What is going on at EA?

Sabre0001

CastorTroy wrote: »

What were they expecting? People to come out and say "Oh wow, this online pass is a great idea. At last we can play without as many of those lower class used game purchasers interrupting our games"?

I don't think the online pass system was that bad an idea (but then again, I buy my games new). However, retailers didn't play ball - they didn't take the cut so that customers would end up paying out the same (purchase of game + online pass). Those trading in games weren't affected. The only ones losing out were publishers - only natural that they try to combat something / get a piece of an incredibly lucrative market.

Now...what will EA implement next?

gizmo

Burning Eclipse wrote: »

Why are people talking about Far Cry 3 like EA had anything to do with it?

The poster equated being available on Origin with being developed by EA I imagine.

stevenmu

Sabre0001 wrote: »

Now...what will EA implement next?

The Sims might give us a clue about that. I still doubt very much that the next Xbox will enforce "always on", but individual developers/publishers could still implement it. And once they have "always on", they can kill second hand sales with the flick of a switch.

ShadowHearth

hooradiation wrote: »

What on earth do you even imagine you are talking about?

Something about you wont understand from your "cynicism" mountain.

Pacing Mule

Sabre0001 wrote: »

I don't think the online pass system was that bad an idea (but then again, I buy my games new). However, retailers didn't play ball - they didn't take the cut so that customers would end up paying out the same (purchase of game + online pass). Those trading in games weren't affected. The only ones losing out were publishers - only natural that they try to combat something / get a piece of an incredibly lucrative market.

Now...what will EA implement next?

I'd partly disagree. You could argue that Gamestop didn't play ball with the purchaser of the pre owned game - I saw Fifa 13 myself which would have cost more than a new game to buy pre owned + online pass (queried it too and was told some people don't want to use online) but elsewhere trade in values of games requiring passes were generally cut by the value of the online pass and the resale price of the game pre owned was cut to reflect that. In essence the original customer trading in bore the brunt of the cost of the online pass which basically had a comic aside of devaluing the game for new copy purchasers which the publishers would want to encourage.

hooradiation

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Something about you wont understand from your "cynicism" mountain.

I'm sorry, I'm afraid this makes no sense either.
Could you elaborate?

nesf

Apt: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/05/17

C14N

Pushtrak wrote: »

Honestly, my concern isn't exactly with Dead Space, it's where is this going to go if they'll abandon that so fast? I wouldn't be surprised with Mass Effect or Dragon Age being abandoned after the next game in them not doing "as well as expected".

They wouldn't be "abandoning" Mass Effect, they would just be leaving a well worn and narratively complete IP alone. That would be like saying JK Rowling "abandoned" Harry Potter or Francis Ford Coppola abandoned the Godfather.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Mirror's Edge was a sometimes brilliant game regularly crippled by Dice's oftentimes poor level design (remember the indoor levels?) - I don't know if they really had the talent to bring the idea and engine into their own. It was a commercial failure so it's not surprising it hasn't reappeared. And yet I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine the series will get a revisit - it's constantly being teased and rumoured.

I agree, I hope they make another game with the same technology and gameplay but a fresh story, because the first one was awful. People need to remember that EA took a risk on this one, even if it didn't work out, and that's pretty commendable.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Mass Effect 1 was a frequently dull, clunky game that buried its good ideas under a lot of poor design choices. Contrary to the bizarre complaint that it's inherently better because 'it's an RPG' (which barely means anything), the sequels for many (myself included) were much more ambitious and successful experiments. Sometimes streamlining a game's mechanics is for the best - in this case the combat was more satisfying and the narrative more compelling. Mass Effects 3 perceived failings were largely down to Bioware's ability to follow through on the story they began - no failing of EA. Even then, the ongoing popularity of that game's multiplayer shows they at least did something significant right.

I'm pretty sure popular opinion is that ME2 was the best. I've honestly never met another person besides myself who though 1 was the best. Not because "it was an RPG", just that there was more emphasis on exploration which made the whole universe seem far more immersive and vast. The narrative was also far more interesting for me in ME1. It could definitely be argued that they reveal too much about the Reapers in it but there just weren't any "holy s**t" moments in 2 or 3 for me like finding out that everything that exists comes from a race who periodically wipe out all organisms in the galaxy, especially since you go most of the game thinking Saren is the bad guy. Aside from the Illusive Man, there wasn't much I found interesting about ME2 and the plot seemed pretty inconsequential in the overall arc. Personally, with hindsight, I probably would have had the story hint at the Reapers a bit in number 1 and then fully reveal them in number 2 but then that's just me.

I liked the RPG elements and the combat system better too but they weren't the main things. I guess the fact that ME1 was sort of a surprise game (I just picked it up on special offer for a tenner on PC) is partly why I love it so much and it would have been nearly impossible for anything to measure up to the pedestal I put it on.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

EA's goal is to profit - it's no more or less greedy than any of the other major publishers. Indeed, despite a few notable failures a lot of their games in recent years have very purposefully upped the quality mark, and there's significantly less EA shovelware in the last five years or so. Not all their business practices are immune from criticism, but at the same time it's laughable how much they're villifed online for engaging in perfectly logical, sensible commercial practices like putting an end (or least resting) unprofitable studios and stagnating franchises.

This could be true but we don't really know how much influence EA exerts over the development process. I'm sure they don't fiddle with the stories but franchises like ME and Dead Space became further from their original material to just straight blockbuster shooters as they went on which is probably a lot more financially safe, even though it turns off many fans of the original installments.

Pushtrak

C14N wrote: »

They wouldn't be "abandoning" Mass Effect, they would just be leaving a well worn and narratively complete IP alone. That would be like saying JK Rowling "abandoned" Harry Potter or Francis Ford Coppola abandoned the Godfather.

You know what? You're right... Looking back, I was being more than a bit dramatic. Was kinda surprised to see what you'd quoted. I mean, sure, I'd like to see more Mass Effect, and, well, Dragon Age is somewhat tentative, but it isn't like some mark on gaming by not getting more of them.

cherryghost

Anyone read the tweets (since been deleted) from an EA Senior Engineer regarding the Wii U? i reckon he'll be fired over it.

CastorTroy

Hard to say. It' s not like EA have a great relationship with Nintendo. Though this is slander in a way, I suppose.

If it was just his opinion from a personal account it would be okay, but the fact the profile states he works for EA could cause trouble, especially since all reports are referring to him as EA engineer.

GTR63

CastorTroy wrote: »

Hard to say. It' s not like EA have a great relationship with Nintendo. Though this is slander in a way, I suppose.

If it was just his opinion from a personal account it would be okay, but the fact the profile states he works for EA could cause trouble, especially since all reports are referring to him as EA engineer.

Not defending him but I bet plenty of EA employees are getting it in the ear so to speak from ninty fans on twitter. All I will say is that I hope EA don`t expect great sales of cash in ports of FIFA 14 or Madden 25? on the PS4 or Next Xbox its not like many are going to buy 2 copies.

CastorTroy

What I meant is that if I was posting here that a system is crap, then that's just my opinion, but if I had the name of the company I work for while posting, then the company may be liable. I just say this because I work for an American company, in a way and one of their rules is you can't do anything that may put the company in a bad light.

gizmo

Yup, that dude is gona be let go...

On top of his WiiU related tweets he also said this..

I think we tried to buy Steam and Valve. No, so had to make our own. It (Origin) should be way better, though, I agree.

The PC market is a tiny percentage of our revenue. Origin really isn't very important. Identity is, though.

I really would love to see the breakdown in their revenue between console, PC and mobile. I'd wager the results would be pretty god damn interesting.

ShadowHearth

cherryghost wrote: »

Anyone read the tweets (since been deleted) from an EA Senior Engineer regarding the Wii U? i reckon he'll be fired over it.

Any links to that?

tysongee

Didn't they just announce that they were getting rid of the Online Pass garbage?

Varik

gizmo wrote: »

Yup, that dude is gona be let go...

Doubt it, the Xbox always online stuff from the other lad had a negative effect on MS from the rumours. How does this affect EA, they're not making any games for the Wii U which I think is a bigger FU.

ShadowHearth

tysongee wrote: »

Didn't they just announce that they were getting rid of the Online Pass garbage?

120% this is a publicity stunt. It will be replaced by some other drm, used game protection. I am afraid we will get something even worse then online pass.

Mr E

http://m.uk.ign.com/articles/2013/05/17/ea-senior-engineer-the-wii-u-is-crap

Nollog

https://twitter.com/shanselman

Scott Hanselman
@shanselman
Tech, Diabetes, Parenting, Race, Linguistics, Web, Fashion, Podcasting, OSS, Code, Ratchet, Black Hair, Phony. I work for MSFT, but these are my opinions.

lol.

Mal-Adjusted

The big issue seems to be games not matching sales estimates. When you pump enormous budgets into these things, they have to sell huge to be profitable. We saw it earlier in the year with Tomb Raider. I don't understand why companies can't accept that some games probably wont be huge sellers and budget accordingly.

The other issue is the publisher meddling in the design and direction of the games. While they're the ones that pony up the money, it's understandable, but changing Dead Space from survival horror to pure action seems counter productive. You're alienating existing fans in a situation where it's doubtful you'll pick up many new ones.

johnny_ultimate

C14N wrote: »

I'm pretty sure popular opinion is that ME2 was the best. I've honestly never met another person besides myself who though 1 was the best. Not because "it was an RPG", just that there was more emphasis on exploration which made the whole universe seem far more immersive and vast. The narrative was also far more interesting for me in ME1. It could definitely be argued that they reveal too much about the Reapers in it but there just weren't any "holy s**t" moments in 2 or 3 for me like finding out that everything that exists comes from a race who periodically wipe out all organisms in the galaxy, especially since you go most of the game thinking Saren is the bad guy. Aside from the Illusive Man, there wasn't much I found interesting about ME2 and the plot seemed pretty inconsequential in the overall arc. Personally, with hindsight, I probably would have had the story hint at the Reapers a bit in number 1 and then fully reveal them in number 2 but then that's just me.

I liked the RPG elements and the combat system better too but they weren't the main things. I guess the fact that ME1 was sort of a surprise game (I just picked it up on special offer for a tenner on PC) is partly why I love it so much and it would have been nearly impossible for anything to measure up to the pedestal I put it on.

Just to specify here: I think the narrative in ME2 is more successful because it marries gameplay, characters and player agency more effectively. Frankly, IMO the whole 'core' story and lore of Mass Effect is space opera hokum. What ME2 did better than the others was place a weight of responsibility on the player's shoulder. It trusted you to figure out that paying attention to seemingly innocuous details (like the initially 'useless' expensive ship upgrades) and squad would ultimately be beneficial - and indeed the time you spent on such things heavily determined the outcome of the final mission based on your decisions and your knowledge of your crew. Nothing more satisfying in the series IMO than

having your team survive the suicide mission.

Also, I'll be honest, my opinion of Mass Effect 1 is coloured by the fact that my primary memories of the game consist of standing in a lift for approximately 25% of my playtime.

gizmo

Varik wrote: »

Doubt it, the Xbox always online stuff from the other lad had a negative effect on MS from the rumours. How does this affect EA, they're not making any games for the Wii U which I think is a bigger FU.

He's a Senior Engineer / Architect who criticised a platform holders hardware and then his own company via his Origin comments. The press have also jumped on it arseways with IGN even go far as to state "an MS employee reached to EA" when describing the Twitter exchange. Said MS employee is now trying to get them to correct the wording in case he now gets in trouble. It's ****ing bat****.

While I don't want him to be fired unlike some people (thankfully on other sites), I just think based on more recent events they'll use the "bringing the company name into disrepute" line and he'll quietly "resign".

C14N

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Just to specify here: I think the narrative in ME2 is more successful because it marries gameplay, characters and player agency more effectively. Frankly, IMO the whole 'core' story and lore of Mass Effect is space opera hokum. What ME2 did better than the others was place a weight of responsibility on the player's shoulder. It trusted you to figure out that paying attention to seemingly innocuous details (like the initially 'useless' expensive ship upgrades) and squad would ultimately be beneficial - and indeed the time you spent on such things heavily determined the outcome of the final mission based on your decisions and your knowledge of your crew. Nothing more satisfying in the series IMO than

having your team survive the suicide mission.

Also, I'll be honest, my opinion of Mass Effect 1 is coloured by the fact that my primary memories of the game consist of standing in a lift for approximately 25% of my playtime.

Well I guess that's just where opinions differ. I even liked the lifts in ME1, just because it was generally a good source of banter with the squad mates and I liked how it was personalised so the squad-mates would even talk amongst themselves. But whatever, I think we're getting off the thread topic here.

NTMK

gizmo wrote: »

He's a Senior Engineer / Architect who criticised a platform holders hardware and then his own company via his Origin comments. The press have also jumped on it arseways with IGN even go far as to state "an MS employee reached to EA" when describing the Twitter exchange. Said MS employee is now trying to get them to correct the wording in case he now gets in trouble. It's ****ing bat****.

While I don't want him to be fired unlike some people (thankfully on other sites), I just think based on more recent events they'll use the "bringing the company name into disrepute" line and he'll quietly "resign".

I dont see the issue of criticising the Wii U considering EA has said as much about it.
Criticising origin is strange for a senior eng to do

but unlike orth neither create a frenzy of bad press for EA nor did it create bad rumours about a EA product

Orth deserved to be fired because he opened his mouth on a public website and created a **** storm about his employers product, if i did the same thing i would expect to be fired.

Also he was a high level employee with MS game studios so he would have been under an NDA which would have stated that commenting on speculation about future MS products is strictly prohibited


The EA engineer merely said what ea did about the Wii U

C14N

NTMK wrote: »

I dont see the issue of criticising the Wii U considering EA has said as much about it.
Criticising origin is strange for a senior eng to do

but unlike orth neither create a frenzy of bad press for EA nor did it create bad rumours about a EA product

Orth deserved to be fired because he opened his mouth on a public website and created a **** storm about his employers product, if i did the same thing i would expect to be fired.

Also he was a high level employee with MS game studios so he would have been under an NDA which would have stated that commenting on speculation about future MS products is strictly prohibited


The EA engineer merely said what ea did about the Wii U

There's also the fact that the EA engineer was just having a go at the Wii U console while Orthy was insulting large sections of Microsoft's audience directly.

hooradiation

NTMK wrote: »

Orth deserved to be fired

Debatable.

gizmo

NTMK wrote: »

Orth deserved to be fired because he opened his mouth on a public website and created a **** storm about his employers product, if i did the same thing i would expect to be fired.

Also he was a high level employee with MS game studios so he would have been under an NDA which would have stated that commenting on speculation about future MS products is strictly prohibited

As I said at the time though, Orth wasn't commenting on MS' plans in any way, shape or form, so it had nothing to do with any possible NDA he was under. His position in the company was also grossly exaggerated by the press which was obvious to anyone who spent 30 seconds googling him and taking a look at his LinkedIn page. Doing so wouldn't have resulted in such obscene levels of traffic through the various gaming news sites though.

As was evident with the IGN article on this issue, a similar attempt was made this time around (albeit to a lesser extent) but thankfully it doesn't seem to have caught on as much so fingers crossed Summervill will keep his job. I guess we'll see in the coming weeks.

C14N

gizmo wrote: »

fingers crossed Summervill will keep his job

Why? Not saying you're wrong, just wondering what difference it makes.

gizmo

C14N wrote: »

Why? Not saying you're wrong, just wondering what difference it makes.

You need to ask why I don't want to see guy with a wife and kid fired from his job because of a personal (and non-NDA breaking) opinion expressed on Twitter?