EA - We Can Do Better

An amazing show of arrogance and EA narcissism. A clear reminder of why I don't buy EA games.

The response by the consumerist is excellent and highlights why the audacious and manipulative response by EA is easily exposed as a crock of ****.

Most of the consumer comments on blogs and articles in response to this have been bang on (apart from the odd one where their disdain gets a bit ott) but EA would have everyone believe that gamers are an ignorant, entitled, sad and also now a largely prejudiced group who do not deserve to be taken seriously.

Ultimately though EA will only respond to a drop in profits. The only real thing as consumers that we can do is not buy their games which is why I give their releases a miss, even if it means I miss out on a good game or two.
 
blackadderV said:
... EA would have everyone believe that gamers are an ignorant, entitled, sad and also now a largely prejudiced group who do not deserve to be taken seriously.....
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After seeing all these ludicrous posts, I'm beginning to believe they are right. Too many babies crying over nothing. After looking at how many games they do sell, all I see here is an extreme minority crying over tiny little things that are not bothering the average consumer.

Remember, it's cool to get on board the bandwagon.

I feel that his response, while being one sided (and why on earth shouldn't it be), was pretty open and honest, hes admitted to the mistakes, hes highlighted their successes, I really don't see a problem with it. Maybe the figures have been distorted a little, but then he only said they were registered users, not active accounts. Overall though, its a response I would have been expecting. Do you really think they should be bowing down to the extreme minority? Wouldn't that be financial suicide?
 
Wilderbeast said:
Remember, it's cool to get on board the bandwagon.
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How short sighted of you.

There is no room on the Wagon, it has been full for a long time now.

Because someone dislikes a companies practices, why do they have to be doing so to be "cool"? Why can they not just dislike the company and all it stands for?
 
Gimpymoo said:
How short sighted of you.

There is no room on the Wagon, it has been full for a long time now.

Because someone dislikes a companies practices, why do they have to be doing so to be "cool"? Why can they not just dislike the company and all it stands for?
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It's because saying "you're only saying it to be cool" is the new cool bandwagon to be on.
 
Gimpymoo said:
How short sighted of you.

There is no room on the Wagon, it has been full for a long time now.

Because someone dislikes a companies practices, why do they have to be doing so to be "cool"? Why can they not just dislike the company and all it stands for?
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I guess it's because you're so vocal about it and seem overly annoyed at what is clearly a very minor issue. Just like the thousands who voted ea the worst company. It's a very immature perspective to try to label ea with such a stigma when there is soo many companies out there that do some pretty horrible things, from violating human rights to polluting the planet. Yet it seems ea is the worst of them all for making some bad decisions regarding drm and possibly ruining a games ending. It's a real life problem!

This is why I think people think it's cool to jump on the bandwagon.
 
People are not saying they dislike Electronic Arts because it is "cool". They are saying it because of all the *** backwards **** they pull on their customers and the industry year on year.

Stop drinking their Kool-Aid, DRM and Game endings have little to do with it in the bigger picture as far as their consumers are concerned. Electronic Arts have been digging this hole for MANY MANY years with many different shovels.
 
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Wilderbeast said:
there is soo many companies out there that do some pretty horrible things, from violating human rights to polluting the planet.
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and how many of these are in America? Because the vote was "Worst company in America", not the "Worst company, period".
 
Wilderbeast said:
I guess it's because you're so vocal about it and seem overly annoyed at what is clearly a very minor issue. Just like the thousands who voted ea the worst company. It's a very immature perspective to try to label ea with such a stigma when there is soo many companies out there that do some pretty horrible things, from violating human rights to polluting the planet. Yet it seems ea is the worst of them all for making some bad decisions regarding drm and possibly ruining a games ending. It's a real life problem!

This is why I think people think it's cool to jump on the bandwagon.
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I am far too old to give a stuff whether something is cool or not. My dislike for EA stems from three things: they way they have treated good developers, the way they treat gamers, and the way they are taking games in a direction I do not agree with.

They changed somewhat a few years back and my opinion of them changed until they re-positioned themselves to just being idiots again.

I would say most people see no effect on their lives from human rights violations, pollution and all the other things you name - they are intangible and presented in the same Bayish fashion that most blockbuster games are. However, they can see the effect for them when EA knackers up something they are passionate about and spend a significant proportion of their life interactions with.
 
The whole article seems a bit poor. It reads like he wrote it in a rush while being a bit over emotional about the topic. In fact the whole thing reads like "Okay these are the reasons why we got named 'Worst Company in America', and these are the reasons why it's your fault and not ours".

The whole issue about SimCity's always-on and whether or not it is DRM is down to the person. I personally see it as DRM. The multiplayer aspects could have easily been made optional where if you want to build a city in a neighbourhood with friends you can connect to their online services. Instead, everyone is forced to whether they want to or not. It got proved by a few hackers that the services are not required to run the game properly.

The rest about the 45 million people using Origin - pretty sure it's obvious as to why, in fact I can't believe he even put that in there. I don't see it as a competitor to Steam either. Not because it's lower quality (arguably it is though) but because it only has EA games. If anything it's just another uPlay. Glad they are not caving on their LGBT policies though, and hopefully they never do. I know they got named the best place to work for LGBT equality and that's something they can be proud of.

Worst Company in America? I doubt it. I think people get too passionate about their games and love jumping on band wagons to show it. But even if they didn't get overly passionate about it they still dislike EA and I can't blame them when they consistantly fall short on big name games that people have forked out £30 - £40 each for. Stuff like:

Warhammer Online
Dragon Age 2
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Mass Effect 3
Spore
Every C&C from 2007

all fell well short of what they should have been. I named those specifically as they are the ones I bought. Whilst Mass Effect 3 only really failed me for the ending, the rest just failed as an overall package and as I see it, it's hundreds of pounds down the drain as I basically bought things I cannot enjoy for various reasons. There's probably more that could be on that list... also it's a bit worrying to see that 4 of those are Bioware (3 is you discount Warhammer Online which Mythic started). They do release plenty of good products though but I think their ratio of good:poor games is too high and higher than any other publisher / developer I know of.
 
Hedge said:
Battlefield 3 came out with a phenomenal engine, and far more interesting advancements than its Call of Duty competition, however because it followed the hugely loved Bf2 it was hated by that crowd. I personally think they might get negativity in every sequel they ever do becauseI of the purists who want new games, but don't want them to change from old games.
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I can see Hedges point (just liking this one, earlier posts are more relevant) that people ***** a lot about EA but keep buying.

Vote with your wallet, like me, and don't buy the games. Sure you'll miss some games you want to play (BF3 for me) but if you keep buying every time they will not care how much you whine.

Put up or shut up, crying is just that if you don't back it up.
 
I point blanc refuse to use Origin, and to be honest EA have released nothing but a series of bullcrap games since then.
 
I'd be interested to know who Hedges is referring to with his comment about virgins? I'll be calling the wife later, and telling her about our 'miracle child'; that we agreed not to have sex on our wedding night as it 'wasn't the done thing' and a 'bit messy'; How we can explain 'those photo's' ! ; and how the heck that jar of pennies ever got filled up, I'm not sure... ;-)

Anywho... overall quite a manipulative response from E.A. I think that they do have some valid points in the response (especially the 'cover picture' one, lol), if only they hadn't tried to turn it around and blame those that voted for them. No, they are not the worst company in america (look at GM crops stuff for that and elsewhere), but it's clear they didn't get the message that was sent to them, which is unfortunate.

The big problem here is that EA should be releasing incredible games, but they just seem to get sucked into the profit margin trap, and this just infuriates their customers. It's not good to be seen to be exploiting your customers.


Other thoughts:

ME3: Good game, they just screwed up the ending.... oh and the DLC monumental "give us more cash" balls-up.

BF3: To be honest... a very good game that gets more flak than is really necessary... but why? Because they failed to deliver on what they promised and focused on alienating/seperating the customer base with Premium and DLC. Seriously, it's not hard for an established dev to make an in-game comm's system AS PROMISED... or an in-game recorder AS PROMISED etc etc. Stuff like this just ****** people off. Personally, I like the game, but can understand why people are annoyed.

They have ALWAYS had a bad history of support. There is a reason for Pure Pwnage having an episode where he exclaims for some time that E.A. can "suck his balls".

E.A. is monolithic, and as such is more inclined to do what they want, rather than checking if the customer wants it. It's no surprise, and I highly doubt they will change. They have the money, and the studio's really have no choice but to meet the schedules E.A. set down.
 
Right here is one of the main reasons EA are disliked.

Look down the list of acquisitions and their releases before and after being bought by EA. There is a pattern, and it hasn't gone unnoticed. EA systematically ruin great developers, and people take issue with that.

Are they the worst company in America? Obviously not they are just acting in what they believe to be their best interests. However considering the demographic of the poll it's hardly surprising they ended up on top.

Personally I believe they would have seen higher margins if they nurtured and encouraged their development purchases, rather then ruling with an iron rod clearly at the cost of quality. It's a little saddening to think the great games the world would have seen if these studios stayed independent.

R.I.P
Origin (Ulitma Online, Ultima series)
Tiburon (Desert Strike, Nuclear Strike)
Bullfrog (Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park)
Maxis (Sim City etc.)
Westwood (Command & Conquer!!11 :(:(:()
Criterion (Burnout)
Mythic (Dark Age of Camelot)
Headgate Studios (Original Tiger Woods)
D.I.C.E (Battlefield)
Bioware (Too many to mention!)
Pandemic (Battlezone)
 
I personally blame COD for whats happening to EA (this time around), as someone else mentioned EA were trying to turn it around a few years ago and appeared to be listening to their customers regards leaving developers alone to make great games and making us feel that we had some kind of voice in how they did things. It really felt that they were eventually learning from their past mistakes...

Ever since COD went big though (post MW) it just feels that the EA investors looked at Activision and said, why arent we making those kind of profits on our games and now it appears EA will attempt to do pretty much anything to incentivise gaming on any platform (a good example is the new mantra of throwing MP into every game possible), which is totally within their rights.

Just a shame that it alienates (mainly) customers that have been around for a while and seen the rise and fall and continually fall of the publisher, from that point of view it does seem illogical what they are doing now, especially as it just feels they havent learnt from their mistakes and going back on the start of good work they had been doing...

Ultimately moan all you want, if you dont with your wallet, you are just the idiot that EA thinks you are - it knows, much better than us, that theres plenty of them out there...

Once bitten, twice shy

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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A ton of gamers are claiming they'll never play the next Total War game because a fellow fan who was dying of cancer had his face put in the game, it was 'macabre' apparently. Then look at the Madden fiasco mentioned in the OP's post... and that's only the tip of the iceberg as far as gamers go. So yeah quite a large minority of gamers are becoming entitled little crybabies.
 
m4rk84 said:
Right here is one of the main reasons EA are disliked.

Look down the list of acquisitions and their releases before and after being bought by EA. There is a pattern, and it hasn't gone unnoticed. EA systematically ruin great developers, and people take issue with that.

....Bullfrog (Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park)...
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Ahem... Bullfrog developed and released Dungeon Keeper and it's sequel after they had been bought out by EA. They also released Theme Hospital which some regard as the best game Bullfrog produced, and a personal favorate of mine, Populous: The Beginning.
 
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