1941

It’s okay for corporates to alienate their consumer base because hey, money! What a fucking bad excuse.

They have no passion for gaming OR gamers. They just want your money and they will come up with all kinds of lies to justify negative behavior and handwave negative press. EA won “Worst Game of 2013” and EA won worst company in US two years ibn a row - there is something fundamentally wrong. JBG is saying “oh, it’s okay, they are just a big corporate doing what big corporates do” - no, good corporates don’t fuck their consumers over with their giant dick.

And thanks JBG, for reminding me how much I actually do hate EA. You sound like a corporate rep with a newly opened account, hope they pay well.

1942

For a company that everyone hates so much, their products are obviously wildly successful. That’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Maybe it’s more relevant to look at the products than what some survey says about the “corporate image,” which is rarely positive (companies like Apple and Amazon being the exception).

Videogames, like all industries are a business. Money simply has to be a chief concern, and it is in all industries. But you are very misguided if you think there are not people at EA who are passionate about games. The idea that all EA games are created by drones is simply false, and the idea that people don’t buy and play EA games in very high quantities is also false.

And thanks JBG, for reminding me how much I actually do hate EA. You sound like a corporate rep with a newly opened account, hope they pay well.

Another personal attack. Does this forum have a report functionality? You are kind of degrading the quality of conversation here.

1943

Use the ignore function, newbie. The one I’m using on you after this post.

If you’re only here to defend corporates and their chief concern of making money, and do not understand the value of delighting consumers, and creating goodwill, I’m not interested to hear from you anyway. Most of your posts are about giving corporates a green light for defending their IP against the unwashed masses.

I give enough legal advice to corporates to know that insisting that you’re in the right because “it’s my right because it’s legal” is a losers’ game. Falling back on legal rights is always the last resort, not the first. If you can’t explain why your product design is delighting customers, you’re screwing up somewhere. Consumers are open to the argument that “this is expensive as there are few users to justify the cost” - but shit like “multiplayer is at the core of this design” (when it’s clearly not) fools nobody.

1944

Your constant derogatory references to me being a new poster are also kind of embarrassing. Having Internet seniority on a message board frankly is not something to be proud of, and it certainly isn’t justifiable to use it as a means of degrading someone else for having an opposing opinion. I am sure you are capable of giving valuable “legal advice to corporates,” but I highly doubt you are doing so, since any good lawyer is open to disagreement and debate.

EA’s statements about the online-only feature were clearly marketing speak to avoid having to say “this is DRM, it will cut down on lost sales from piracy.” They should have been more honest, but it wouldn’t change the policy.

1945

“McDonalds sells more Big Macs than any other restaurant food on the planet. It must be the pinnacle of burgers specifically and restaurant food in general.”

Jeremy, sometimes the Fifty Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong idea you espouse here isn’t a bad one. Unfortunately, in this case it’s a terrible argument that makes everyone who reads it wonder if your checks from EA have cleared or not.

That’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Maybe it’s more relevant to look at the products

Yes, let’s do that. The popularity of EA’s games frequently has less to do with EA’s innovative design and development and is usually a function of EA buying a successful developer and then marketing an IP to death.

For instance, let’s take Sim City. This is one of the most beloved IPs in strategy gaming, and a game that was greatly anticipated on this forum and throughout a large audience of gamers and potential buyers. It was a game that sold at both $60 and $70 price points back in April when it arrived. 7 months later it was on offer on sale for less than $20.

What EA does in many cases is to buy strong existing IP and the developers of said IP. That’s one. The other thing they do is to secure exclusivity through rights licensing–as with their biggest cash cow, Madden football.

than what some survey says about the “corporate image,” which is rarely positive (companies like Apple and Amazon being the exception).

The damage to EA’s corporate image has been well-earned by them, for shoddy treatment of customers, employees, and development houses they’ve purchased and the IP they’ve taken over.

Videogames, like all industries are a business. Money simply has to be a chief concern, and it is in all industries.

Yes, and you should ask the folks at Bethesda, Valve, and Bohemia what they think about how a vibrant modding community extends the sales life of a videogame. Heck, EA knows this. They’ve been selling Sims 3 and Sim City 4 at a price point at $10 or higher for years now, thanks to both games having long and extended life because of modders and content creators.

But you are very misguided if you think there are not people at EA who are passionate about games.

The half-truths, prevarications, ignorance, and outright lies by folks at EA on the Sim City team regarding their product, easily exposed by folks like Rock, Paper, Shotgun and modders calls into question whether the first priority even on EA development teams is ass-covering or designing great games.

The idea that all EA games are created by drones is simply false,

Of course it is. I haven’t seen anyone saying otherwise, really.

and the idea that people don’t buy and play EA games in very high quantities is also false.

As demonstrated above, a bunch of people doing something does not imply anything about the value of that something.

Another personal attack. Does this forum have a report functionality? You are kind of degrading the quality of conversation here.

Oh dear. Good luck with that!

1946

“McDonalds sells more Big Macs than any other restaurant food on the planet. It must be the pinnacle of burgers specifically and restaurant food in general.”

I never said EA is the pinnacle of anything. You are putting words in my mouth. However, it would certainly be silly to claim no one likes McDonalds, right? Or that it is the worst company in America, as that survey might say?

Yes, let’s do that. The popularity of EA’s games frequently has less to do with EA’s innovative design and development and is usually a function of EA buying a successful developer and then marketing an IP to death.

That sounds like exactly what a publisher should be doing. Do you want them to not market their products and release them on Humble Bundle or something?

The damage to EA’s corporate image has been well-earned by them, for shoddy treatment of customers, employees, and development houses they’ve purchased and the IP they’ve taken over.

Perhaps, as you mentioned earlier, people’s perceptions of the quality of a company, as measured by a survey, aren’t always the best metric of the quality of the company. Perhaps they vote with their dollars – and the dollars say they like the products. For instance, people might generally not like it when an “IP is taken over,” because it sounds hostile, but they like the end product.

1947

Jeremy, I know you think you refuted my points. You didn’t.

For instance, you are the person consistently engaging in a post hoc ergo propter hoc, appeal to popularity logical fallacy here. EA (or McDonald’s) need not be the “pinnacle” of anything, but to say without supporting evidence that popularity of either involves quality of product is a facile and idiotic position to maintain.

I also do not think EA should be selling on Humble Bundle, and agree that acquisitions is an important part of a publisher’s investment and earnings strategy. That’s not the point I was making, of course. My point about EA’s acquisitions was specifically cited in the quote I posted. You suggested that the popularity of EA’s games was the result of their internal quality. I pointed out that much of that popularity is due to them acquiring established, popular IP, or securing exclusive licensing rights.

Finally, if we’re measuring in apparent dollars…well, it’s tough to do with EA and Sim City since only Origin knows. We can do some comparisons, though.

EA says they sold 1.1 million copies of Sim City in the first two weeks of release, March 5-8 of 2013. In July they announced 2 million in sales. That’s…not so hot. As in, at all. In nine weeks following release, they sold an average of 100,000 copies per week. That’s not good for a flagship title.

1948

While I think the vast majority of us think Sim City is a piece of garbage and some EA employees were a bunch of lying asshats about the game, do we really need to attack jeremy here for having a dissenting opinion. Unless I missed something (which I may have) he was being pretty polite expressing his opinion.

1949

I think the new sim city game is actually rather good, as long as you play it for what it is, and don’t get too caught up in the politics of it, or the DRM and modding issues. If you just think ‘i want to build a cool little town’, then it’s pretty cool. The graphics are nicely done, there is a lot to do, the UI is pretty good, there is a lot to like. I paid around $20 and even if I never touch it again, I easily got my moneysworth.
Would I prefer it to have bigger cities and offline play? Sure, but I’d prefer battlefield 4 to have no grind and unlock system, no game is perfect, and we can all question the decisions made by the developers. Personally I think EA are making a big mistake with the no modding and online-only policies, but then I’m a gamer, and I strongly suspect that the people in EA’s finance department are not, and never have been gamers.

1950

I thought I refuted without resorting to personal attacks, actually.

When I resort to personal attacks, it ends up embarrassingly apparent.

1951

I don’t think I was referring to any of your replies.

1952

Fair enough. Jerk. (I’m KIDDING!!!)

1953

The Sims games have been the most heavily modded ones in the history of the industry. Those mods were IMHO certainly a positive factor for the success of those games - and wide availability of mods didn’t even stop EA from selling a bazillion units of their own expansion packs.

That is what makes it seem completely irrational from EA to deny gamers the option to mod the latest Sim City.

1954

I really appreciate that. I bought Simcity for $60 when it came out, and I was very frustrated with it then too. None of my friends play it anymore because of its deficiencies. So I understand the frustration about it. What I don’t like is people using all this nastiness (“EA is a bunch of dicks”) and then making unsupported claims (everyone at EA cares only about profit etc).

EA (or McDonald’s) need not be the “pinnacle” of anything, but to say without supporting evidence that popularity of either involves quality of product is a facile and idiotic position to maintain.

I’m sorry, why is it “facile and idiotic” to link the quality of a company with the desirability of its products? It seems extremely intuitive to me. Now, you may be right that a company can have bad qualities, even if it makes outstanding products. I never disputed that. But I don’t see how you can coherently call an extremely successful company that creates thousands of high-paying jobs and dozens of multi-platinum products “the worst in the country.” You’re gonna need more than a survey to support such an extreme claim, anyway.

I pointed out that much of that popularity is due to them acquiring established, popular IP, or securing exclusive licensing rights.

Not every company can be sexy. While we’d all love for developers to be able to keep their IP and sell directly to customers, marketplace realities create the need for an intermediary (just like marketplace realities create the need for lawyers, who are essentially giant transaction costs). Just because EA’s role is not sexy does not make it any less important – or good for the consumer.

The Sims games have been the most heavily modded ones in the history of the industry. Those mods were IMHO certainly a positive factor for the success of those games - and wide availability of mods didn’t even stop EA from selling a bazillion units of their own expansion packs.

That is what makes it seem completely irrational from EA to deny gamers the option to mod the latest Sim City.

Were those mods related to skins, or the core game “simulation” itself?

1955

Does the game you describe actually play like that? I ask because I’d certainly be in at a discount to do that…but a read of the issues that have been fixed, then broken, then fixed, and then broken again over the course of major updates (update 9.0, right) sure sounds like the game you describe exists primarily if you’re willing to play a game that still doesn’t behave the way it says it does.

1956

I think the game works very well within a city. inter-city region play can be a bit of a mess, but I enjoyed building up a bunch of cities anyway. I’d definitely recommend the game at $20, and its a no-brainer at $10

1957

Instead of examining the entire population of games and mods, let’s look for a good example that would be similar to the new SimCity. I put forth SimCity 4. EA is still selling it. And there’s a community of modders adding value to the game. There’s no need to look elsewhere. EA screwed up with the latest SimCity, and they continue to screw up.

1958

Surely you see the problem with this comparison – Simcity 4 (and its add-on) does not make anywhere near as much money as Simcity 5 (and its many add-ons) does now for EA. Again, just because mods make sense for Sc4 now does not mean they made sense for Sc4 at release, or that they make sense for Sc5 now.

1959

Personally, I think that Sim City is a Simulation - but the new Sim City was found to just be thrown together without being detailed in what it was simulating. It has the appearance that they just threw it together.

The travesty is that if a company is going to espouse the online inter regional aspects as much as they did then it ought to have worked. But not even one piece of the regional detailed simulation was working at launch whether it was simple traffic to garbage sharing.

Trying it fix it on the fly is the other travesty once the main model was built.

I know I will not purchase Sim City as a pre-order again and ultimately that is what EA has lost. Especially on such a beloved title that is also a gateway game for causal players.

I think with the lowering of PC game prices by simply waiting 6 months or so this is a very big issue for any company producing PC games. I would think they would want as many preorder, first month purchasers as possible for the higher pricing. Losing that is simply foolish.

Anyhow, I am looking forward to Banished in Feb.

1960

Oh I’ve played it, and it’s crap. The people at EA are either incompetent or not allowed to make this better. They could have saved some value in the franchise by letting the mod community get a hold of it and see what can be done. Instead they pump out garbage expansions at ridiculous prices and continue lying to the community like we’re a bunch of idiots just licking it up. They fucked up. EA’s policy seems to be dig the trench the deeper, squeeze out a little more air before they bury themselves and whatever franchise they bought before leaving it behind. I don’t see how you can defend that kind of practice.