Electronic Arts: Challenge everything (Except for us)

As I'm sure all of you know of the disastrous (Putting it gently) launch of SimCity 5, I thought I'd bring up a thread to talk about the multitudes of ways EA has royally fucked it's developers over.

Dragon Age II

I, myself have never played DA2. But what I do know about it is, it was rushed out of the gate with a very strict deadline, and Bioware didn't have as much creative freedom as they really should have.

Origin

Limiting their PC sales to require their clunky & ugly origin service is a detractor to the overall profit, seeing as 80% of PC gamers that use a service to access their games use Steam, and fucking hate origin. Also, the sales that give games 50-50-75% off most likely drastically increases profit, seeing as someone who might not normally buy the game might change their mind since it's so cheap.

Dead Space 3

I recently started playing the Dead Space franchise, currently on one, but from what I've heard and seen, DS3 has become a action game, rather than a horror game. (maybe 10-20% horror)

Problems being, you can't actually have a horror game with co-op, as you might already know.

But that doesn't even come close to the problems with Microtransactions. In a $60 game. As if they weren't ripping their players off already.

SimCity 5

And now we're at, what I consider, the worst thing EA has done.

Here's the process of what happened with SimCity:

1: People buy the game

2: Servers are overloaded, nobody can access the game without major latency or constant disconnections. EA says "All of the major computations are done on EA's cloud, and without the always-online aspect of the game, it just wouldn't work"

3: A day goes by, still no servers, people start asking for refunds, and most get blown off (One was threatened to be banned if he kept asking)

4: Amazon removes SimCity from sale, stating how the game /DOES NOT WORK/ (Also receives 1000+ 1-star reviews)

5: A day slowly moves into 5 days, servers are still down, EA previously announced that they would cut off some of the non-essential online aspects of the game

6: Eventually the servers start working, people still pissed off at EA.

And more recently, yesterday, Rock Paper Shotgun posted this article:

Maxis Insider Tells RPS: SimCity Servers Not Necessary | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that. But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything. I have no idea why they’re claiming otherwise. It’s possible that Bradshaw misunderstood or was misinformed, but otherwise I’m clueless.”

So, what do you think of EA? If you have anything that EA has done to fuck games over that I haven't listed, post 'em here.

the butt hurt is strong with this one

But yeah, EA have done some shit in the past few years...

regarding microtransanctions, yeah it can be dumb, but no one is forcing you to buy it and the Origin argument is so dumb, Steam does exactly the same and I couldn't give a shit where I bought my games from as long as I can play them

Origin

 

Limiting their PC sales to require their clunky & ugly origin service is a detractor to the overall profit, seeing as 80% of PC gamers that use a service to access their games use Steam, and fucking hate origin. Also, the sales that give games 50-50-75% off most likely drastically increases profit, seeing as someone who might not normally buy the game might change their mind since it's so cheap.

 

I like Origin, personally. I don't see why so many people are so butt-hurt about it. I get at least triple the download speed on origin as I do on steam, games launch faster, and popular games go on sale weekly. I don't see what the problem with origin is to be honest.

regarding microtransanctions, yeah it can be dumb, but no one is forcing you to buy it and the Origin argument is so dumb, Steam does exactly the same and I couldn't give a shit where I bought my games from as long as I can play them

I'm bitching about Origin from a corporate standpoint, there's a large amount of people who don't want to use Origin at all, and refuse to buy origin exclusives. It's also less apparent with Valve since they're mainly a developer and not so much a publisher (unless you count indie publishing)

I only will ever support EA due to DICE and how much they care about their games.

Only reason

I like Origin' date=' personally. I don't see why so many people are so butt-hurt about it. I get at least triple the download speed on origin as I do on steam, games launch faster, and popular games go on sale weekly. I don't see what the problem with origin is to be honest.[/quote']

 

2nd that. Origin does feel much smoother than Steam.

To me both are about the same though.

Here's the process of what happened with SimCity:

 

1: People buy the game

2: Servers are overloaded, nobody can access the game without major latency or constant disconnections. EA says "All of the major computations are done on EA's cloud, and without the always-online aspect of the game, it just wouldn't work"

3: A day goes by, still no servers, people start asking for refunds, and most get blown off (One was threatened to be banned if he kept asking)

4: Amazon removes SimCity from sale, stating how the game /DOES NOT WORK/ (Also receives 1000+ 1-star reviews)

5: A day slowly moves into 5 days, servers are still down, EA previously announced that they would cut off some of the non-essential online aspects of the game

6: Eventually the servers start working, people still pissed off at EA.

 

And more recently, yesterday, Rock Paper Shotgun posted this article:

Maxis Insider Tells RPS: SimCity Servers Not Necessary | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

 

 

 

 

So, what do you think of EA? If you have anything that EA has done to fuck games over that I haven't listed, post 'em here.

I have sim city the new one and I dont have any problems what so ever with it. The only problem I had was with the CD key and EA helped me with that easy. Truly dont see why there is so much hate on Origin I would pick steam any day but Origin is not that bad. I think every one is such a valve fanboy that any thing that goes against it people are going to hate. Iv never had any problems with EA I love there games and I dont see why so many people hate them. Iv only had problems with support once. other than that I enjoy there games a ton.

Steam has just as many, if not as big, issues as all the other major platforms(origin/uplay). However steam has been around since 2003, and even longer if you cont Won, so it has plenty of experience in the field maintaining its service.

That is, untill TF2 gets a major update and destroys the entire network, lol.

I only use Steam because I just dont like the fact of having multiple programs installed to play a game. Plus, I already have 3 overlays (steam, OC-OSD/rtss, and fraps) to worry about, I dont need any more

All but 1 of my platform reliant games are on steam, the other loner being AC3 on Uplay, and the rest being standalone/older gen games. Dont own any games that use origin, aside from the c3 mp demo so I cant say anything good nor bad about origin.

I like Origin' date=' personally. I don't see why so many people are so butt-hurt about it. I get at least triple the download speed on origin as I do on steam, games launch faster, and popular games go on sale weekly. I don't see what the problem with origin is to be honest.[/quote']

 

In terms of download speeds, just change your location. I did, to sweden, and got max speeds, wheras on most US based servers, id get fluxuating speeds that never went at my full speed.

I think every one is such a valve fanboy that any thing that goes against it people are going to hate. Iv never had any problems with EA I love there games and I dont see why so many people hate them. Iv only had problems with support once. other than that I enjoy there games a ton.

Except EA doesn't develop, they only publish.

I'm sure SimCity is a great game, as is any game they publish, but they do things in the games (Microtransactions, non-necessary always-online DRM with bullshit explanations, restricting the creative freedom of the developers) that make me think any single one of EA's developers would be better in the hands of other publishers.

Except EA doesn't develop, they only publish.

I'm sure SimCity is a great game, as is any game they publish, but they do things in the games (Microtransactions, non-necessary always-online DRM with bullshit explanations, restricting the creative freedom of the developers) that make me think any single one of EA's developers would be better in the hands of other publishers.

EA is not the only company that puts out crappy DLCs and such. Again its a think that almost every company does because they cant compete with the other companys