Now there’s been plenty of shifty misdeeds and abuses of power from the game industry. But one of the biggest culprits for such devious acts is EA. With their recent disasters from Mass Effect Andromeda to Star Wars Battlefront 2’s horrendous micro-transactions. Let’s not forget the shifty practice where Ea buys out great developers, uses them and liquidates the studio. You can understand why gamers and even those outside the circle of gamers don’t like them very much.
Electronic Art’s Disappointment In Criticism
I’ve had a bit of an issue with EA twice. The first is related to certain games I’ve bought on the PC a few years back. These were on disc and came with CD-Keys which I discovered they didn’t work, despite being new. EA’s customer service response was in simple terms “too bad”. But another instance involved a review I wrote some years ago on Battlefield: Hardline which didn’t favor. I really didn’t like it, the shoddy gameplay, the terrible execution and above all it cost a brilliant developer it’s life. I even got an email from them stating how displeased they were with my review. What a shame.
They’re the type of guys who don’t take criticism at all well. Others have experienced the wrath of EA in different ways. Humble gamers, YouTube personalities and other critics who’ve spoken out about them have felt the brunt of EA’s mighty hammer. In recent years their influence has staggered.
Star Wars Battlefront 2
Star Wars Battlefront 2 was the icing on the cake as you could ask so many questions for just one of the game’s flaws. Why have micro-transactions in a game? And why didn’t Disney know about these Micro-transactions? Why put them there knowing your game will sell like freaking hotcakes? Did you fear loses or underselling? Well, that happened due to the fact, many people don’t like unbalanced progression or micro-transactions that heavily influence a pay to win scheme. Also, it’s freaking Star Wars, of course, the game will sell massively well!
Watch out Bioware
Recently EA bought Bioware and we’re all worried about what’s going to happen. Visceral brought us Dead Space. After three games, EA had decided to move them to Battlefield Hardline. Now they are dead in the water. EA owns everything this developer had making money while the Visceral is long dead. This is neither the first nor the last developer that had the EA luxury treatment.
Dead Space Dies With Dead Space 3
Visceral wanted Dead Space as a franchise to be horror orientated. Sadly EA wasn’t happy with Dead Space selling over a million units. But being a brand new horror IP this was a big accomplishment. So Visceral struck the perfect balance with Dead Space 2 and it sold close to 3 million units. EA was still not happy with the figures. EA decided to follow Capcom’s example and shift the direction of the series to Action. This didn’t turn out well as EA overspent and were shocked to find out that fans didn’t buy it. Newcomers were also confused on the mix of horror and over the top action.
Illogical Desision Making
Now the games weren’t cheap granted, costing Millions of dollars and with that amount of money being spent, you want a safe investment. But still, why allow Dead Space 3 to be made if there was doubt? EA knew that Dead Space was a hit and the merchandise including animated films, comics and toys were massively popular. Why even make Dead Space 3 if Dead Space 2 was such a failure with “only” 3 million sales?
Just remember publishers do very well on merchandise as it’s cheap to manufacture. You can sell it for 700% more than the cost. So this means EA get the profits and continue to sell Dead Space and its franchise while Visceral remain dead and buried.
Harsh, but then again maybe there’s a reason EA is so ruthless.
EA’s Failure To Sell Original IPs
Many years ago EA was the king of original content. It brought us some of the best FPSs in the late 90’s and early 2000’s with Undying, Black and Time Splitters 3. The problem, gamers didn’t buy them. EA even asked the gaming community if they wanted a Remaster of Time Splitters 1-3, thus igniting the start of Time Splitters 4. Yet this didn’t go so well and EA got cold feet when the response was just “meh”. These games were costly and gamers weren’t bothered to buy these new IPs. EA lost money and decided to make more safe decisions. Similar to Capcom, they refused to remaster any of their classic games. However even they’ve changed and now we’re getting Killer 7 remastered, which they said around 10 years ago was never going to happen.
So I could say we’re part of the problem as it’s annoying to see gamers shout out for original content but turn their noses up at it when it arrives. We’re just happy most of the time to buy every Call of Duty and wait once in a while to buy the Bloodbornes, Sunset Overdrives and so on. EA has suffered big at not poor games but simply bringing new IPs and gamers not caring the least to invest and show interest.
Still, there is no excuse putting into practice ridiculous actions that encourage gambling for a quick buck or buying out talented developers only to shut them down after a fail project encouraged by EA. I can say there’s good in EA and they’ve been screwed over pretty bad at times and it’s understandable why they play most of their projects safe. Even a game like Titanfall 2 which is actually really good suffered from poor sales. Yet this is due to bad timing on their part. Yet they are walking down a dark path and soon enough, they’ll lose the respect of most gamers.