• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

EA had a fantastic 2013, huh?

ShinMaruku

Member
I have not bought a EA game since the original dragon age. Maybe I'll get inqusition but I am generally done with EA. Any news about them I don't care for. I want their influence gone and their talent seeding other better places.
 

ShinMaruku

Member
More like they try everything to mine their consumers products because they can't budget well. That and what great games? I can count on one hand their great games on the older systems.
 

beastworship

Neo Member
EA also went ahead and removed online team play from FIFA '14 with no prior notice or reason, only one vague unofficial article on a random website. it was a very popular feature along with being the only reason i played the game. there was also a large thread questioning the decision on their official forum with no official response. they took a team sport and castrated it to 1 vs 1, thanks to youtubers and FUT, instead of the 2 vs 2 or 11 vs 11 which you'd think logical to have especially when it was already implemented and functional. my only saving grace to avoid purchase was reading said random article and getting the news from a friend that buys every fifa.

EA really is near the top of worst companies around and while I don't wish hard times on people it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if it disappeared.
 

caustictoast

Neo Member
The Sim City debacle feels like it happened 2 years ago, damn.

It still stings like it happened yesterday. Haven't played much SimCity. It says 67 hours but I know they count time spent on the server screen as 'played' and I'm pretty sure well over a third of that time is there. Most of the rest was just being frustrated about the damn people abandoning their houses on mass glitch that was fixed way too late after I stopped giving a fuck. My only regret is I couldn't get my damn money back. At least I got bejeweled 3 out of it for free. I actually quite liked that game.
 
OP is hilariously excellent.

Now certainly EA has had some good products . . . FIFA, Madden is OK, Simpsons Tapped out, etc. But it has been a HORRIBLE years for EA on quality assurance with the Sim City, Battlefield 4, and NBA Live fiascoes. The new CEO better clean things up a bit. They are going to lose a lot of customer confidence. Not that I have been boycotting them at all but I honestly can't remember the last time I bought an EA product.

Edit: I would have bought NHL 14 if they put out of the next gen platforms.
 

Valnen

Member
No, that is nothing. One company's actions in regards to a single franchise and the localization of games can't compare, at all, to what EA has done over the last 20 plus years. Sega shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as EA - the latter really is that bad.

The games they have and likely already have refused to localize in the future offends me far more than anything EA has ever done. Because of Sega I'll never get to play Valkyria Chronicles 3 for example. And this won't be the last game denied to us either.
 

eroots

Member
Buying BF4 was my "fool me twice" moment. I think I am done with buying EA games as well.

Same here....last time I buy battlefield or any EA game day 1. Simcity was garbage too....was so looking forward to that and they ruined it.. Glad I returned that turd.
 

border

Member
I hate EA for the way BF4 has been handled.

How the hell can you get away with forcing a game out the door which is unfinished, not working as intended, and yet have the developer clearly already working on DLC content, graphics etc for Premium?

The guys working on implementation of all the DLC stuff should have been working on the game to get it fixed.

Staff members are not exactly interchangeable. Somebody who creates DLC maps or models or textures for a living isn't going to be much use at fixing online server connectivity issues, or debugging software code to prevent crashes.

Not that that really excuses the situation, but people who are working on DLC are probably doing so because they don't really have the capability to assist with fixing the game.
 

Arkam

Member
Worst Company in America

Do you really think they are that bad? I have never understood how anyone can even jokingly say this. I'm mean come on, look at Salle Mae and how they literally ruin kids lives with student loans they will never be able to payback.

But yea those BF4 servers being unstable... totally worse.
 

Nizz

Member
Dead Space 3 is so bad. Really unfortunately what they did to the game and it has nothing to do with microtransactions.

I mean 9.5 polygon score approved™
This is one of my biggest disappointments this year. I loved DS1 and while I enjoyed DS2 slightly less I still thought it was a pretty good game. Dead Space 3 though? I couldn't even finish the game. Which is sad since I really liked the franchise.

DS was one of my favorite new IPs but they really took a wrong turn with 3. It basically turned into just another third person shooter. :/ Whatever tension/thrills I felt in 1 and 2 disappeared completely.
 

Elvick

Banned
dat Mirror's Edge 2 tho
The only EA game I'm looking forward to, I just hope they don't ruin it with their b/s.

...and yet they're one of the main reasons people won't buy Nintendo consoles because they have to have EA there, right?
To deny that EA games sell is silly. Doesn't mean they're a good company, but their games are 'important' to the masses. Especially EA Sports (in particular the ones they have monopolies in). That's why they get away with all their b/s. The masses don't care like gamers do.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
Speaking of EA, I was JUST listening to the Mass Effect 1 & 2 OSTs and remembering how awesome that experience was. In retrospective, it's even awesomer. And Dragon Age: Origins. What a fucking amazing experience of this generation.

Gonna be a real letdown when all the cool stuff of the new Mass Effect is under a paywall. At least I got 3 good movies out of Star Wars before all the focus went to merchandising/nickel and dimeing.
 

Bedlam

Member
You know, I think EA honestly at least tried this year. I might be the only one, but I think they and Microsoft both realized that if they don't start listening to customer feed back will eat them alive.
I'm not so sure they learned the right lessons though. Most of what went wrong with EA games in the last couple of years reeked like corporate decisions. Dudebro'ing the shit out of games, putting MT into full priced games, forcing always-online when it's not necessary at all (Peter, it is DRM) or pushing out games too early. What they need to do is just let developers make the games they want to make and stop meddling with the products in any way. But that's likely not happening. They will just try to cover the shit a bit better through increased PR efforts. Instead of stopping with the MT bullshit, they will just try to raise acceptance and push the timesaver/convenience angle, for example.

Granted...I don't think I bought a single game from EA this year and I wasn't even trying, they just didn't put out anything I really needed.
Same for me. I just looked at a list of EA games and the last one I bought was SSX 2012, and I regretted that purchase immediately. I sold that game after two days of shaking my head in disappointment of what had become of one of my favorite franchises. Fuck. Gritty. Reboots.

I would've loved to buy a new Sim City game but EA/Maxis fucked up that game beyond belief as well.

If it wasn't so nonsensical, I'd say EA is hellbent on taking down every single classic franchise they own. While it's not a classic yet, I do wonder how they will fuck up the next Mirror's Edge. I think it's out of question that they will fuck it up somehow.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Do you really think they are that bad? I have never understood how anyone can even jokingly say this. I'm mean come on, look at Salle Mae and how they literally ruin kids lives with student loans they will never be able to payback.

The difficulty with student loans is not in general usurious interest rate practices (which are problematic) but rather the vicious cycle of exorbitant tuition fees justifying loans that exceed the real-world value of the degree, which in turn enables inflation of tuition costs, which in turn... etc

Not to say that Sallie Mae isn't also guilty of some bad practices, but I think this likely explains why the student loan industry isn't the target of more scorn.
 

CTLance

Member
Meh. EA. Who in their right mind throws money their way.
Uppercuts go up.
While I am in favor of the upperct theory I'm also rather partial to the botched SFX theory: His smoke bomb for a stylish getaway didn't work.
NDEY0OT.gif
 

Aureon

Please do not let me serve on a jury. I am actually a crazy person.
How, how could they shit on the glorious SimCity legacy.
 
Plants vs Zombies 2 was released on mobile in August, taking what was once a fun and challenging adventure into a free to play microtransaction mess that wins the "Most Disappointing Game" award from Pocket Tactics. Lots of strategy videos pop up for the game, mostly focusing on how to win the game without spending money.

You don't have to spend a cent in the game to unlock anything in the game, except for plants which are essentially skins. I don't think you know what you're talking about on this one.

All the other points were valid, though.
 

Mindlog

Member
EA is perhaps reading? Interesting.
The last EA game I bought was... Mass Effect 3? Weird.
Mass Effect 3 is probably my most played multiplayer game of 2013.

I like multiplayer games that are supported with free content. It keeps the community from splitting. Microtransactions don't bother me when skill still wins out.

Never purposefully set out to boycott EA Games, but they've been pretty easy to avoid. Titanfall and Garden Warfare have my interest and I hope that lasts. Normally I'd be up to pre-ordering them, but given the recent state of releases I'll let others run the Week One Beta before throwing my money at it.

I avoided playing X: Rebirth. Still bought it because I believe in the developer and know that in a year's time mods and patches will create something I can enjoy. Would never do that for an EA game. Food for thought?
 

SykoTech

Member
They announced a new Mirror's Edge and Battlefront this year, so they're okay with me.

So scared to see how they will turn out.
 

Shogun1337

Junior Member
That's one way of getting discourse from the internet taken seriously I suppose.

Who said anything about seriousness ^_^.


I'll break it down for ya:

- Peter Moore is sort of a loudmouth for a CEO of a massive company like EA
- He responds to direct criticism
- This is where poking the bear can be entertaining
- Talk about EA's faults enough directly to him on Twitter and he might just do something silly.
- ???
- Fun
 

Jachaos

Member
Playing NHL, experiencing tons of issues of my players never picking the puck up when it's along the boards or being flat out stupid and I never get deflections my way while the computers always get them, even though I'm positioned in the right spot, then you have the fucking ads plastered all over the game, Progressive, Tim Horton's, etc. on the boards, the Honda cars in HUT, which just reminds you that with all this emphasis on microtransactions, in-game ads and great sales last year, they still can't fix the game it seems. They barely add anything year over year, a few game modes but even then there's not many of those and the core gameplay needs to be better in many places, there's so many easy fixes that don't get fixed, and then you've got the visuals, the commentary, the cinematics, the presentation, many things that have been the same for years and they don't seem to care. If anything they should be putting more money into it, not less, considering the added revenue from ads and microtransactions. I wish there were some competition again.
 

Vibranium

Banned

If Peter or anyone from EA is reading this thread they should consider my idea of integrating Origin and putting their PC games back on Steam. You can push your client like Ubisoft with uPlay Steam games but still have it on sale everywhere, seems like a better alternative than singling it out in one place. People will be a bit happier to have stuff in one place if they want to.
 

Joco

Member
Very, very concerned about the upcoming Battlefront. Especially with this year being one disaster after another for EA. I was very happy to see them announce it at E3 but now I'm not so sure...
 

Bluth54

Member
If Peter or anyone from EA is reading this thread they should consider my idea of integrating Origin and putting their PC games back on Steam. You push your client like Ubisoft with uPlay Steam games but still have it on sale everywhere, seems like a better alternative than singling it out in one place.

Yeah EA hasn't seen a single cent from me since they stopped putting their games on Steam. I have 500+ games on Steam, all of my friends are on Steam and I'm not interested in installing another DD client on my machine. I do have an Origin account though and would tolerate having to log into it in game like what happened with some of EA's older games like Dragon Age or Ubisoft's games.
 
Battlefield 4 just makes me laugh now. It's such a mess.

I have a brother that loved 3 and then bought 4 at launch broken as hell. They sent him right back to Call of Duty.

This this this. Battlefield 4 MP should be loads better than Ghosts. But sad to say we all know why it isn't. Before the update I was actually able to play MP, now since the update, I can't at all.
 
This this this. Battlefield 4 MP should be loads better than Ghosts. But sad to say we all know why it isn't. Before the update I was actually able to play MP, now since the update, I can't at all.

Is this only related to consoles? Because I play pretty regularly on PC.

And on the subject of Steam, if Origin were to just fuck off and re-integrate with Steam I'm pretty sure I'd be far from alone in being thrilled about that. That's probably my biggest problem with PC gaming these day. Everyone wants to have their little wannabe Steam, and everyone falls right on their face. Uplay is a fucking joke, Origin doesn't work about half the time, and that Gamestop one is so useless it may as well just not exist.

Competition is great and all, but sometimes it's best to throw in the towel and give up.

Damn, that was one hell of a tangent. My apologies.
 
...and yet they're one of the main reasons people won't buy Nintendo consoles because they have to have EA there, right?
Well . . . people want to play sports games and EA has a monopoly on NFL games. And 2K quit making hockey games ( :-( ). 2K Put out NBA 2K13 for the WiiU but they bailed on the WiiU as well.
 

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
Conjecture:

I think EA is having a problem with developers knowing it fucking sucks to work for EA, and so it's harder to get good developers for the teams. Seriously, who right now says "Oh man, I'd LOVE to work for EA!?" except maybe some brogrammer cause like sports and stuff. I'm sure they didn't plan for this in their short term money-grab thinking. Managers are chosen because of their short term money-grab ideas that please the higher-ups (and that use up precious development time), and not because of their ability to actually lead a team to an amazing final product.

EA is a mature company and it needs to make mature decisions. Chasing short term money at the expense of long-term stability is going to fuck you up, possibly irreversibly.

Origin is fucking stupid. I don't even bother to open it to play the couple almost-free games I got from the EA Origin humble bundle.
 

HariKari

Member
You know, I think EA honestly at least tried this year. I might be the only one, but I think they and Microsoft both realized that if they don't start listening to customer feed back will eat them alive. Granted...I don't think I bought a single game from EA this year and I wasn't even trying, they just didn't put out anything I really needed.

EA can't change. They are a publicly traded company that is very worried about their stock price and what analysts think of their latest moves. These are not values compatible with a focus on quality and innovation in gaming. If EA was perfectly solvent and said to the street "You know, we really need to push back our releases to polish them and develop new technology", investors would lose their shit. People would be fired.

Most every successful entertainment company (movies) is a subsidiary. It matters if these divisions are profitable, but how they reach that point is largely up to them. EA can't do that. They have to shovel FIFA, Madden, their shooter rotation, terrible mobile games etc... out the door or else people look at them like they're a sinking ship. Honestly, they're too god damn big to change now. Moore must live in an echo chamber, because by every measure EA's games are not great.

I think they'll continue to tread water and slowly downsize as time goes on, barring some smash hit that saves them.

Conjecture:

I think EA is having a problem with developers knowing it fucking sucks to work for EA, and so it's harder to get good developers for the teams. Seriously, who right now says "Oh man, I'd LOVE to work for EA!?" except maybe some brogrammer cause like sports and stuff. I'm sure they didn't plan for this in their short term money-grab thinking. Managers are chosen because of their short term money-grab ideas that please the higher-ups (and that use up precious development time), and not because of their ability to actually lead a team to an amazing final product.

EA is a mature company and it needs to make mature decisions. Chasing short term money at the expense of long-term stability is going to fuck you up, possibly irreversibly.

Origin is fucking stupid. I don't even bother to open it to play the couple almost-free games I got from the EA Origin humble bundle.

There's a glut of available 'talent' in the market. They aren't having a problem finding people. Talent will always leave for greener pastures, real or not. The problem is that these people are not superheroes and cannot push out AAA games in the timetables asked of EA. At least not AAA titles we'd consider good or even great. And this soul-sucking indifference to quality and insistence upon hitting release dates is what drives studios like DICE and Bioware straight into the ground.
 

fritolay

Member
FIFA 14 missing critical modes from next-gen version of the game. Pretty nice of EA to not advertise it.

Don't worry, if it is like Madden was last gen, every year one of those features will be added. They will call it something else new to get your money on the yearly updates.
 

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
There's a glut of available 'talent' in the market. They aren't having a problem finding people. Talent will always leave for greener pastures, real or not. The problem is that these people are not superheroes and cannot push out AAA games in the timetables asked of EA. At least not AAA titles we'd consider good or even great. And this soul-sucking indifference to quality and insistence upon hitting release dates is what drives studios like DICE and Bioware straight into the ground.

Somehow 2K seems to make better sports games than EA with the same timetable. I'd be okay with working for 2K, and would never want to work for EA unless it was literally my only option. People that know about EA don't want to work for EA if they have a choice, and programmers have pretty good choice right now unless they're unwilling to move.
 
They might've made an effort but letting down Battlefield 4 is a pretty shoddy.

Battlefield series is great, but letting a big game like that release with bugs is a no-no. Why not just delay it a little longer? Producers/Publishers would be unhappy but fuck, they'd be unhappy with a buggy game that audiences will moan about.

In short some good initiatives probably but bad decision making.

Forexample, why Wii U is missing an on-par FIFA is beyond a joke. Right now, what will make sports nuts want to even consider an EA game now on Wii U AT ALL in the future if EA just wants to shit on their audience.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
How, how could they shit on the glorious SimCity legacy.

They did it to command and conquer, they care not for legacy.

I've bought BF4 on xb1, I really feel stupid for doing it, I will give it time but if it crashes a few times I'll get rid.
 

linsivvi

Member
You don't have to spend a cent in the game to unlock anything in the game, except for plants which are essentially skins. I don't think you know what you're talking about on this one.

All the other points were valid, though.

He doesn't. He made an otherwise good OP but then decided to pad the content with a game he never played and based it on heresy. What a terrible decision.
 
Top Bottom