condescending to the property in question and fans of it, but I don't care about Dungeon Keeper, so why should it make any difference toward how I look at EA games in general? If those same things begin to impact games I do like, such as Mass Effect, then yes I'm going to avoid that just as much as I have SimCity. And I'll speak out against Dungeon Keeper Mobile and everything like it alongside anyone else, because it's terrible business. But it's not going to stop me from buying a game that I think looks good just because it has EA's logo on the box.

If you're not hyped for TitanFall, you're the person I'm asking the question to, but it's nice to see your insight.

EDIT: I haven't forgotten of Activision, but that's another time for another discussion.

The actual thread was asking more for hype of EA's games in general, not specifically Titanfall. And, again, business. There's nothing wrong with them hyping and advertising the hell out of the game. We can discuss the politics behind the creation of games until the end of time, but in the end there are simply far more people who just don't care. And I don't blame them. Hell, at this point, the internet is turning itself into a bloody caricature with the insane levels of EA hate it reaches.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

I purchase games based on Developer pedigree and/or if the game shows promise. The publisher is no concern of mine as a customer.

I've already abandoned much of EA's catalog and I am resentful towards them for the damages they have caused. But I'm not going to burn the forest down to get at them. They still have honest, creative and passionate developers working under them. I'd prefer if they didn't, but I don't have any meaningful control over that.

If EA continues shitty business, they will generate shitty games. I don't play shitty games. So if they cannibalise a developer like Bioware as they did with the likes of Bullfrog (which is possible, if the next few projects fail), I'll be annoyed, but not heartbroken. Those with talent will always find a home.

I suppose I'm not as attached or emotionally invested in the AAA industry anymore. The Indie market and crowdfunding have show that there is life after death-by-publisher.

As for Titanfall. Exclusive to Xbox and tied to Origin on PC? That's an automatic no from me. Which is a shame. I'd gladly pay 40 quid from what I've seen so far.

 

[Reaper195]

I think people are just hyping the game because of the developers. And since there is no single player, it's already lost a lot of gamers. Now it's just people who like fast pased multiplayer shooters.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

EA seem to be very much keeping their distance on this one, lettting the devs have a lot more freedom to publish the game the way they want it instead of enforcing all EAs' crap policies.

Add to that Microsoft's decision to turn this game into their golden child to the extent that they alter their controller sensitivity to work better with the game, and you can see it's got a lot riding on it.

Finally the Beta tester reports from gamers actually seem suprisingly positive, as in everyone's saying "I'm surprised how good this game actually is, and it's not even completely finished yet!"
So it would appear that this may very well be a well polished new gameplay experience, and that's what people like.

I never fully got the EA hatred. Is this about Mass Effect's ending? Or about the companies they absorb every now and then? Because that's what companies do. And I never played Mass Effect.

For some people I'm sure it could be boiled down to a single specific game controversy that bit them hard, like their handling of the ME3 ending, or Simcity, or Battlefield 3, or Dragon Age 2, or Command and Conquer 4... which included terrible anti consumer policies, terrible manipulation of game mechanics/budgets/time leading to terrible games, terrible handling of the outcry situations, straight out manipulation of the press and insulting the user base, and EA never ever ever admitting they were in the wrong unless it's some backhanded insult that they are sorry their customers "didn't get them" or some balls like that.

For others it's the large amount of studios (and their franchises) that are no longer with us because they were terminated after EA took them over. While the situation differs for every studio, in many cases EA had an awful lot to do with the run up to the studio's flagging success and inevitable shutdown, and everything to do with changing the left over franchises to fit marketing demographics and loading them with anti-consumer policies that would finally sink the barren husks of what remained of the games that we all used to love.

Finally I suppose there's the uniformly obnoxious and horrible press statements that the executives at EA routinely come out with, showing utter derision and contempt for their customers and being absolute asshats. No one likes that.

 

[Windcaler]

I dont like a lot EA's marketing and business practices but as a consumer I can just make the choice to not buy products that dont agree with my personal ethics or beliefs. A company has to do something drastic to make me boycott them completely and in my 20+ years of gaming only Ninja Theory has managed that feat.

In the case of Titanfall, look just go check out the demo/beta/whatever theyre calling it and come to your own conclusions. Play the game and then you can make an informed decision as a consumer. Im not going to even tell you my opinion on the game because you can just go play it and decide for yourself

On another note, thus far I think respawn has been pretty transparent and I appreciate that.

Whatever your opinion on EA or any of their development studios you have every right to voice your own opinion. For me, Im content with just not buying games that do things I dont like. I boycotted Mass effect 3 (slicing off pieces from the main game to sell as DLC), I boycotted Diablo 3 (always online DRM/real money auction house), I boycotted Sim city (always online DRM) and Im sure I will boycott more games in the future. Not buying it is always an option

 

[WouldYouKindly]

As I'm sure it's been said, EA doesn't respond to poor sales as a result of their assholish business strategy by, you know, changing their business strategy, they shut down good development teams and mothball any IP they had attached to them.

The best advice is to buy the games you enjoy. It doesn't matter who the publisher is, if people don't buy the game, the dev will get shut down at some point.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

Boycotting all of EA's games won't get us anywhere and will likely cause you to miss out on whatever good games they do put out. If you really want to send your feedback to EA and have them improve, you have to punish the bad games, or games that have business practices you disagree with, by not buying them, but you also have to buy the good games that don't have business practices you disagree with, otherwise the games you don't like will keep making them more money than the ones you do like and EA'll just keep making them.

 

[Mr Fixit]

So am I the rare example of never being abused by EA? I have no bruises, they've never robbed me at gunpoint & they've never called me stupid or ugly...

I agree they've done a lot of really, really, really stupid shit, but I've never had any problems with any EA game, other than some just being "meh".

Oh & Titanfall does indeed look like fun & I don't even like the multiplayer shooter stuff that much.

 

[Multi-Hobbyist]

Why? Because 2 Worst Company awards haven't taught them shite, and a lot of gamers don't know how to commit to sending a message. The only way EA will learn from their "abuse" is by participating with your currency, elsewhere. Even if it means hurting some other studios in the process. But they don't deserve that, thus, EA doesn't learn and neither do the gamers nor the industry itself.
Congratulations!-Nothing-Was-Accomplished.jpg
How I yearn for space travel capabilities. Just to get away from this lot.

 

[Cabisco]

Another good question to ask is why repeat a thread from yesterday [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.842592-Why-do-people-hype-Titanfall-when-they-were-supposed-to-boycott-EA-Why-EA-treats-you-like-a-*****]? Well, this game isn't as critical as the last one, but they are the same thing - I was wandering if I imagining the last one being locked. Anyway, points from before still stand

Maybe because the gaming community isn't one big hivemind that makes decisions for all? The people who are hyping the game (like myself) are likely not the same people who are boycotting EA (like yourself).

Or maybe the reasons that some people boycott certain games don't exist in Titanfall.

Or simply, some don't give a fuck about the politics of buying a game and just want a cool game where they can run up walls and punch mechs with other mechs.

Andy already said it but to show my individuality, I will say it again: We are not a hive mind

There are gamers that think that EA should be boycotted, there are gamers who look on games on an individual case-by-case basis, and there are gamers who buy whatever floats in front of them because they won the lottery.

Every single person here has a different opinion on how to purchase their games. Some of us find Day 1 DLC a giant slap in the face with a digital dick while others say that it gives us more stuff to do and the devs have a month of downtime between games becoming gold and actually shipping. Some of us treat microtransactions like the plague while others could not care less. Some of us find the lack of certain features (dedicated servers, modding, etc.) a travesty in the gaming world while others just plain don't care in any way, shape, or form.

Once again; hive mind, we are not one.

And so on. People are different, one cannot say that EA are universally hated to the point of everybody hating them. Easily provable by EA still being alive and selling games. Therefore, some people, actually a sizeable number, would buy their games.

Lovely posts there.

A big gripe I'm currently having with gaming is that there seems to more pressure on what game 'we' are meant to like, and what 'we' must rally against. I feel (though I assume people will disagree with me on this) like its an evolution of when I was told I was a moron for getting a 360/ps3/pc over a 360/ps3/pc and that prefering halo to half life was grounds for execution, that demand for a unified singular view has morphed into what we currently. Thats how I feel at the moment anyway, and that bums me out more than anything EA have done. EA ain't that bad when I look towards my shelf of games hell they've been involved with some of my favourites these past few years.

As for TitanFall: The beta is great to play, I'm hyped up because it's worthy of hype.

 

[Evonisia]

I don't like EA, but they have yet to do anything to me that would really justify me not purchasing a game which happens to be published by them.

I like the pre-MW3 Infinity Ward (known now as Respawn Entertainment), I trust that they have learned from the mistakes of Modern Warfare 2 and improved on it to give us a great experience. From what I've sampled on the Titanfall beta they have, and they can have my money when I feel like it.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

I played the beta. The beta works. The beta is simply a fully functioning version of the full product just without most of the maps and guns, so it's reasonable to assume if I really like the beta version of the game (without most of the content), then I will like the full version of the game (with all the content). It's certainly a better functioning beta than the beta of Battlefield 4 was (at least for me), so if that's anything to go by, I'm pretty sure EA wouldn't let this game slip up as bad as Battlefield 4 did. Plus I'm pretty sure Respawn have most of the control over it, and they seem to have a good passion about the game they are making.

They really should have made the game open beta to begin with in my opinion. It's a game that recently has spread a lot of people on both sides of the fence. Either people aren't sure about it because they can't try it, or there are people who really do like it because they did try it.

Then there are the people WWAAAAYYYY down the street who are shouting that the fence is the same color as another fence several blocks away, obviously meaning the fence itself isn't any good.

 

[Madkipz]

EA has been continuously abusive and the news on them these days only seem to be getting worse (look up Code Wars). With all of this information about EA's business practices, should continue to hype and support games being published by EA. I mean, I don't know. I genuinely have my ears open to what the community thinks on this one. Give me your guy's comments, I would love to hear it.

It takes balls to stand on your principles. Especially if you based them on who the publisher is.

The kind of people that have those balls. Don't post on escapist much or anywhere public enough for that to matter.

 

[WoW Killer]

All this talk of boycotts... eh. That's totally the wrong way of looking at it. You don't need to boycott anything, you just have to not buy something when you think it's shitty.

Example: I didn't buy Sim City. I didn't boycott it, I just didn't buy it. I did my research, I read reviews, I watched a few streams. I wasn't convinced of the games quality, so I didn't buy it.

If you're boycotting something then that's like saying you actually do want to buy it, but you're not going to because of political reasons. That doesn't make any sense with EA, because the primary thing they're accused of is making low quality games. It's not like they make super amazing products but torture children in the third world during their creation.

Don't get me wrong, the name 'EA' does set off a few warning signals, like it should do. I think it'd be incorrect to pre-order a game like this, even if you've played a bit of beta. Wait till it's ready, see what content is available, dodge the inevitable server problems, check for the dreaded micro-transactions. Do your research, and make a proper informed judgement.