EA Needs to F*** off and die
- Thread starter HowDroll
- Start date
The problem with "updates" for sports titles is that there are enough little things that change from year to year - whether it is the team logos, uniforms, arenas/stadiums, advertisements, rule changes, whatever - that fans notice it when they play the game. And it detracts from their gameplay.
And yes, a lot of it is money grab by the various leagues and PA's.
And yes, a lot of it is money grab by the various leagues and PA's.
Giving away the ending seems like a dumb move...
Pffft, old people and their "standards"...
got to catch em all...
Also, they really missed a good pre-internet viral marketing opportunity there... ppl talking about the film and realising they saw different endings instead of being told from the get-go had some real potential...
Interesting read... OP may get her wish sometime next year.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...letter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=us-daily
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...letter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=us-daily
You mean back when Nintendo and Sega owned almost all the development studios either wholesale or through extensive non-compete licensing agreements?
Yes, because console gaming is the ONLY type of video gaming there is.
I can name countless games that worked out of the box without any patches.
Anything by Blizzard prior to WoW, Any of the Sierra or LucasArts adventure games, Master of Orion, Wing Commander, Decent...
These are all just off the top of my head, so Necronic, You're the one who's deluding yourself if you think that all games have always needed patches.
Necronic
Staff member
I never said all games always needed patches. And I don't think you guys are saying all games need them now (they don't btw.) What I'm saying is that there were a lot of games thjat needed patches back in the old days (for either bugs or balance issues) just as there are games that need them now.
The only difference is that you have a much better chance of actually getting a patch now. Daggerfall is a great example of this. That game never worked. As amazing as it was it was a bug filled mess that was never fixed. In todays market how well would that be recieved? Back then it was accepted.
And that's just bugs. When it came to balance there was pretty much zero chance of you ever getting a balance patch for a game pre-2000.
The only difference is that you have a much better chance of actually getting a patch now. Daggerfall is a great example of this. That game never worked. As amazing as it was it was a bug filled mess that was never fixed. In todays market how well would that be recieved? Back then it was accepted.
And that's just bugs. When it came to balance there was pretty much zero chance of you ever getting a balance patch for a game pre-2000.
Blizzard, which was owned by increasingly large multi-channel distributors since 1991, topping it off with Vivendi since 1998?
Sierra, exactly the same?
LucasArts, which was always part of Lucasfilm?
I get preferring indie games, but a time when video games as a rule weren't created by conglomerates/media companies hasn't existed for decades.
The problem isn't that conglomerates are making games, the problem is the audience has changed and the conglomerates aren't sure how to appeal to those audiences short of throwing money at development.
Sierra, exactly the same?
LucasArts, which was always part of Lucasfilm?
I get preferring indie games, but a time when video games as a rule weren't created by conglomerates/media companies hasn't existed for decades.
The problem isn't that conglomerates are making games, the problem is the audience has changed and the conglomerates aren't sure how to appeal to those audiences short of throwing money at development.
Necronic
Staff member
And I mean...honestly you're going to use Lucas Arts as an example of "better times"? Like, the same Lucas Arts that completely abandoned the X-Wing/Tie-Fighter franchise and stopped making decent games more than a decade ago? I don't think there's a better example of a company who's quality fell entirely into the dumpster, and this happened ~2001. Nothing recent there.
Necronic
Staff member
Jedi Knight was amazing. It was also a 97 game. That said Jedi Knight 2 wasn't bad, and I think most people would agree that KOTOR was amazing, both hitting around 04, so you have a point. I wouldn't agree with the other games you listed: Battlefront being pretty forgettable and Force Unleashed having major balance problems and generally being dissapointing.
And of course we aren't mentioning the horrendous movie license games they made for Episode I-III.
And of course we aren't mentioning the horrendous movie license games they made for Episode I-III.
Cash cows are cash cows.
They aren't the best game dev but they aren't the worst.
They have made the occasional decent game. I can attest to it.
I expect when a cash cow license is available, they don't need to make it awesome. People will buy in droves decent, mediocre games.
At least they didn't turn out like Atari did when they raped the D&D license the last decade or so.
They aren't the best game dev but they aren't the worst.
They have made the occasional decent game. I can attest to it.
I expect when a cash cow license is available, they don't need to make it awesome. People will buy in droves decent, mediocre games.
At least they didn't turn out like Atari did when they raped the D&D license the last decade or so.
You're kind of proving my point. The bigger and more bloated the corporation behind the games got, the worse the games got. It's BECAUSE they're trying to follow the traditional hollywood studio model. Of course there are some times when a corporate backer will stand back and let the designers do their jobs and realize that unrealistic deadlines will only hamper the creative process, but they're few and far between.
Hey, Daggerfall rocked, it's the only game besides DII I spent over a thousand hours on. It was a buggy mess but it still WORKED. Somewhat. And it was a groovy game despite its flaws. 
By which I honestly do'nt mean it wasn't a buggy crapfest. It most definitely was.
As for the whole "conglomerate" thing - Westwood, Bullfrog, 2K Studios, Looking Glass, Maxis, etc etc - none of them were indies, but they all produced awesome games, because they were small enough to not be a huge faceless corporation.
In theory the smaller houses bought out by EA could still work like that, but EA just assimilates them and tries to make their technological and cultural distinctiveness their own...Unfortunately, instead of a race with three boobs, a tail and a capacity forl ove, you end up with the Borg
By which I honestly do'nt mean it wasn't a buggy crapfest. It most definitely was.
As for the whole "conglomerate" thing - Westwood, Bullfrog, 2K Studios, Looking Glass, Maxis, etc etc - none of them were indies, but they all produced awesome games, because they were small enough to not be a huge faceless corporation.
In theory the smaller houses bought out by EA could still work like that, but EA just assimilates them and tries to make their technological and cultural distinctiveness their own...Unfortunately, instead of a race with three boobs, a tail and a capacity forl ove, you end up with the Borg
EA certainly did kill Bullfrog and Westwood, to be sure. But that's because they're EA not because they're a conglomerate.
Most people would say that Warcraft II and Diablo 2 were better than their predecessors. WoW as a whole, whatever your thoughts on MMOs, was a gigantic success. StarCraft speaks for itself. And while WC3 has its detractors, it was also hugely successful.
LucasArts has never been anything but a subsidiary of LucasFilms, and while they've released lots of clunkers they've released lots of solid-to-fantastic games throughout their entire lifetime (as Jay and Necro have hashed out).
Sierra was already a multi-division conglomerate before the Gabriel Knight games came out (and King's Quest was made from money and direction from IBM).
Looking Glass didn't die because of "the conglomerate", they died because they had no money and the publisher who was paying for their current project went bankrupt because John Romero's side of Ion Storm spent all their money on Daikatana. Warren Spector basically founded a whole second division of Ion Storm to be separate from Romero's and made Deus Ex (thanks to money from Eidos).
The post-acquisition Maxis didn't manage to top Sim City 2000, true, but both 3000 and 4 were all-around solid, and the Sims was (of course) stupidly successful (and even a good game, if you liked that kind of thing). Spore issues were, again, EA's issues.
2K Games has had some stupendously successful (and critically-acclaimed) games since they were formed, all under the auspices of Take-Two (yet another large conglomerate).
The problem with the video game industry isn't "now there's conglomerates and it sucks", the problem is that EA and Activision specifically are those conglomerates, and they treat the smaller studios that work for them like crap.
S
Soliloquy
I guess that depends on how much it would take to buy them. I'm all for trying, though.
Necronic
Staff member
Wasn't the game so completely broken that you couldn't actually BEAT it? Something with the worm king?Hey, Daggerfall rocked, it's the only game besides DII I spent over a thousand hours on. It was a buggy mess but it still WORKED. Somewhat. And it was a groovy game despite its flaws.
By which I honestly do'nt mean it wasn't a buggy crapfest. It most definitely was.
Also as for that EA article it sounds incredibly ominous up until I went and looked at their historical stock performance for more than the last 12 months. This author literally took the HIGHEST value the stock has had in the last 2 years (~25$), which it only had for like a month, and then uses that for a "OMG THEY LOST 50% OF THEIR VALUE!"
When you look back a farther, ALLLLLLL the way back in 2010, EA regularly closed at 15$/share, they've pretty much held that value since '08. Now they are closing at 12$. Yes, it's a decrease. And I would expect it to go further. But ffs this is some pretty god awful reporting to clamour about a 50% decrease that's actually more like a 20% drop, this is the kind of stuff that drives me nuts.
Now, if you want to see something strange, look at EA pre-2008. They closed above 40$ every single day. I dunno if there was a split or what, but that to me is significant. What this dude is barking about....meh.
Well, SOME of the different endings were impossible without using console commands, yes
Notably most of the good ones 
As for the rest...Business reporting by non-business sources is always wrong. Always. No matter how good it looks. And unless you're in the business yourself, you'll probably misinterpret their errors anyway. EA isn't doing badly; quite the opposite. Major investors are still angry about and pushing for more profit to be made because it hasn't grown enough (staying about equal while the rest of the economy shrinks would be a good thing, right? Well, it is, but even so, you still have to squeeze out ever more money with ever less overhead and less wages, or they think you're not doing enough to maximise profits. Of course, if you do that, they'll say you do'nt have the long-term interests of the company at heart. Eh. Professional investors/investment holdings/etc have a very skewed idea of how a business should work.
Looks like the real fall started September 3rd, 2008, along with the NASDAQ pretty much as a whole. It started as just the major economic slump that hit the markets as a whole, but continued lower as EA announced that they were going to lay off 6% of their staff (October 2008), and then later announced that they were disappointed with 2008 holiday sales and that 2009 would bring a leaner release list, building consolidations, and additional layoffs.
Apparently, the pre-orders for Dead Space 3 are 5 times higher than those for Dead Space 2. So, broing up Dead Space making it a more generic third person coop shooter was the right thing to do. I fucking hate gamers. We deserve every homogenized shitty fucking clone game we get.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
What happened to God Hand? It's on PSN now.