mackintosh wrote:
I will never, ever forgive EA and BioWare for what they did to my beloved Mass Effect. If you do read through The Final Hours though (read a summary online, please don't waste more of your money), you'll find that it was mostly BioWare that butchered their own creation, rather than EA. EA just wanted them to hurry up - the horrible endings and general plotline was all BioWare and their incomprehensibly egregious belief that they simply couldn't get it wrong.

I loved ME when they started leaking info on ME2 i just laughed and walked away, I also the exact same thing with Dragons Age.

Eh well Hopefully Ea will stay far away from Amp. EA has a nasty habit of convincing me to keep my money.

please don't take any offense in this, but if you get bought by EA I expect a full refund of my money.

Ahh the many great franchises that were destroyed by EA. To top the list: Command & Conquer. This came had a legacy of almost two decades, and they destroyed it utterly. Simcity is next on my list.

Just for the point of the 0-day DLC. To be fair some of it may not have been done at the time of the games development cycle. There are instances where yes, it is. But some of it is actually in the months between when the game goes golden master and the time it is released. Just because some one says it is "Finished" does not mean it is on the shelves the next day.



Some games go through extended Q&A processes (0-day patches for that one), DVD pressing, Preparing it for digital release and making sure every one has the same code, and so on. This can lead to allot of time where the devs would be sitting on their hands, so to use that time they make content. Some of it just happens to be available at or just after the point of release.



NOW, the DLC that I have a problem with is the stuff that is on the disk on the day of release that they want you to pay to have unlocked, that is clearly premeditated. But if you have to download it and it does not look to be to essential...then it may have just been the developers earning their pay for a few more months. My 2 cents, perspective is a valuable thing...cherish it.

My favourite game series is Mass Effect franchise. As a fan, I have witnessed how entire (very popular) franchise was totally destroyed by EA corruption. This company is literally gaming industry parasite infection. EA are searching for young, talented, popular and perspective hardcore gaming studios who have proven to be successful with 1-2 titles. Then they give those enthusiasts a lot of money in exchange for some control over their next project, resulting in the buyout. After that EA suddenly changes entire franchise into generic food for EA customers - casual gamers and mindless kids. Profit. Hardcore studio destroyed. Franchise got old and boring, time to repEAt cycle and find new food. I hate them and I will never buy their products.

Monphat wrote:
My favourite game series is Mass Effect franchise. As a fan, I have witnessed how entire (very popular) franchise was totally destroyed by EA corruption. This company is literally gaming industry parasite infection. EA are searching for young, talented, popular and perspective hardcore gaming studios who have proven to be successful with 1-2 titles. Then they give those enthusiasts a lot of money in exchange for some control over their next project, resulting in the buyout. After that EA suddenly changes entire franchise into generic food for EA customers - casual gamers and mindless kids. Profit. Hardcore studio destroyed. Franchise got old and boring, time to repEAt cycle and find new food. I hate them and I will never buy their products.

totally agree.

Its a pain to say but thanks to EA i wasted my money on SWTOR and BF3 i loved bf2 for example in the old day's but bf3 was a let down for me. And SWTOR was like WoW to me to much grind and i am sick of grinding games and monthly subs.

Sadly, that's the side affect of larger game companies and studios, stuff loses that nicely done cohesion in the game after a certain point. And the publishers take this problem and blow it way out of proportion.



The publisher simply wants their money back, they want their investment to have the best return possible, so they do what they think will help. They try to get modern games to focus on being marketable, that means looking good. Publishers these days like to have clips to push out for commercials or posters, so even if the game didn't need a large action area, the publisher might push them to add one, at the very least, they tell you to put a large amount of time and effort into the graphics so it falls under their liking, even if that might harm the gameplay.



The easiest way to have good graphics for a game with lots of assets, is to have a giant production team (can't complain too much myself, means that I have more job opportunities than I otherwise would) or modelers, animators, artists, the whole thing. The problem is with that many people, you go way beyond not keeping a cohesive art style in potential problems. There can be dozens if not hundreds in some cases of people all with their own idea of just what the game should feel like, each one is given X task to do, and they try to do that thing so it looks good, hey, we all like having nice portfolio pieces right? Downside is with everyone doing this, a game comes out with a very overblown visual element, just look at the new call of duty, try to find a single graphic asset that you would not be proud to say that you did at a job interview.



This isn't a bad thing all around, but the publisher loves seeing stuff like this, again, it's great for the marketing teams to make stuff out of. So with both sides being happy, this is how it goes more and more often with large games these days. The problem is that this is where the budget and focus is going, find a group of friends and try to make a game with them, sure you have disagreements but at least you know what your disagreeing on, unlike where you and that other guy three stories down don't even know that you have opposite opinions on the same thing that you are both working towards. Small teams can always focus on the core ideas better, and that is why small games can have that more solid and unique feel or style to them in how they play and are experienced.



And since it's really hard to market a story in quick visual adds that you can post on every sight on the internet, the publisher is more willing to mess with that area, not being their specialty, they are more likely to not understand that what they are doing is bad for the product, so they will make tweaks here and there, offer suggestion about a game mode or potential content that can be packaged as DLC, you get the idea. A publisher is not a game designer, they normally don't know didly about game making, most aren't even really gamers. So they tend to mess it all up, with the one exception in visual and in some cases audio, those are the things that they can see and easily feel, and know how to market. This is why you see lots of games that might "look" good, bur are really bad coming from publishers. At least one reason.



Still, as much as I hate how the mix tends to work these days, it's sad what can happen to a game without a good publisher to support/advertise it. So many old games that did bad in the marketing despite being pretty good, first one that comes to my mind is sacrifice... I think I'm gong to go play some sacrifice now If you'll excuse me.

/end brain dead rant

Uberbasher wrote:
Its a pain to say but thanks to EA i wasted my money on SWTOR and BF3 i loved bf2 for example in the old day's but bf3 was a let down for me. And SWTOR was like WoW to me to much grind and i am sick of grinding games and monthly subs.

I'm an mmo fan the only reason I did not get that was because it had EA on it.



My problem with Ea apart from the business side is the amount of buggy games they released I'm talking about console cartridge games you can't patch

Monphat wrote:
My favourite game series is Mass Effect franchise. As a fan, I have witnessed how entire (very popular) franchise was totally destroyed by EA corruption. This company is literally gaming industry parasite infection. EA are searching for young, talented, popular and perspective hardcore gaming studios who have proven to be successful with 1-2 titles. Then they give those enthusiasts a lot of money in exchange for some control over their next project, resulting in the buyout. After that EA suddenly changes entire franchise into generic food for EA customers - casual gamers and mindless kids. Profit. Hardcore studio destroyed. Franchise got old and boring, time to repEAt cycle and find new food. I hate them and I will never buy their products.

This. EA has a great business strategy: destroy the industry that their company thrives on. They also like having hundreds of thousands of people hate their guts, because it's, you know, good for business apparently. I can't wait until they go under.

I will never, ever forgive EA and BioWare for what they did to my beloved Mass Effect. If you do read through The Final Hours though (read a summary online, please don't waste more of your money), you'll find that it was mostly BioWare that butchered their own creation, rather than EA. EA just wanted them to hurry up - the horrible endings and general plotline was all BioWare and their incomprehensibly egregious belief that they simply couldn't get it wrong.

terricon4 wrote:
Sadly, that's the side affect of larger game companies and studios, stuff loses that nicely done cohesion in the game after a certain point. And the publishers take this problem and blow it way out of proportion. [...]

I agree with pretty much all you say in your post, but I think there's another big reason why big companies produce bland games, and that is fear. When so much money is involved, fear keeps the companies away from risky ideas that haven't been tried before. Instead they choose a safe option and go for a game type that's been tried many times before and obviously have a nice fat player base. A generic FPS is a much safer choice than something weird with strange game mechanics that no one's ever heard of. If you find a weird game it's a pretty safe bet to assume that it's designed by an indie company, and this is the main reason.



It's the same in the film industry. Hollywood has got itself stuck in spectacular visuals with very little originality, for the very same reason.

As of late, the very enjoyable and/or innovative games are being developed by indie dev teams. So I am actually very glad systems like Steam permit small teams publish their games without worrying about finding a big time publisher.

flopsies wrote:
I've started a change.org online petition to stop the buyout

http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-not-buy-out-amplitude-studios#

I think the OP was making a general statement and just using EA as an example. I haven't read anywhere that this studio may be bought out by a corporation.

I agree. EA wants their fingers on everything. They buy small-time companyes and make them give out a few titles, or perhaps just one. Then, they issue a few cut backs and then they shut the company down. An example here in Norway: EA bought Playfish in 2009 for 400million dollars. (Well, may be difficult to say no to that amount of money, but still) Now, 3 years later they are shut down and the workers are left without work. Some move to other countries to stay in the EA family and some wants to start their own. But still..



So I think it is right they got this:



http://consumerist.com/2012/04/congratulations-ea-you-are-the-worst-company-in-america-for-2012.html

I certainly hope they don't fall for EA. It's a trap!

Anyone heard the rumors? ( quite old "news" thought )



RUMOR: Nexon offer/bid to buy EA!



http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/04/26/ea-spikes-on-report-japans-nexon-makes-takeover-bid/

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nexon-said-offfer-electronic-arts-122914521.html

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=471791



EA is quite bad itself , but Nexon is shit , seriously!

Don't even get me started on UBI-shaft! EA is pretty bad as well, but IMHO if UBI were the only one left- TIME FOR A NEW HOBBY!

Urgh... I hate EA and it's origins.