http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-21-stock-ticker-why-eas-market-valuation-has-crashed?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=us-daily
Can´t help myself, but i have a big grin in myface.
It's not lying. They measure "subscribers" as anybody who still has active game time. By giving people free game time, they're extending how long they're subscribers.
I cancelled over two months ago, and am still a subscriber. Somehow I've gotten enough free time that I'll be considered one until late August. That doesn't mean I'm paying them or playing the game though, and the numbers for TOR will keep going down until all the people in my situation have filtered through and run out of time.
As they say, lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Actually, the lead designer and most of middle management was moved to new projects. The core team that did all the hard work, they got royally screwed and could not even go online and tell people about it because of legal protection. The lead designer was working on a 5 vs 5 RTT game that was merged with C&C4 when EA decided that the RTT was further along in development and to push this game as the sequel to C&C3 with just enough money to get by. They used an old garage as the only scene in the movie aspect and only hired Kane to carry the whole thing. Then they rushed development with a flash of a beta and threw together a crappy AI. The unit art sucked from lack of development. The background art was nice, but poorly optimized. The only decent thing was the music. You can't blame any of that on the low level employees that got fired before release. It was EA's evil decisions. Then, for following orders, management goes on to make more good titles into money vacuums.
Be careful about making generalized comments when you don't know the situation. It might make you look foolish.
Frank Gibeau about Mirror's Edge 2:
"We have nothing to announce," said Gibeau speaking in the latest issue of Game Informer. "We love Faith. We love the property. It's really about how and when do you bring it back? It's on the list. It's just about looking at what teams are available, who's got the right quality approach to it, and who understands it."
If there is ONE thing that could begin to restore a little bit of credibility to EA, is to understand the merits of a game like Mirror's Edge and deliver another labor or love.
There are no words to describe how much I loved Mirror's Edge. Now I must hope for EA to survive, at least for another while. Unfortunately it would seem a long while for the sequel anyway.
This is false. First, 32bit allows 4GB of ram per app not 2. 2GB is the default cap on windows XP, which can be raised to 3GB with a registry flag on winXP, on 64bit versions of windows it is 2GB per app unless a flag is set on the app to allow it 4GB (it is trivial to alter any existing EXE file to have this flag turned on. There are programs that will do that for you)
Furthermore x86_64 adds new components to the CPU that cannot be used by a 32bit program which result in a theoretical benefit from 0% to 500% increase in speed depending on the application in question. Actual tested benefits have shown ideal applications to get over 400% speed increase although that is very rare. 20-30% improvement is pretty normal though.
There are also security improvements but those are irrelevant for a game.
I think his point is that everyone has a 64bit CPU nowadays, and a majority has a 64bit OS. And co developing both 32bit AND 64bit means spending more money then developing just one or the other. So by hoping they drop 32bit support he is hoping for:
1. Proper 64bit implementation
2. Improved gameplay due to higher ram expectancy.
3. More money invested elsewhere in game rather then in making a second legacy version for 32bit.
I agree, I prefer monthly subscription for an MMO then a F2P since I can't stand pay to win.
Of course then remains the problem that MMOs are the unholy union of a job you pay for and a drug addiction.
I managed to stop Guild Wars (which doesn't have a monthly subscription but you paid for each expansion and anything else you want to buy) and not get into GW2. I've decided that I like to be in control of the games I play, not feeling that I need to login or play a certain amount of time all the time. So now apart from FE, Wesnoth Warcraft3-style RNG mod and the odd other game (including perhaps MOO3 Chocolate Mod soon), I do not play any other games, and certainly no MMOs.
64 bit won't get going until games no longer target XP for support. So long as they do, they require a 32 bit version. Making an extra 64 bit version is more work then its worth.
Once XP's gone, then it'll start making sense to do it.
Me: Origin
Mine was bullfrog. I hated EA with a burning passion ever since and every new company they destroyed just added to that fire.
There I was a starry eyed 11 year old, huge fan of bullfrog thanks to dungeon keeper, magic carpet, syndicate, and populous... All ruined by EA.
I think you're confusing the characteristics of MMO's with those of EvE Online. While most MMO's are a drug addiction, only EvE is a second job you have to pay for.
Eve is a corporate job you pay for where you start off at data entry, rise to middle management, and rare few end up in upper management. That they pay for
Other MMOs are a dead end menial job that you never get promoted in... like picking crops in a field.
TOR is now below 1 million subscribers. They won't say how many, just that it's over 500,000. Also it's going free to play, in what has to be a speed record for a subscription game to make the switch.
TOR was a huge disappointment. It was fun, but felt outdated the day it shipped. Old gameplay, and leveling so quick, you could get to 50 in one month even as a casual player. Huge disappointment. Story and voice acting wasn't enough, as everything else was mediocre and been done a 1,000 times before. This style of MMO is probably going to go away. I don't understand the economics of developing a MMO, I can't see it as profitable. And FTP ones are usually sub-par quality.
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