EA Games, Ruins everything. well they have killed all of my favorite games from the command and conquer series, to Ultima, Bullfrog studios, I normally avoid buying anything with their logo, but....
last weekend I went to EB games,.. I looked and there was Lord of the rings : Conquest, looked ok, decided to buy it, not reading the giant warning label "EA Games" I installed the game and EA Games started up, and was like well maybe they have changed, so I started playing the game, and hated at the character selection screen, I played it for about 5 mins, and decided it would be better to have scurvy, and tossed it.
I should have learned my lesson the last time, yes sim city 4 kinda sucked, but maybe sim city societies will fix some of that and the game will be good again, nope scurvy again.
At least Cities XL, looks like its recaptured the way sim city should have went. I like all these smaller gaming company's taking games in a direction that gamers actually want games to go in. Thats why when I saw in the Elemental forums that only until the developers and beta tester's decided the game was sufficiently fun without next gen graphics would they add them, and the fact that they encourage suggestion's and such..
I really just can't stand EA
They killed off many competant game developers, and turned many good series into garbage. For that they will always be scum. Their support has always been terrible, with many of their games being lucky to get more than one patch. And now their games have obnoxious DRM, and they defend it like DRM is a good thing for customers.
I refuse to ever support them. Hopefully one day they will go under and the rights to various games they sit on and ruin will be free to use for smaller companies who care about quality. But that seems unlikely when fools run out and buy the latest roster upd..version of Madden and NHL every damn year for $60.
Epic picture. Love the Borg.
Anyway I am getting to dislike EA, I recently played the Sims 3, found that I hated it. After awhile I tried to uninstall it... and as it turns out EA didn't think that anyone could possible want to uninstall their game for any reason (the best uninstall they offered was a temporary one for transferring data). So I had to go all uber haxxor on the game and uninstall it through other means than the noexistant approved method.
So many smurfs died in the sacrifice to the dark god of the system clean up.
Nesrie >The solution to my problem is simple, don't buy games from EA, I do not like EA as a company in regards to the software releases, as I believe that they buy out smaller company's for the intellectual property, then release poorly funded substandard sequel's to games in order to profit and add to their library without actually doing any work to get there. I dislike them as a gamer,. I would say however I have no relationship to the company, as an investor, although I have watched their business activity's and they have done fairly well, aside from of course the great drop mid summer last year, however that was market wide. I think the smaller game studio's are still more in touch with the gamer's and work with us a little bit more, which is nice to see and after getting a few great titles get bought out by EA, but ethically I wouldn't want anything to do with them, since there they force buy out smaller company's not to mention the lawsuits around there company regarding the treatment of their employees, and payouts they made as settlements, its just not really a good investment.
Crassmaster > Please Elaborate, whats EA up to this time
JagerJack > Yes I liked spore the most at the cell stage hahah after that it started to get boring. and it has like 2 days play value for me.
Zehdon - Well Spore was a pretty big project, but it came off to cartoonish for me, however its not to say its bad, just really not my thing, and as for need for speed I never really followed the series since 3DO, last racing games i really liked were Burnout 3, and Grand Turismo 4, Burnout Paradise I didn't really like sadly.
Draekalmasy - Honestly I did like Battle for middle earth 2, I would't say its my favorite RTS but it is a good game, which is why I thought I would give conquest a try, but that didn't work for me.
Kuloth - Ya every series I really liked from Sim city, to Ultima, to Command and Conquer, all enveloped by EA, its sad because now EA is remaking Syndicate to ruin that.
KitKun - Ya what games? half of EA games Library isn't their own, its junk remakes, capitalizing ofg someone else's work, and it would be one thing if the remakes were good, but 90% of them suck.
PegasusJF - I played the demo of Cities XL, and it didn't seem "boring as hell" seemed like a city simulation game. and It was the direction I would have liked to see Sim city go in, and yes there have been unconfirmed rumors that they are not adding mass transit in single player mode on some forums, but Monty Cristo said that in the final stages of their beta they are doing right now, their watching the community forums to see what the community thinks of the release and if there is anyway they can improve the release they would do it. and know one can confirm the rumors except their staff which hasn't said anything on it.
Nesrie > Ya I would agree that Cities XL online trading system, is crappy. Cities XL seemed good to me, its like 40 bucks so its no big lose to buy it, I had enough fun in the demo.
Astrath > ya it was basically Lord of the rings : Battlefront, but the graphics were real bad for a new game, and i was so repulsed by it being on my computer and owning the disk I had to throw it away at work,
Mrakomo > Where are you from? I've never played Dragon age, what Genre is it?
Raven X > Ya same Its very rare that I find a game from EA that's good, like I was saying up there a bit, I actually liked Battle for middle earth 2
The_Hunger > Battle for middle earth 2 was good yes, however a lot of the titles EA games has are not originally their's, and EA games expanded through corperate takeovers rather then expanding through building their library through their own creativity, I guess I might have a different perspective, since when I was playing games EA was EA, and Maxis, Mythic, Origin, Bullfrog were all seperate entity's last I have heard they own 23% of Ubisoft now, and I heard they were taking over 2K games, but we will see what happens. sucks to because 2K games owns the rights to X-com.
Tridus > I haven't actually purchased anything from activision recently, I know they have Blizzard, and are both under Vivendi, but only because I bought ATVI stock in blizzard when they were at 8 dollars last summer.
Raven X> I hate copy write protection, having to have the game disk in, or do some rediclous ritual to get a game to work, I hate to let them know people are going to steal your stuff, and the only ones that suffer is people who actually pay for the game like us because we have to go through dealing with registry and cd checks and validation,. its really quite annoying.
Klaxton499 > Perhaps but Richard Garrot protested over the take over of Origin by EA, and left the company shortly after. and all members of bullfrog left EA to create Lionshead and Mucky foot, and since EA has had to pay out millions of dollars in a settlement for their work ethics, I'm not quite sure if its the rosiest place to work
Coelocanth > EA does love their DRM.
Thedude37 > That has to do a lot with the fact that there are not enough people that understand computer specification's in order to have a computer that can run half the games that are made for consoles, which is why most of us computer gamer's don't have as many choices in the games we can buy, but the bonus is that computer games are usually 40% less money then console games because the demand isn't there.
Darvin3 > Hard to trust em, after theres so many let down's thats for sure.
Nesrie > Ya they are, its because consoles make it easier for developers in the way that they don't have to develop software that run on systems with huge difference's in software and hardware, as well there isn't a lot of people that really know anything about computer's enough to understand system specification's, really quite sad now a days.
Raven X > EA games, the everyman
The_Silencer > Can't really comment since I haven't followed need for speed, game or movie serious.
RishKith > I don't like them either,
Kalties > Thats about right,
Ibgsloan > Madden, then theres 900,000 of them in the bargin bin at EB games a month after release, I would actually rather play ET for Atari, then EA games
Dagorlad 3> My favorite are the ones that send you to a webpage, and ask you questions like, why do you want to uninstall me?are you un-satisifed with me? I can change! I keep waiting for the day they redirect me to an MP3 of sobbing.
Yes, but that's not evidence that EA had little say in the matter. The bottom line is the DRM used on the game is ultimately EA's decision. If they wanted to, they could have easily told Ray to walk. They'd have still had the game to release.
Well, that turned out for the best, actually. Due to the delay, we're going to get a more polished game and one of the BioWare devs stated the delay has allowed them to add in (or finish) no less than several dozen quests in the game. If you ask me, that's worth a delay.
O ya, and skate or die was good
I don't hate EA, but I do think it's harmful to the industry for so much of the games publishing market (and by extension funding for development) to be concentrated in just a few huge companies.
Then there is obviously the whole ea_spouse thing and their overwork practices. Not much more to say on that.
And digesting Bullfrog, who made so much awesome, is pretty unforgiveable. So many unique game series ended: no more Dungeon Keeper, no more Magic Carpet. What if I never get to play another game like Magic Carpet? Can you imagine how great the build up castle/attack enemy castle/gather mana mechanic could be with some proper multiplayer support.
But some good things about EA: at least someone there seems to have good taste; they've been trying to brings out different and interesting things; Archon.
Have you got one of those for Activision-Blizzard? 'cause technically, ActiBlizzard is larger, and even less likable...
I agree Shift seems a good game. Now I just have to get a steering wheel, because with a keyboard it's too difficult and less fun.
Hi! I'm joining the club.
EA is all for retail. Their digital distribution follows strict retail rules and I can tell you by experience that it's poorly implemented. I tried to purchase from one of the many EA online stores, but then my credit card got flagged as a possible fraud. I got no warning message; I needed to contact their support to find out about this. After more than two weeks of going back and forth with EA support, since no one had a clue on how to proceed, this was their answer: There was nothing they could do and I have to use another credit card and create a new EA account if I ever want to purchase from them again.
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Best photoshop EVAR!!
I try to avoid them like the plague. Unfortunately I've given in twice. 1 to buy a Madden game for our Wii and 2 to buy Rock Band. My daughter was very eager to get Rock Band with a drum set. I looked all over town and finally found one. Then I saw the EA logo and thought damn it! Why couldn't she want Guitar Hero! Oh well. I guess Satan needs to eat every once in awhile too.
this. gone are the good old EA days!
Until the past few years, I didn't even care who published the game, then EA, Atari, and Ubisoft proved themselves to be run by a bunch of incompetent, greedy individuals chasing after money they think pirates are taking from them.
The thing I don't like about Ubisoft is you need to upgrade your graphics card frequently. Played Splinter Cell then had to upgrade to play Pandora Tomorrow. Chaos Theory worked okay (Thanks for the Star Force malware by the way) Then went to load the demo for Double Agent and it warned me I didn't have pixel shader 3.0. Remember back in the day when you could play a game no matter what you had for a video card? It might have looked like crap but it worked.
Nobody but hard core gamers are going to upgrade their hardware every two years. Maybe that's why you're losing money and it's not the pirates.
I've no problem with EA, i have several of their games, and don't see myself stop buying them anytime soon. Then again, i'm a freak that actually liked C&C 3 and RA 3, also Mirror's Edge and Dead Space were surprisingly good titles.
And SecuRom hasn't caused my system to commit suicide yet either.
I've only really experienced problems with SPORE's DRM software, however for me it's not so much the damage the software can do, it's the point of it that rubs me the wrong way; to ensure paying customers have less access to the purchased product than pirates have to the illegally copied product. EA Games seems to live in a bubble where they are the only programmers on the planet, and their software, even 3rd party software, is unable to broken. Well, I've seen an illegally pirated and running content sharing server for a cracked version of SPORE - and it works just like the real deal - so I think they really need to understand that the people pirating their games are smarter, work harder and faster, than the people they employ to prevent it and develop a new strategy because their current one isn't working and is going to eventually cost them dearly.Now, to be fair, they've shown recent improvements in their strategies, like Dragon Age Origins' now shipping with no DRM besides a Disk Check. However, the damage has been done - EA Games is now referenced as the prime example of corporate greed in the games industry due to their love of DRM software, their love of over priced DLC (The Sims 3 Online Store is a fucking joke), the constant release of horrible entries in their franchises (Need for Speed: Undercover, anyone?) and the constant dumbing down of most of their titles, and it'll take a lot more than a few games with no DRM to make amends to the now angry gamers. Releasing patches to remove DRM from previous games would go a long, long way - but that would require them to apologise to their fans and admit they tried something and it failed, which they will never do. And so I look forward to their new, DRM free titles and hope they realise that companies like Stardock are so loved by their fans because they don't release digital chairs for US$15.00 each, GalCiv II Expansion Pack #19: Attack of the Killer Clone People hasn't been released yet and I don't have provide a DNA sample to the company when ever I want to play my games.
I am with you on that one. DRM has not "hurt" my computer yet either. I am not convinced that it can't happen, but DRM punishes the paying consumer. It always has. If you don't like EA's DLC tendency, then lookout at Dragon Age is going to have pay for DLC on release day already. If they actually have what 100+ hours in the game, then maybe not so bad as the Sims 3 store but the Sims 3 store is outrageously priced by far.
That 'pay for DLC' on day 1 is only the Warden's Keep, which costs only $7. Note that you get that free if you buy the DD CE. All other DLC (the major one being The Stone Prisoner) is free for newly bought copies. You only have to pay for TSP if you've bought a used copy of the game.
This is EA we are talking about. All new copies of Sims 3 shipped with a 10 dollar credit to the store, didn't change the fact that the store is ridiculously expensive. We'll just have to wait and see how DLC with high prices happy EA will be with DA.
The MMO market and the success of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft has shown companies there is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of money to be made from continual revenue streams such as DLC. EA would have also learnt from it's Madden franchise and The Sims, of course, that if people want something bad enough or have enough love for the original base game, they'll pay for it. Combine the two and you arrive at over-priced digital content. Again, to be fair, they've shown improvement - so I will reserve judgement for their future products.
That's basically my philosophy. There's nothing wrong with a little healthy skepticism, but I like to give even organizations like EA a chance before I condemn them.
EA deserve to be condemned. Their games offer terrible value for money unless you're buying from the bargain bin or second-hand. They have killed off innovation in favour of re-invention. These are the guys who have an entire sports division shovelling stuff off the conveyer belt every year.
But most of their target demographic either doesn't comprehend that they have bought a substandard product, or is entertained by the substandard product and doesn't complain. Parents and kiddies, if you keep buying the same old stuff because of a brand name and then don't take the time to check whether you're getting your money's worth, you perpetuate a whole new generation of stuff which should not have made it to the shelf of any game store.
Actually, I'd say that EA over the last year or two have shown a lot more willingness to stretch themselves creatively than say...Activision.
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