EA sucks

Snuggler said:
[The murder of one of the greatest sports series in gaming]

KQQGR.jpg


Some of us may remember a certain series titled NFL2K, or ESPN NFL2K. Many other NFL series like Quarterback Club or Gameday may have deserved their fate, but 2K did not. Throughout the five years they existed, they consistently delivered a solid product that rivaled Madden. 2K decided that they would take an unconventional approach with ESPN NFL2K5. Instead of charging full price for a glorified roster update, they decided to charge $20 at launch while delivering a strong product with a unique, but failed feature (first person football). What's not to love about that?

Rather than matching that price point, creating innovative features or creating a superior product, EA did what they know best: they threw money at it. EA purchased exclusive rights to the NFL license, crushing NFL2K to death under massive mounds of money and subjecting NFL fans to nothing but years and years of guaranteed mediocre and unambitious iterations. Rather than convincing games to chose their games, they took away the choice altogether. Lovely, isn't it?
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I would just like to say that the day after the announcement of EA purchasing the exclusive rights to NFL and ESPN that I went and bought a personalised license plate with plate surround. I won't say what is on the plate for various reasons (it has EA in it), but the surround says "Boycott EA Sports".

Haven't bought a Madden game since. I know they don't care because the sales of Madden obviously increased again over the years, but still, principal and all that.
 
Snuggler said:
I dunno, maybe I'm cynical, but I have a hard time praising someone for not megafucking me just because they can't get away with megafucking me. I don't hate the practice, but it has nothing to do with kindness of the heart. If they could, no doubt they would.
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You could perhaps see it as a way of adding value to the act of buying new instead of the current norm of copyright infringers having a superior product to customers?

I think the jury should still be out on this one.
 
Tunavi said:
The developers shouldn't be punished for you buying their game used.
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i shouldn't be punished because the industry decided $60 is the standard now, regardless of genre/content/etc.

we can do this all day, but those of you ignoring the consumer perspective (which should also be your own) only support poor business practices. I love this industry, but i for one did not tell it to continue raising production costs while maintaining one single revenue stream (in most cases), and one that falls the fuck off after the first few weeks at that.
 
I heard before that it was the NFL looking to sell the exclusive rights.But I find that hard to believe man..Because EA got the exclusive rights for NCAA Football,NCAA Basketball,Arena Football, NASCAR (not no more),and they got the ESPN license from 2k Sports...Im so glad the NBA told them no lol imagine if we only had NBA Live instead of NBA 2K..
 
Gen X said:
I would just like to say that the day after the announcement of EA purchasing the exclusive rights to NFL and ESPN that I went and bought a personalised license plate with plate surround. I won't say what is on the plate for various reasons (it has EA in it), but the surround says "Boycott EA Sports".

Haven't bought a Madden game since. I know they don't care because the sales of Madden obviously increased again over the years, but still, principal and all that.
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My man. I did buy one Madden, I think it was Madden 07 or something, but never again. They just renewed the license so that's pretty much it, but at least we can always treasure the memory of when someone else was allowed to make a better NFL game.

It all goes back to EA's neglect of the Dreamcast. Bastards.

Gamatsura has a great article on the topic.

Ultimately, Sega's various hardware and business decisions lined up like a row of red flags for EA. According to Gordon, the indecision over the chipset was one thing, the flip-flopping over whether to include a modem was another, but the final straw was Sega's hardball tactics during negotiations over licensing.

"There was a push from Sega, which was having cash flow problems, and they couldn't afford to give us the same kind of license that EA has had over the last five years. So EA basically said, 'You can't succeed without us.' And Sega said, 'Sure we can. We're Sega.'
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*

KaYotiX said:
EA is a company out to make $$. Once you learn that you can move on with your life
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me said:
You may be thinking, URNT THEY A BUSINESS? THERE SUPPOSED TO MAKE MUNNY. You are right, but I am neither an EA employee or shareholder, I'm a gamer. And this is a thread about how much they suck and why.
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legend166 said:
I don't know if I'm reading this wrong, but Black Ops has sold 20+ million. And is still going.
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I was going yo write 20millin but I don't follow sales age and I though maybe 6... Even though the 20 number was in my head....

But yeah..big lucrative tappable market

Be interesting to see how respawn and EA takes the market...
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Long story short: If you buy used, going online will cost you $10 per used game you want to take online.

Like buying a grill on Craigslist and then the guy e-mailing you afterward and telling you he will sell you the gas knob for cheap.
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Nothing wrong with that. You're going to be using their servers to play.

There's a choice. Buy it new then. theyre mostly screwing resales. That would mean that you'd probably be able to get it $10 cheaper from gamestop used... Then if it didn't have the VIP pass system.
 
IrishNinja said:
LOL stoopid socialist Snuggler

THEY'RE A BUSINESS YO
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it's not about the business, it's about the children

B1gg_Randall said:
I meant to post this awhile ago..But 2K Sports has already approached the NFL about a licensing deal for the 2013 season... http://www.operationsports.com/foru...oached-nfl-about-nfl-2k13-licensing-deal.html I dont know if this deserve a whole thread on this though.. =D
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8NIiW.gif


Just saw EA renewed, but only to 2013.

in some small way I'm starting to think this is all about working about my Dreamcast related issues, they are sunk in deep, I'm a tortured soul
 
Jax said:
I was going yo write 20millin but I don't follow sales age and I though maybe 6... Even though the 20 number was in my head....

But yeah..big lucrative tappable market

Be interesting to see how respawn and EA takes the market...
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I think Black Ops sold 6 million on the first day so you were probably thinking about that.
 
Tangential point: retailer-exclusive bonuses are not something anyone really wants to do. The reason publishers do them is to get some favor of some kind - more promotion, in-store ads, the game pushed by sales-people, softer price-protection / buyback agreements, etc.

I think that retailer-exclusive stuff will start to go away sometime soon, because now it's getting to the point where every major retailer gets some equivalent exclusive - which is basically the same as none of them getting an exclusive. It doesn't give any retailer the advantage plus it costs money to implement and annoys developers. Nobody wants to spend their time making a shitty golden gun for Gamestop.
 
I do agree with you on those points but the games industry needs big companies like EA and Activision. If it weren't for them the industry would not be as big as it is today. And I am sure there are a few games only around today because they were supported by the anti-EA/Activision followers. And besides, EA makes up for it with a stellar catalogue.

Battlefield, Crysis, Dead Space, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and many more games may not be here today were it not for EA. They still deserve your criticism but just a little bit less.
 
B1gg_Randall said:
I heard before that it was the NFL looking to sell the exclusive rights.But I find that hard to believe man..Because EA got the exclusive rights for NCAA Football,NCAA Basketball,Arena Football, NASCAR (not no more),and they got the ESPN license from 2k Sports...Im so glad the NBA told them no lol imagine if we only had NBA Live instead of NBA 2K..
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They tried to get the NBA license as well.

The NBA said "no, bitch" and they said that specifically because they didn't want to remove competition, knowing that more competition leads to superior quality products.
 
I can't agree. With Mirror's Edge and Dead Space they tried to appeal to gamers, bringing out fresh, new IPs. In return they got kicked in the balls, because nobody bought the games, unless they were on a Steam sale (I'm guilty of this, too). I see the marketing campaigns as a desperate attempt to sell as many copies as possible, because that's really what they are at this point. Desperate. Sure, this doesn't excuse how they handled DA2, but how can I hate them, when they're still funding and/or publishing titles like Shadows of the Damned or Alice: Madness Returns, despite their financial situation? Alice is probably going to bomb, just like the first one, and they know it.

JaseC said:
Did... did EA tease an Alice up-skirt in one of its trailers?
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No, they did the impossible.

It's hair in the Unreal Engine 3.
Hair. In the Unreal Engine 3.

14nikya.gif
 
brotkasten said:
I can't agree. With Mirror's Edge and Dead Space they tried to appeal to gamers, bringing out fresh, new IPs. In return they got kicked in the balls, because nobody bought the games, unless they were on a Steam sale (I'm guilty of this, too).
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Unfortunately, at the same time they also saw fit to slap SecuROM limited activation DRM onto those games along with Spore and the first Mass Effect. I would likely have paid full price at release for those games, in the end I spent an average of about £5 on each of them and passed on Spore.
 
Good points have been made in the thread. :­]

They got some of the best game in the business. This is probably what piss off most gamers, as they do care about the product being pushed out of the door.

The business side of EA is the devil, thus the x-factor which can potentially fuck up a game at any given time. Dragon age 2 is one such example, but it's not the only one ( Skate 2 or 3? ). Crappy DLC and the marketing is bottom of the barrel bad, which is just a glimpse of how clueless and inept the management is ( typical company run by suits who are clueless to gaming ). As long as they have a solid portfolio, I can't completely trash them even if I want to. If they destroy their current studios, they are as good as dead in the eye of gamers. :P
 
I used to hate their guts too. But I don't really mind them lately because of some really good games they've put out, like Dead Space and Mass Effect. (I do hate Activision with a passion though and I'm actively boycotting everything they released for the last 3 years)

I couldn't care less about the FIFAs and the Maddens to be honest and their whole pre-order bonus stuff doesn't really affect me since where I live no such thing as pre-orders exist. :P

But the online pass is pretty shitty, especially if you buy used. Thank God I don't :lol
 
EA Sports are more evil than EA as a whole, but I'm glad the rose tinted glasses are coming off, EA have not been good for a long time. Yes, they released a few good games, but that is what companies are supposed to do.
 
Don't hate EA, pity them.

They, like all mega publishers are dinosaurs, the product of a bygone age.

They simply cannot compete with cheap (almost disposable games) and free to play web games that are becoming ever more popular and disrupting the industry.

They have some very popular franchises that are their bread and butter which they rely on greatly. But with the the current gaming/console hardware being more than enough for consumers and the long development times required to produce decent quality art assets, yearly iterations of popular franchises simply don't offer enough benefits to the average gamer to purchase each and every year.

EA and publishers like them are in a very difficult position, they can't compete with the low price apps that are disrupting the market at the bottom end because their existing practices and values make it difficult for them to innovate. Nor can they afford to invest more in the high end with new mega franchises are they can be very costly mistakes to make.

So they have very few options left and none of them are good...

First, they can try and extract as much revenue as possible from their existing products but annoy consumers. Project 10$ anyone?

Second, they can gobble up an upcoming developer and get them to work on a mega frachises to breathe some life back into it's cold dead corpse. (Criterion, Respawn Entertainment)

Third, they can pick the bones of a dead/dying developer/publisher to purchase the brands that would otherwise die with them. Then to try and cash in on the brand name. This is also very risky and requires huge investment. But a dinosaur has to eat, right? There's not many meals large enough to fill a dinosaur's hungry stomach. It might not be a huge blow out meal that it hungers for, but something is better than nothing.

Lastly, they can spin off another division to create the type of product that they are having difficulty competing with. This will be a very hard sell to the rest of the company's board to justify, as it will be seen as cannibalising their own bottom line. This will also be difficult to pull off in practice as the company's own internal values and systems will likely be in conflict with the methods that should be used to nurture innovation.

In short, EA is a dinosaur that is dying and it is very aware of this, I'm certain.

It's being attacked from all sides. The high standards demanded from core consumers, the increasing production costs of the HD era and it's current franchises becoming stale.

Interesting times ahead!

I really do need to get the redesign of http://www.gameboar.com finished, so that I can get my blog online for myself and others that enjoy this type of gaming / dev / business nonsense...
 
kitzkozan said:
They got some of the best game in the business...
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well, if you're into mainstream (shooter/sports) gaming, this may be true. &, if you're talking 'popular' games, even more so. me, i've held onto a grand total of 2 ea games this gen (orange box & me2). &, as much as i enjoyed both, i'm in no real hurry to play the sequel of either one...

the more you're into niche gaming, the less ea has any relevance whatsoever - boycotting their stuff, for the most part, is pretty much effortless :) ...
 
EA is caught up in being forced to make a lot of money with products that are insanely pricey to make. So they have to squeeze a dollar out of every possible opportunity. This includes, but is not limited to:
— Doing the preorder bullshit so that money flows to them as early as possible
— Doing marketing that goes through the thickest of skulls efficiently, which leads to random nonsense like the moms junk
— Fucking up other franchises to corner the market to some degree

See, with these budgets and such a plethora of games on the 'upcoming' list, it's not enough to make good titles. You also have to expand like crazy, sell to the guys you hate the most and be a dick to your peers, just to get by. They're drowning in the obligation to recycle money, to an extent that overshadows the basic good nature of the individuals that are involved.

What they would have to do to get out of that mill would be closing down studios and ending franchises, reduce producing costs, concentrate on the key selling points that make EA products so great. But they can't actually do that because that is tantamount to failure as a business. This thing is predetermined to spin out of control.

EA sucks as much as everyone else sucks for sucking the megalomaniac imperialistic dick of life as a big business. You'd suck just as much, were you in that position. They all suck in that regard, really. Ubi sucks, CAPCOM sucks, ActiBlizz sucks, 20th Century Fox sucks, Porsche sucks, Sony sucks, Marlboro sucks, fuckin' Google sucks.

Welcome to a world that's driven by profit. Either get over it or throw your money at the little people. Or improve stuff yourself, with your own business. Good luck!
 
Snuggler said:
[Marketing]


If EA's perception of you is correct, you are a sex-deprived, gore-obessed, sad manchild who is only impressed by the most XTREME of extremes. Let's enjoy a few trailers:

Dragon Age: Origins - This is the New Shit
Mass Effect 2 - Subject Zero
Dead Space 2 - Ur Mom Hates Dead Space

As a moderately intelligent adult, I can't help but feel like they want me to hate these games.
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I completely agree that these ads don't appeal to me, but I also never saw them without opting into a thread specifically about them or their games. Did you come across them while doing things/watching programs designed for a "moderately intellegent adult," or during activities that typically the cater to "sex-deprived, gore-obessed, sad manchild who [are] only impressed by the most XTREME of extremes."

I really don't know what your personal experiences with these ads were, but if, like me, you saw them and thought they were worthless after clicking the youtube link in the Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2 thread, and never saw them again, I'm surprised they still bother you. I guess if I was inundated with them every time I turned on the TV, I'd be annoyed, too.
 
If Call of Duty and Halo don't need project ten dollar, than neither does EA, THQ, or any other game that uses it. The video game industry isn't losing as much money as they like you to think over used games sales. Project ten dollar is nothing but free money.
 
EA have made a bunch of good games with their inhouse studios in the last few years.

also, EA partners. look at who chooses to work with them there, and look at the wealth of great titles that fall under the EA partners program.

hell, aren't they one of the only major publishers (along with Capcom) that are doing good stuff in the app store spaces?

i know the NFL rights thing was unforgivable to many, and i understand that. i boycotted lucasarts for a long long time until they made peace with most of the Sam and Max Freelance Police guys and worked with them to make a new monkey island game.

i'm not asking anyone to give up that crusade... but that was then. pre-order bonuses... advertising... just seems like small quibbles against a studio that's been putting out good product.

and they green lit an Alice sequel. that doesn't just mean something because they finally decided to make a sequel to a game i loved, but it shows that they're still taking more creative risks than most of the other major pubs.

and yeah, it's fair to bitch about the pricing of their PC games... but we get much better PC support from them too i'd argue. if charging $60 (as activision do too and their PC support is decent in terms of output) is what it takes to get the game released on PC, personally i can suck it up and pay it.
 
Your third point was your most salient. But EA's helped make some pretty awesome games recently for me (well, Visceral did with Dead Space 1 & 2 and Dante's Inferno) so I'm less angry at them compared to when they killed NFL2K.
 
Dead Man said:
EA Sports are more evil than EA as a whole, but I'm glad the rose tinted glasses are coming off, EA have not been good for a long time. Yes, they released a few good games, but that is what companies are supposed to do.
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Exactly. They're not suddenly good guys just because they make good games.
 
I'm only going to focus on the NFL part, since that's all I care about from EA.

The NFL decided they wanted an exclusive company for the league. That's why Verizon (after Sprint) is the official wirelesss provider, Sony is the official camera and TV company, etc. They put the license up for sale and EA outbid 2k.

I have no problem with that, its the NFL's brand to sell and license to whomever they wish.

My problem is with what EA has done with the license since getting it. They've released nothing but 1/2 assed products and sold them for $60. They eliminated all competition in football gaming by purchasing the rights to. Hell, they can't even get the uniforms right (they're the officially licensed NFL game and they're screwing up teams uniforms, give me a break).

The NCAA
Arena Football (which they've done nothing with)
ESPN (which they've done nothing with)

The only league they didn't purchase was the Canadian Football League.

Had EA kept the quality of Madden up, I honestly wouldn't mind, but they haven't. Instead, they did exactly what I expected them to do and just went into cruise control.

As for the person who brought up MVP. Yea, we lost a good baseball series, but with the 2k baseball deal, at least there's still competition. Remember, 2k lets Sony, Nintendo and MS make MLB games, with Sony being the only company taking them up on it. Hell, MS bought the High Heat license and has done jack shit with it. Sony, on the other hand, has done a fantastic job and The Show is better then MVP.

The EA deal on the other hand, killed any NFL games not named Madden. These are your options for playing a football game with NFL teams

A) Update NFL 2k5 rosters, which I do every year

B) Backbreaker with NFL roster downloads.

C) Madden

One is a 6yr old Xbox game, the other is an average game by a small team, and the last is a 1/2 assed product due to no competition.

All of this has stemed from that crappy NFL deal.
 
You could argue your points for about 50% of pubs. These guys are murderers and thugs though so some of the "shoot from the hip" reactions on here are more harsh than need be. Like any other company, if a compelling game comes along that earns my interest enough to buy then so be it. I don't care if it's from Activision or EA. I'm in the stance of EA being more in my good side than someone like Activision. EA has always put out games that I like all the way back since my first console. The DLC thing is utter BS but we all know this is the industry norm these days.

The best thing to do is either suck it up or wait for one of them great PC sales and pick up the game for dirt cheap.
 
IrishNinja said:
i shouldn't be punished because the industry decided $60 is the standard now, regardless of genre/content/etc.we can do this all day, but those of you ignoring the consumer perspective (which should also be your own) only support poor business practices. I love this industry, but i for one did not tell it to continue raising production costs while maintaining one single revenue stream (in most cases), and one that falls the fuck off after the first few weeks at that.
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Really? Because I remember tons of my games being $60+ new. Tons of good games got passed up or I had hardly any games due to price :\
 
I think this generation, above all other generations, has really screwed over the customer and we just let it happen. I don't think any other entertainment industry (besides maybe comic books) bends their customer over and goes to town like the gaming industry does.

This generation we've seen the mainstreamification of:

- massive pre-order bonuses
- huge chunks of a game sold as DLC after you already paid your $60, not even mentioning the laughable day of DLC disaster (some included on the fucking disc no less)
- online passes
- an all out attack on used game sales and rentals

And all a company has to do is say spout bullshit and most gamers eat it up like mindless drones. We actually have people on here who defend day one DLC and, more importantly, the attack on the used game sales market. Hell at one time I was even 'for the developers' but that's all bullshit.

Even with paid DLC, pre-order bonuses, online passes, hurting used game sales, etc we still get saddled with $60 games... some that last 5-6 hours before we are thrusted into their little online fest complete with $15 map packs.

This industry is so fucked this generation and EA has been a big part of that.

So yeah: EA sucks.
 
Yay - well done snuggler - this thread is long overdue!!!

And might I add we should make one for Activision and Ubisoft too!

What I don't like about EA -
1. Yearly sports updates that add nothing
2. Butchering NBA Jam - well apparently it doesnt play like the old NBA Jam - did it need that much rework - we're supposed to be better programmers now not worse... and how can NBA Jam not get any roster updates after the trade deadline.
3. Need for Speed series has been ruined... well it was never that great, but still.... there's no identity anymore with hot pursuit, shift and whatever else coming under the need for speed label... just seems very random.
4. screwing up basically every franchise possible from mirrors edge to medal of honor to SSX

what really gets me is that all publishers are after amazing graphics so they can show off the game in trailers.... and there's just no programmers and designers to actually design the game. its like a shell of a game.... case in point assassin's creed series.... looks great - but its a little kids game with crappy chase mechanics and crappy combat engine. I guess u can blame GTA for these open world games where there's no design anymore in the world and you just run around causing mayhem.
 
hamchan said:
Exactly. They're not suddenly good guys just because they make good games.
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No, but they're good guys because they make games like Alice or Mirror's Edge. Games, with a huge financial risk in this day and age. Activision on the other side cancels everything that is not CoD or a Blizzard franchise.
 
My only hate for EA is that Online Pass bullshit, although I cant bitch about it because I was gonna guy Dead Space 2 anyway.

OP I can understand your hate for EA, but I'm sorry: they are LIGHTYEARS away from Activision.

Also, I dont get all the hate towards their marketing (sans "youmomhatesdeadspace". what the fuck..) I remember being in the "like BF3 to reveal full trailer on Facebook after 1M likes". So they wanna spread the word? Big deal. I've seen crappier advertising.

brotkasten said:
No, but they're good guys because they make games like Alice or Mirror's Edge. Games, with a huge financial risk in this day and age.
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Games that, for the most part, are GOOD GAMES.
 
And now they are removing instruction manuals.
Ok their manuals sucked already (a couple of pages in black & white thrown into the game box) which make this decision not a big loss but still...
 
They make a lot of great games that I buy when the price has dropped like a stone because of their anti-consumer business practices. Games released in an unfinished state, bad drm, some of the worst dlc in the industry, punkbuster, etc. Having said that, I plan on preordering Battlefield 3 and immediately regretting it when it's a broken mess on release day like nearly every other Battlefield game.
 
I think they're one of the best publishers today. Sure there are some annoying practices but such is the way things have gone this generation. It doesn't really bother me since they consistently produce good games.
 
wwm0nkey said:
EA > Activision.

Also at least they are putting new IP's out on the market.
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This.

Really if you don't like pre-order bullshit don't pre-order. *gasp* You can generally get EA games with the online pass new for a good month or six later.
 
EA's disrespect of Steam is enough for me to hate them. No one wants to use your shitty service EA, give it up. People say Activision is worse but other than $60 price point they don't disrespect Steam at all.

Their games aren't even that great anymore. I don't know if they're the cause of Bioware sucking or Bioware went down this road themself but ever since that purchase deal went into effect Bioware has put out nothing but mediocrity (ME1 was before the deal). Dead Space 2 is almost a carbon copy of 1, Crysis 2 is consolized, most of their sports games blow now, they've smothered mirror's edge, one of the most unique games this gen because it didn't sell 100 million copies.

Their preorder bullshit is annoying at best, they charge for cheat codes and unlocks, they charge for online now, their DRM is ridiculous, their customer service is atrocious, and their online servers blow...bad. EVERY SINGLE GAME from them has online issues at release, even when it's not an online game like DA2 or ME2.

EA is a complete joke of a company that gets a pass from a lot of people because they've put out a couple ok games the last few years and because Activision came in and stole the asshole crown which lets EA fly under the radar. They're no different from each other.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
they made a basketball game so bad that it had to be recalled and dramatically fucked up the return of NBA Jam by destroying any sense of brand identity with all the ports, confusion, and further ports.
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The way they handled the whole NBA Jam thing last year was mind-blowing. It showed a ridiculous amount of incompetence. I honestly don't know how they've been able to basically sweep it under the rug, either, because I know if I were a competitor, I would have seen an opportunity to steal deals with developers.

"Look at how they treat their own franchises, imagine how they'd treat yours!"
 
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