Electronic Arts: A Comedy of Errors

Saying someone is spoiled for wanting a finished product they paid for is a sad statement by itself.

 

Welcome to the current state of gaming.

This isn’t the time anymore where you buy a game in its entirety.

Now it’s buy a game and all the additional stuff that should have been in already, along with buying other things just to stay updated or competitive. You may not even get what you want because your only option is a lootbox system.

All I see this as is them now cutting the game back even more to just put more of the game behind additional paywalls.


Grammar edits

 

It's only like that if you let it be. The vast majority of games I've bought in the last year have been complete products.

Anthem was a really stupid exception, but I blame myself for that. I should have known better than to pre-order a "live service" game, so that's on me for being careless. If I had waited even a week after launch for reviews, I wouldn't have bought it.

Everything else I've bought recently has been complete when I bought it, or an MMO that had already been out for a while and had a ton of content. The few AAA games I've purchased had enough to do at launch that I don't feel like I was buying an incomplete product.

The Division for example was more or less complete when it launched. There was room to add more, because it is a live game, but I would not have called it early access by any term. It felt complete and I enjoyed most of my time with it. I moved on satisfied that I'd gotten my money's worth. If I play any more of it, that's just extra.

This next bit is for everyone.

Bottom line, do your homework and don't ever fall for hype. Games are a luxury commodity, and there isn't a single game on the planet you "have" to buy in any state of completion. In the luxury market, the buyer has 100% of the power. Don't support shitty practices and don't buy products unless you're satisfied they're worth your money. Early access isn't necessarily a bad thing, but don't spend the money unless you're happy that the product is worth it RIGHT NOW. There's no guarantee it ever will be.

Anthem taught me that the best pedigree in the world is worth absolutely nothing on launch day. That will probably be the last time I ever preorder a game.

Sorry, post got longer than I thought it would.

 

Epic games pulling the exclusivity bullshit, SC (not being dejected or anything) taking so long. Yeah I'm probably done with preorders for games.

 

Soft launch games are going to require a live service because of the amount of support needed for what will most likely be a minimal viable product. The games will need stuff added to it quickly to keep people interested and to fix broken parts so as to not drive them away. As I don’t see EA doing single player games as a soft launch, they would all be online multiplayer service games. They then would start charging people for even more stuff which would have been in the game anyway.


They may also just be shoving the game out as a actual beta with the term soft launch instead of just calling it a beta, which they have for far to long for games that had been basically finished.

 

It's like the day 1 paid DLC they came under fire for a few years ago. They were taking completed games the developers gave to them, then cut chunks off of them to sell separately to the consumer. I view this "Soft Launch" stuff as basically the same thing. Instead of selling you a completed game, we're going to sell you part of it for full price then charge you for the rest of the pieces. EA has been trying to push this tactic for years because they think the consumers are idiots and won't notice. We always do, though, and it blows up in their face. After that they back off and wait a few years to try again, thinking we won't remember.

EA having shitty business practice and driving developers into the dirt is one thing. But it's pretty insulting how they think so little of the consumer to the point where they honestly think we won't notice crap like this.

 

The privileged elite actually do think what they consider the “plebs of society” with being just that stupid because they believe they are just that above everyone.

 

Oh my god. Why.

 

if you have ever worked in the typical enclosed office there is cut throat culture which usually exists in them. The amount of shit talk from some people about hourly wage workers is staggering. They also have a large amount of back stabbing bullshit that takes place. Have also noticed those same people have never had a hourly job and have had everything handed to them throughout life.

Its why I dont ever want to work in a office in the civilian industry again.

 

I will do something surprising and actually give EA and Dice some credit.

I think we all know about the Battlefront 2 lootbox debacle. They apologized and did improve on it. The lootboxes went from being a core component to something that is sorta there in the background that let's you unlock cosmetics that you would unlock through gameplay anyway.

They have been putting out new updates since its release adding new maps, classes, game modes and even more of it is on the way and none of these have a cost.

Now, I only bought the game a couple weeks ago when it was on sale for 5 dollars. However I really did enjoy playing it, which was abit surprising and I actually look forward to some of the updates for it.

 

I hold no expectations as to this being a positive trend with the company, but I suppose anything is possible. For myself they're going to have to go a long way towards reinventing themselves before I'll even consider putting half a dime their way (and no, I don't mean a nickel, I mean a literal dime cut in half). They have burned me personally, and destroyed to many IP's that had great potential far to frequently to call coincidence. I remember a time when EA wasn't a curse word, but they're going to have to work pretty damn hard to turn it back around, us old guys hold grudges XD

 

Probably the only EA game I would consider spending money on would be a remaster of Need for Speed: Underground 2. A REMASTER, not REMAKE.

 

I really do hope that EA and their kin don't just keep at their present course but put on higher gears and really go for it!

I keep saying, 10 years ago as I started in games business I thought to myself "how on Earth are we ever going to be able to challenge those big American companies? They've got this, there's no chance!"

Now things look much brighter.

 

okay, us old guys except Magnus, hold grudges XD

 

Magnus really nails it.

The 'evil big corp' mentality, where it exists, is very much present with the likes of EA.

You come to your car and you find them wearing their suits using a power drill to puncture your tires. While they see you approach, they wave a hand in greeting, shout "hi there" and keep on drilling more holes to your tires.

When you confront them on drilling the holes with "what the hell are you doing to my car" they will go -"we're making it better".

"No you're not, you're destroying my tires!"
-"No we're not. You'll love it"

Then you call the police over and the police say "yea, you guys are destroying his tires"
Them: -"You see, the old tires were crap. We have new better tires at the back of our truck, not only are we willing to upgrade his tires but we'll give him a -20% discount, only 800$ for the whole set of premium tires. And to show how sincere we are, we'll throw in a set of winter tires for the same cost! The winter tires will also be -20%, only 800$ more."

At that moment any sensible guy is going to thank them, buy the tires and tell the police that it's OK, they were really doing you a service and you were going to need to get new tires eventually anyway.

Or if they apologize and leave, are you going to tell the police that it's OK now that they apologized for it, only to find them again next week drilling your new tires but this time in the middle of the night..

They've pretty much established that they don't give a fuck and that they only care about ripping everyone off and lying and continuing to lie even when dragged to court and caught red handed.

 

I'm hoping they will stay the fuck out of the
Command and Conquer and Red Alert Remaster and just pay for it.

Petroglyph is the actual developer. I think.