Your Boycott List

[JohnnyDelRay]

Blizzard and Ubisoft. I would say EA as well, but I don't really have any interest in anything EA is about to put out in the near future, so no. Biggest hit for me is Ubisoft, because Rainbow 6v2 is one of my favourite games ever. But the DRM thing that started since Assassins Creed is unforgivable. Origin is fine, the DRM is not. Of course, if they retract that shit and become reasonable again, I shall begin to purchase their products again without hesitation, so no company is beyond redemption in my book. Anyways BF3 was struck off that list.

Blizzard though, I don't know, they make a solid game but the way they strongarm around people and bend the public to their will just because they can is pretty much bullshit. How they decided to make examples of people who ran illegal servers is a bit overkill, and totally unnecessary. Diablo 3 can go to...er, whatever place is below hell. Sorry, always-on for single player games just kills it. The fact that they just outsell every game in the world pre-purchase just lets it get to their head, sorry, not for me.

Another one I was about to was id, for their take on used games, but I wasn't going to get Rage anyways.

 

[Smiley Face]

I don't boycott publishers. I boycott bad games. I don't think companies should produce bad games, so I boycott them in an attempt to teach them not to. Boycotting publishers for... whatever reason... would defeat the purpose of this. I suppose it makes sense to include marketing efforts, compatibility, bugs, etc. with that, but boycotting a whole company doesn't really make all that much sense to me.

 

[Darth Rahu]

Activision. After Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 I just dropped the whole thing like the creepy paranoid military fiction it has become.

 

[Darren716]

I started boycotting THQ after Saints Row the Third, I'd say I was pretty successful.
Capathcha: "You can do this", I already did

 

[bug_of_war]

Just EA, can't stand their business practices. Of course most publishers are despicable, but EA seems to be the worst. Not that I'm buying many games right now anyway due to poor finances.

Um...REALLY? EA is the WORST?.............You seen Capcom or Nintendo lately?

OT:
I don't tend to boycott things that I WOULD have wanted because then I'm just denying myself something that I would enjoy. If I want it, I'll go and get it (If I can afford it). To Boycott anything like a game publisher simply because you don't like their business practices kinda seems like refusing to date someone because of their political views. It's just stupid to not do something you want to do because of a small reason.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Just EA, can't stand their business practices. Of course most publishers are despicable, but EA seems to be the worst. Not that I'm buying many games right now anyway due to poor finances.

Um...REALLY? EA is the WORST?.............You seen Capcom or Nintendo lately?

OT:
I don't tend to boycott things that I WOULD have wanted because then I'm just denying myself something that I would enjoy. If I want it, I'll go and get it (If I can afford it). To Boycott anything like a game publisher simply because you don't like their business practices kinda seems like refusing to date someone because of their political views. It's just stupid to not do something you want to do because of a small reason.

Hence the qualifier, "seems to be." Besides, what's Nintendo done that's so terrible? It's true that they've made a number of boneheaded decisions lately and have not been the company I once believed in, but surly they're nowhere near on the same level as EA. Capcom, on the other hand, well I'll give you that one.

 

[jpoon]

I haven't bought a craptivision, ubisoft, or EA game in years now. I plan to keep it that way, and it's not as if any of them have worthy games anyways...that's as close as I get to boycotting.

 

[bug_of_war]

Hence the qualifier, "seems to be." Besides, what's Nintendo done that's so terrible? It's true that they've made a number of boneheaded decisions lately and have not been the company I once believed in, but surly they're nowhere near on the same level as EA. Capcom, on the other hand, well I'll give you that one.

Well Nintendo aren't that bad i guess. I just think that some of the things that they do halts the progression of the gaming industry more than EA or even Capcom. For example, they continue to remake old games time and time again to the point where the only 'New' thing about New new super mario land is that it's on a new console. Also, with Bayonetta, while I have never played the game, it is bullshit that the sequel is going to be Wii U exclusive when the original game was multi platform. Then there's the DS. Initially, it was great, then they improoved it by making the DS lite, but then they decided to make the DS XL and take away the gameboy slot, but adding a memory card which cannot be used for games that people would like to have multiple saves for like Pokemon. THEN, they hooked onto the 3D gimmick, and because it's sales have been doing sooo poorly, they come out and make another generation of Pokemon games, barely a year after Black and White 2, just so that people will buy the 3DS.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Nintendo, I love their games! but when they continue to do these things above and people just seem to brush it past and accept it while tearing EA another asshole, I kinda get a little ticked off. Especially when people say EA ruins franchises by turning them into conveyor belt games. Yeah, that argument makes me wanna ram the entire mario series down their throats.

I also feel EA gets a lot of unjust blame for some games as well. For example, Mass Effect 3 has made a lot of fans blame EA for what happened in the game. While I personally loved the game, I am perfectly fine with accepting people not liking the game, but when they start blaming the publisher for ruining a game that was given an extension on release date, my mid just gets boggled. How can you blame a publisher for the games story, when all they do is give the devs money? Sure they can say "Make the game faster" or "We wanna broaden the game to a bigger market", but that doesn't mean they came out and said, "Make the ending like this". Too many people blame EA for things that are actually the developers fault, and while I agree EA is to be blamed for what happened to Dragon Age 2 (even though I liked the game), it doesn't mean they are the anti-christ of the gaming industry. They are a business, and businesses need to make a profit, and decisions like on disc DLC is a good business decision. I don't agree with on disc DLC, but I can see from the business angle that if you have a team of developers sitting on their asses for a few months and they have literally finished the game intended to be released, damn right I'm gonna get them to keep working.

So yeah...I don't want this to sound like I'm jumping down your throat (Though it totally does re-reading it), my main argument in the end is that boycotting a publisher for doing something that other publishers do is stupid, especially if you actually want to experience the product they are releasing.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I don't boycott anything. If something looks good, I'll buy it. Why miss out on a good game when me not buying the product won't really make a big difference? Not enough people do this boycotting stuff in the media for it to matter.

 

[Haakmed]

As a PC gamer anything with Ubisoft's name on it or anything I have to play on Origin doesn't get bought on general principle.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Hence the qualifier, "seems to be." Besides, what's Nintendo done that's so terrible? It's true that they've made a number of boneheaded decisions lately and have not been the company I once believed in, but surly they're nowhere near on the same level as EA. Capcom, on the other hand, well I'll give you that one.

Well Nintendo aren't that bad i guess. I just think that some of the things that they do halts the progression of the gaming industry more than EA or even Capcom. For example, they continue to remake old games time and time again to the point where the only 'New' thing about New new super mario land is that it's on a new console. Also, with Bayonetta, while I have never played the game, it is bullshit that the sequel is going to be Wii U exclusive when the original game was multi platform. Then there's the DS. Initially, it was great, then they improoved it by making the DS lite, but then they decided to make the DS XL and take away the gameboy slot, but adding a memory card which cannot be used for games that people would like to have multiple saves for like Pokemon. THEN, they hooked onto the 3D gimmick, and because it's sales have been doing sooo poorly, they come out and make another generation of Pokemon games, barely a year after Black and White 2, just so that people will buy the 3DS.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Nintendo, I love their games! but when they continue to do these things above and people just seem to brush it past and accept it while tearing EA another asshole, I kinda get a little ticked off. Especially when people say EA ruins franchises by turning them into conveyor belt games. Yeah, that argument makes me wanna ram the entire mario series down their throats.

I also feel EA gets a lot of unjust blame for some games as well. For example, Mass Effect 3 has made a lot of fans blame EA for what happened in the game. While I personally loved the game, I am perfectly fine with accepting people not liking the game, but when they start blaming the publisher for ruining a game that was given an extension on release date, my mid just gets boggled. How can you blame a publisher for the games story, when all they do is give the devs money? Sure they can say "Make the game faster" or "We wanna broaden the game to a bigger market", but that doesn't mean they came out and said, "Make the ending like this". Too many people blame EA for things that are actually the developers fault, and while I agree EA is to be blamed for what happened to Dragon Age 2 (even though I liked the game), it doesn't mean they are the anti-christ of the gaming industry. They are a business, and businesses need to make a profit, and decisions like on disc DLC is a good business decision. I don't agree with on disc DLC, but I can see from the business angle that if you have a team of developers sitting on their asses for a few months and they have literally finished the game intended to be released, damn right I'm gonna get them to keep working.

So yeah...I don't want this to sound like I'm jumping down your throat (Though it totally does re-reading it), my main argument in the end is that boycotting a publisher for doing something that other publishers do is stupid, especially if you actually want to experience the product they are releasing.

Well my issues with EA have nothing to do with ME3 or DA2, neither of which I've played.
Also there is no excusing On-Disk DLC. Day 1 DLC, yeah that's fine, and for the reasons you stated. Give the dev team something to work on while the Q&A gets done; sure, fine. However putting it on the disk and then charging extra to unlock it is just a dick move, 'cause that's just charging the consumer extra for content they already have (and have payed for).
The thing with EA is that they employ the most dickish business practices and continually work to screw over their customers and while ok a lot of publishers are doing that now a-days, EA seems to have turned it into an art form (if you could call it that).
All that is neither here nor there though since I'm not really experiencing much of anything being financially strapped.

 

[Queen Michael]

I boycott moleskine because I refuse to support the notion that an a6 notepad with 80 pages of paper in it should be worth £12. That, and the bullshit about it being "Hemingway-approved" as if you're buying some long-lived cultural bastion of quality.

Come on now. Hemingway died '61, and Moleskine notebooks were first sold in 1997. So he loved them so much that he invented a time machine to buy them! Or maybe he came back from the dead to buy them! Now that, they should have the right to brag about.

 

[jackpipsam]

I am 'boycotting' NCsoft.

I am sick of NCsoft of how they treat their properties and do a terrible job of supporting most of their old fantastic I.Ps.

Also I am boycotting Monolith for killing Gotham City Impostors by making it free on PC while doing nothing to make that game better.

But that's it, NCsoft and Monolith.

 

[bug_of_war]

Well my issues with EA have nothing to do with ME3 or DA2, neither of which I've played.
Also there is no excusing On-Disk DLC. Day 1 DLC, yeah that's fine, and for the reasons you stated. Give the dev team something to work on while the Q&A gets done; sure, fine. However putting it on the disk and then charging extra to unlock it is just a dick move, 'cause that's just charging the consumer extra for content they already have (and have payed for).
The thing with EA is that they employ the most dickish business practices and continually work to screw over their customers and while ok a lot of publishers are doing that now a-days, EA seems to have turned it into an art form (if you could call it that).
All that is neither here nor there though since I'm not really experiencing much of anything being financially strapped.

Hey, I agree with you on the whole paying for something you already physically own, but at the same time I see millions of people playing MMO's such as World of Warcraft and they pay something like 30 dollars a month to play a game that they have already paid for. So it doesn't phase me when one company releases DLC on disc that you have to then pay an additional 10 dollars for because I figure, "Hey...I could totally pay for this extra content, but I still have a full game so I'm happy". There's also the new thing where if you buy a pre-owned game there will be sections taken out of it and you'll have to pay for it, Arkham City for example made it so as that you couldn't play as Catwoman. I was fine with that, I got it, they make no money from pre-owned games and they have every right to get money from the people who just wait to play their game, and in total I ended up paying 40 dollars, I still saved money.

Now, I know this reason doesn't please 95% of the people I tell it to, but the reason why I believe the on disc DLC being paid for is okay (In Mass Effects case, where the devs are sitting on their ass) is because think of what the people are paying for pre-release. They are paying for the content initially promised, nothing more, nothing less. So, if the developers all of a sudden add extra content, then technically they are giving you free content. So, in the case of Mass Effect 3 I see nothing wrong with paying for the on disc DLC, but with Capcom and Resident Evil 6, Street Fighter vs Tekken etc, I can see why everybody gets pissed.

I disagree with you in saying that EA is trying to screw over their consumers simply because with the amount of recent incidents that have gone against them, they have continually come out and said, "Okay, we get it, you didn't like this, we will try and improove". I also think they showed a real good side of them when they backed Bioware in saying that they fully support the devs, and when they released a statement saying that they would donate a minimum of 1 million dollars to the American Vietnam vets. Finally, it is a poor business practice to actively seek out ways to make their consumers angry, so while their recent practices have been questionable, all you can do as a consumer to change it is to vocalise both with you words and you wallet that this is not what you want. That way, the company knows that doing that certain practice will not make the money as the people don't want it and will move on from there.

 

[grey_space]

I wouldn't say that I'm the biggest fan of apple.I wouldn't put Itunes on my computer in a fit.

I won't be buying Dead Space because of DLC and...wank.

I don't like Nintendo after reading that Critical Intel article and doing some research myself.

As for Bioware/EA? We'll see.

 

[zxvcasdfqwerzxcv]

As a vegan, I guess I boycott animal products, but really it's more of a preference issue. For example, I don't boycott Budweiser, but I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot barge pole because its a bad, bad beer.

 

[DaSmart1]

The closest thing I have to boycotting is the COD games, and that's more because I'm tired of them than anything else, althogh their negative effect on the industry doesn't help either.

 

[Auron]

Anything I find to be a cash-in or worth much less than the price. Which doesn't mean I won't buy it on a nice offer or something like that if I actually like it so pretty much no boycotts I suppose.

Dishonored's a brillant game but wasn't worth 60 dollars, I got it for a great price on gmg though. Every call of duty's the same game since modern warfare I almost considered buying Black ops 2 this year(a substantial number of friends got it) but remembered there will be a new one by november already. The new Medal of Honor? Doesn't hold the slightest interest... Funnily enough Spec Ops the line due to it's terrible marketing which made it look like a cod tps also held absolutely no interest until I read the universal praise it received.


I get and even partake somewhat in the hate of EA what with them butchering a dozen or more excellent studios since the late 90's but the massive flak that Ubisoft gets intrigues me. Uplay is not that bad and it's offline mode works fine(now at least.) their games generally have quality(AC would have benefited from less of an assembly line behaviour of course) and they're not mass developer murderers.

 

[J Tyran]

I do not really "boycott" anything, there are some products and services that happen to be sold by certain companies that I would never, ever buy. Like most of Apples products, I would never buy an Apple computer for the same reasons I would never buy an Alienware computer. Unless their phones change a lot or other phones fall way behind I am unlikely to choose iPhones over many other products. There are some games I would probably never buy and some publishers annoy the hell out of me, I am unlikely ever to buy anything from Capcom for example. A combination of their anti consumer practices and the way they produce almost no games I would buy anyway (either because of bad value/DLC up the arse or because its not a game genre/type I enjoy) means I have constructively boycotted their games I suppose. Other publishers like Activision, EA and Ubisoft annoy me as greatly with their own anti consumer behavior but they do release some games I am willing to buy. Although I have not bought anything by Ubisoft for the PC for a long time, I do get their games for consoles though.

There are some companies that I absolutely would boycott like that anti equality US fast food chain for example (chickenfilla or something iirc) if they came to the UK, things like that or a company refusing to try and reform its fair trade and exploitation policies. Things like that would totally make me boycott something, but something like releasing a game that for some reason I disliked? Never, no point in it I simply would not buy it.

 

[Grape_Bullion]

EA, Activision, Capcom, Square Enix, and Ubisoft will never receive money from me again. Bethesda as well, if I can help it. Haven't purchased something from EA, Activision, Capcom, and Square for three years now. Ubisoft for a little over two years now, with the exception of AssCreed 3, which was given as a gift.

Fun way to chastise your friends and hopefully help your cause? Next time you see them playing something you don't like/disagree with/whatever, just ask them if they're enjoying killing the game industry. Sure it's a dick move, but I've done it a few times and a few friends have been more conscious when they buy games now.

not exactly something to be proud of bro. You are in no position to talk down to your "friends" for their purchasing decisions. You're not "saving the industry" by forcing your standards on other people, you're just being a prick, and frankly it makes you no better than the publishers you single out for boycott.

Looks like you forgot to read the part where I said it was a dick move.