Worst Company in America

[Sophia]

I guess I'm not the only one who is not a fan of EA.

http://consumerist.com/2012/04/congratu ... -2012.html

[raixel]

OMG!

[startEArant] I *&^$ing HATE EA! They made Mass Effect 3 multiplayer! WTF! I had it on pre-order for 2 1/2 years and pulled it when I found that out, as I was already wavering after my Dragon Age 2 fiasco. And Dragon Age 2 was the biggest load o' poop ever made! It was just an excuse cuz they knew Dragon Age was a great game so people would auto-buy their thrown out garbage! I cried when I found out they bought Bioware. They are a bunch of suits looking at charts going "our marketing research says pet sims are popular among 10 year old girls. And thats a market we havent broken into. So we want you to add a pet sim component to this game" Developer: "What? But this is a tower defense space sim! And its in beta and going to be released in 4 months. WTF!?" EA: "Do it, or we'll give your contract to someone who will." (true story too, well exaggerated, but they are known for doing stuff like this)
On top of all that:
When DA2 came out and before I knew it was crap, I bought it used off Amazon, for 5$ less then new. Little did I know that if you buy the game used, EA forces you to pay 13$ to get another activation code (which takes days to show up) or the game wont run AT ALL. So I ended up paying almost 10$ over brand new, taht I coulda taken home and not waited an extra week for the stupid code to arrive, for a game that was CRAP. EA, are you telling me that I don't own the game I just bought?! And I have to have the net, not to play online, but just to enter in some code?! I will never buy anything they put out, even though it kills me cuz of how great Bioware is. [/endEArant]

[oh_brother]

Finally it is official! Lets hope Almost Human don't get bought out by them.

I could not believe that they bought/indoctrinated BioWare, my favourite game studio. Even though I loved DA:O I did not even bother to buy DA2, it just sounded like a rushed cash-grab.

Actually Raixel I bought ME3. It was annoying: day 1 DLC (which I refuse to buy), Origin (meaning net access is necessary), the bit everyone is complaining about, multiplayer (and the outright lies about multiplayer "not being necessary")...but you know what, it still is a great game. 90% of the story is great (10% is definitely not great), most of the characters are well-done (even though all my favourites were in ME2, and they got shafted), shooter part is fun. But it makes me a bit sad to think what could have been if trilogy had been treated right.

[Sophia]

EA, are you telling me that I don't own the game I just bought?!

That's pretty much what every software EULA tells you. However, EA is particularly egregious about it.

I've completely stopped buying/playing Madden because of the crap that they've done to the platform. It used to be a fun football game that you could play local or over the internet with friends. The first thing they did was sign this stupid exclusivity deal with the NFL, so they'd be the only football game in town-- at this point, pretty much all actual innovation in the franchise ground down to a crawl because there was no longer any incentive. They did do a major upgrade for the next-generation (that is, the 360 and PS3) consoles, but then they also released a crappy Wii version and completely dropped PC support. And then, somewhat recently, they integrated the whole thing into their online crap so if you want to play a copy of Madden that you bought used, it tries to connect to the internet and you have to pay them $10 to get some sort of authorization code. This is in addition to the crap they've always done where they pull multiplayer support for any given version of Madden after 2 years anyway.

I'm no fan of GameStop either, really, but, when it comes to buying and playing used games, I'll side with them every time over complete bullshit like this.

[Gambit37]

The only EA game I've bought is Spore and I only got that for the creature creator, so I don't really have any beef with EA. I have read a lot about their crappy policies though and they certainly sound like a money grabbing bunch of wazoks who don't exactly care about their customers... but worse than Bank of America? Hmmm. That says more about who voted on the poll than anything else.

[Sophia]

worse than Bank of America? Hmmm. That says more about who voted on the poll than anything else.

It says that more people who disagree with you voted than people who agree with you?

[Gambit37]

Yes. But it could also imply that the poll was completed by a disproportionately large number of gamers who don't care about the economy, and possibly have their priorities messed up.

[Sophia]

Maybe. I will say, the demographics of "likely to have been screwed over by EA's business practices" and "likely to vote in an internet poll" align.

BoA, like most financial institutions (and oil companies, insurance companies, etc.) is a perpetual contender in the race to the bottom when it comes to ranking bad companies. It's not a big surprise that they'd be on there, given what they've done-- and they've certainly racked up far more awards over the years than EA. So, that being said, I think it says something about how EA really is and how many people they have annoyed that they managed, at least for this brief moment in this brief poll, to beat out so many truly evil companies.

So stop raining on my EA hatefest.

[beowuuf]

Here's a rant article that sort of straddles those points :0

http://www.gamefront.com/is-eas-dlc-wor ... reclosure/

[Gambit37]

Darn, I'm sorry Sophia, please don't let me stop you. Continue the EA hatefest

[Jan]

I'd prefer a hatefeast. Or any feast.

But, yeah, Sophia, do go on, please! *grabs a box of popcorn and sits comfortably in his armchair*

[Sophia]

Well, you could always have a feast of popcorn. I wouldn't recommend it, though.
(There have been a couple of times I haven't had dinner and then watched a movie, so I basically ate too much popcorn for dinner. Not the best idea.)

There isn't much to go on with. I've posted my rant and a couple others have done the same.
If anyone else has had bad experiences with EA, go ahead.

[lord soth 75]

Capcom are catching EA very quickly with their disgusting treatment of the consumers.

Back in the day, a fighting game would ship with a roster of characters,and IF there were any 'secret' characters they would Unlock by meeting certain criteria,or by multiple playthroughs.

Capcom have recently stooped to extreme levels of scumbaggery with the release of the Street Fighter X Tekken game.
Hackers of the game discovered a plethora of content on the game disc that is 'Locked' and will only unlock once you pay more money for it.
The content i speak about is not just cosmetic extra content either.It is NEW characters.12 extra characters ARE ON THE DISC I ALREADY PAID £50 FOR....And Capcom expect me to pay another fee to be able to use them.

Now...whilst DLC isn't particularly a problem in games like Halo (map packs ect),it is a MASSIVE problem when it comes to a fighting game.How the hell do they expect a fighting game to be competative at tournament level when a third of the roster are either disc locked,or exclusive to one system or another???

Its akin to going into Mcdonalds and paying £6 for a Big Mac and fries,and only getting the fries.
When you ask where the Big Mac is,the cashier tells you that you will need to pay an extra £2 for each bite of the burger.

DLC is one of the major things that is pissing me off with console gaming.

[raixel]

Finally it is official! Lets hope Almost Human don't get bought out by them.

I could not believe that they bought/indoctrinated BioWare, my favourite game studio. Even though I loved DA:O I did not even bother to buy DA2, it just sounded like a rushed cash-grab.

Actually Raixel I bought ME3. It was annoying: day 1 DLC (which I refuse to buy), Origin (meaning net access is necessary), the bit everyone is complaining about, multiplayer (and the outright lies about multiplayer "not being necessary")...but you know what, it still is a great game. 90% of the story is great (10% is definitely not great), most of the characters are well-done (even though all my favourites were in ME2, and they got shafted), shooter part is fun. But it makes me a bit sad to think what could have been if trilogy had been treated right.

Good for you, that you didnt buy DA2. It *was* a rushed cash grab. Although, I don't remember the exact line, but in DA2 a random person in a town basically makes a dig at EA, saying about how "they dont make em like they used to, and now its all about the money". I wish for the life of me I could remember the actual line, cuz it was obviously a slighly-veiled dig from the people at Bioware to EA about how much DA2 sucks.

As far as ME3 goes, it kills me to not buy it. 1 and 2 are some of my fav modern games of all time. But what it came down to was if I bought it, I am saying it's ok for EA to act the way it does, to put out crap games just for the money, to treat us all like pirates, and treat its developers like disposable trash. Every gamer that says "I hate EA, but I buy their games cuz I want to play them", is telling EA that the way they act is ok.

So no, I won't buy it. Ever. Frankly, if they didnt have Bioware, I'd never even be interested in any of the crap they put out. I'd buy it used, once someone figures out how to make it so I can play the game without having to send EA 13$. I am totally against pirating cuz I have a lot of friends in the video game industry, but the bare fact that EA treats me like one makes me WANT to pirate their games.

[Sophia]

http://i.imgur.com/acZEd.jpg

I like how they write it in such a matter-of-fact way and not, oh, "On May 31, we are screwing you out of the product you paid for. Thanks for bending over!"

This kind of thing is why I am pretty against purely digital distribution. It's just too easy to pull crap like this.

[Gambit37]

Huh!? WTF is that!?

[Sophia]

Basically, people who bought and paid for iOS Rock Band are being told that after May 31 they can no longer play it. Since this is the wonderful world of digital distribution where companies have control over everything, there's really nothing customers can do about that.

The best part is: At least as of me writing this post, the game is still on sale for $5 in the app store.

[Gambit37]

That's nuts How long has the game been out? If I buy it tomorrow, does it tell me that first, or only after I've bought it and installed it? Is this an EA game?

I see now why you were so annoyed about them! It's a shady practice and no mistake. Anyway, how can they stop you from playing it? Do they send some kind of nuke code to your device!!?

[PadTheMad]

I knew that they could terminate the online features of a game with 30 days notice, as they have done with numerous games in the past (which makes sense if nobody's playing them), and that Rock Band has licensing issues which is probably why they're shutting it down, but not to have heard about this happening before today and to keep it on sale is a tad wrong.

I've just checked the description on the App Store and the description makes no mention of it, but makes plenty of references to other EA games that you can buy! The cheek! http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rock-ban ... 07161?mt=8

[oh_brother]

Wow. Unbelievable.

But now they are claiming it was an "error". It was a mistake that the in-game message popped up. And coincidently another mistake that the FAQs confirmed this and said things like:

I've heard Rock Band will not be available after May 31. Is this true?
Yes, we will be suspending support of Rock Band after May 31 and focusing resources on other EA titles. We thank everyone for playing Rock Band, and we encourage you to explore some of the other exciting titles in our mobile line-up.

Can I still play Rock Band if I've already downloaded it?
The Rock Band servers will be live through May 31, 2012. If you have already downloaded the game, you can continue to play until then.

At a wild guess I would say that the outcry and negative publicity made them change their minds. But it is frightening how few rights you have if they can disable your purchased games at will (and this particular game can apparently even be played off-line!!)

Makes me extra wary of EA, and about buying on-line games in general.

[raixel]

Since Ive already ranted in this thread a whole lot about how much EA sucks and I hate them... all I can say is:

*sigh* :facepalm:.

Wow. Thats a new low, even for them. Can't say it surprised me though. Since they did a backpedal I'm wondering if it was a test to see the kind of reaction they would get, like they wanted to see if they could pull it off or how strong property laws were? And then a lawyers like "You know, theres a very good chance you could get a class action lawsuit about this..." Cuz I couldn't really see anything else making them care. It certainly wasn't because of customer satisfaction, I can pretty much assure you of that.

And as far as online/multiplayer games, I dont play them. Period. Even if I'm going through Steam looking to spend some $, and a game looks cool but has Singleplayer Multiplayer/Co-Op listed instead of just singleplayer I wont buy it. And as far as digital download, I trust Valve. They really care about their fans. So I don't see them pulling a game like that. I'm a bit comfused. Was this an online rock band, so the servers are going down? Then why would they not let people play it offline? Was that there wasnt an offline component?

(slightly related amusing story about generally why I dont play multiplayer)

The *one* time I played multiplayer (A game I was good at and played a lot singleplayer, too) with a microphone, within 5 minutes I was getting cussed out by a squeaky voiced kid who hadn't even gone through puberty yet. Just because I was female and beating him. And he cussed in that really funny way little kids do when they don't know how to do it properly, so they pause before they say the words, and say them too much/in the wrong places, or too loud. That was an interesting experience, let me tell you. I can't say Ive ever had a 7-9 year old try and cuss me out before. He got even madder when I started laughing and telling him to cuss properly, did he want lessons, which made other people in the game snicker. Then his voice got even higher the swearing more ridiculous. So I laughed more. It was amusing, but not in the way that makes me want to play online multiplayer w/strangers.

[beowuuf]

At leats with Portal 2 you can't only speak to eahc other with non-obscene gestures

[Ameena]

Portal 2 Co-Op was brilliant - me and Ja'Ph' burned through it in one weekend . Want more! But the editor comes out on Tuesday so maybe you'll be able to make co-op maps in that (though I've not heard anything implying that you can so maybe it's only for single-player use).
As for MMOs, I'm waiting till EQC* is ready to play and then I'll be there! Free, nostalgia-fest, great community, all the fun from when I first played it eleven years ago but this time I'll have my own account, and won't have to pay anything . I'm not particularly interested in any commercial MMOs currently available - from what I've heard, most of them seem to be basically copying WoW in some way because it's so popular. Which means they're probably horribly dumbed-down and with a "community" consisting of a majority of lowest-common-denominator players. Meanwhile I'll stick to single-player games and playing on my Minecraft server with Ja'Ph' .


*Everquest Classic, eqclassic.org I think is the webby for it

[ZalewaPL]

I'm surprised that no one mentioned yet that Origin is basically a Trojan horse that scans all files in your system. They say that its looking for other EA games that you might have pirated.

Also, EA likes to insert unskippable credits intros into their games.

[beowuuf]

Wow, even Microsoft needed to back away from that and said that any Windows rooting around when you installed an update was just for information for marketing/updating, and I think it was an opt-in!

[ZalewaPL]

Why bother? People are going to buy their games anyway.

[raixel]

And its your attitude of "why bother" that makes companies like EA think their behavior is ok. For every person who cares enough to say "I'm not gonna stand for this", is a person that makes a difference. And for someone like me who spends probably a total of 200+ dollars a *month* on video games, thats money that could be going to EA, but wont. All it takes is enough people pissed off, and suddenly theres a lot of 50-60$ sales that aren't being made. And I know I'm not the only gamer out there that wont buy EA's products. Ive talked to many people that refuse to give them $.

Apathy, the curse of the modern world... Sheesh.

[Sophia]

I refuse to give them any money too!

Of course, I don't matter... game companies hate me anyway because I mostly buy heavily discounted or used games.

[raixel]

Well ya, but then theres Steam! I usually buy used games too, but I like to support indie developers by buying their games on Steam, and also a mainstream game gets discounted after a time, but (afaik) they still get some $, if you buy it digitally on Steam. Steam steam steam! Best thing that ever happened to gaming! It makes it possible for games like Legend of Grimrock to be popular and well-distributed, and it breaks the stranglehold companies like EA and their cookie-cutter games have on the market. I actually dont think Ive bought a AAA game since Skyrim, and dont plan to, cuz none of em really intrest me compared to indie/old games. I was getting fed up with the modern game market, cuz Id go to the game store and be like yuk, yuk, yuk, not interested, this one is just a clone of (game x), I dont want to pay 50$ for that, yuk and so on.

It does kinda make me happy that Gamestop (which is also a big corporation) is fighting EA on the Origins thing, cuz they make so much money on used games, and EA's trying to stop it. I think what will eventually happen is a lawsuit, cuz thats usually what happens when a big evil corperation tries to throw its weight around and tweaks out another big corporation.

I noticed its interesting that a lot of other big companies are using EA as kind of the monster under the bed, as in see, its not that bad, we juts ban multiplayer if you dont register, or hey, we could be like EA, but we're not. Also, in the financial world, EA is *known* for trying to do hostile takeovers of other companies. (for those of you who dont know what that is, its when a company(EA) makes a buying offer for another company(company 2), and company 2 refuses. So EA slowly starts buying up all of company 2's stock, or somehow starts strangleholding company 2. Even though company 2 doesnt want to be owned by them, EA ends up a majority shareholder and owning them anyway). Hostile takeovers are accepted in the business world, but a company that gets a reputation for them generally isnt seen in a good light.

[ZalewaPL]

And its your attitude of "why bother" that makes companies like EA think their behavior is ok. For every person who cares enough to say "I'm not gonna stand for this", is a person that makes a difference. And for someone like me who spends probably a total of 200+ dollars a *month* on video games, thats money that could be going to EA, but wont. All it takes is enough people pissed off, and suddenly theres a lot of 50-60$ sales that aren't being made. And I know I'm not the only gamer out there that wont buy EA's products. Ive talked to many people that refuse to give them $.

Apathy, the curse of the modern world... Sheesh.

No no no, I didn't mean "Why should we bother", but "Why should they bother" - they as in EA. But still the fact is that many people will not bother about what EA, or any company for that matter, does if their product more or less works.