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AndrewB

Apparently EA sucks

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I just got a hot tip that Electronic Arts is a bad video game company. Apparently this has something to do with the fact that they're not good.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/

I thought that this was a really interesting read. I think this is a prime example of the shape that the industry is in. I think the problem is that developers are using old techniques/strategies on new technology, and so the amount of work becomes unmanageable.

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These are the same people that make the same tired sports game year after year. Is this a surprise? Personally, I don't see how EA can expect anyone to take them seriously. I mean, really. What was the last major game that EA produced that wasn't lauded by the same drunken frat boys that thought Goldeneye was a good game? I can't think of one. Please, tell me.

Bottom line, if you do nothing but ship shit, you've just made all of your employees shit-shifters. Nobody's going to stand for eighty-hours weeks on a project that involves fecal matter, no matter the pay.

DC

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Doom-Child said:

What was the last major game that EA produced that wasn't lauded by the same drunken frat boys that thought Goldeneye was a good game? I can't think of one. Please, tell me.

Well, technically, the Battlefield 1942/Vietnam series, but they didn't really make it.

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Goldeneye was a great game because it was artistic in every factor: its music, sound, level design, and atmosphere. The developers knew how to build up tension and provide ultimate replayability value.

But yes, a company that produces the same series of games year after year is not a game company that challenges everything; it is a money farm.

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AndrewB said:

Goldeneye was a great game because it was artistic in every factor: its music, sound, level design, and atmosphere. The developers knew how to build up tension and provide ultimate replayability value.

I found it to be boring, repetitive, and unimaginative.

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That's understandable. I feel the same way about Memento, The Usual Suspects, and Chinatown: three highly touted movies.

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Every time you play The Sims, God makes an angel throw a flaming baby into a box of kittens and then mustard gasses the lot of them.

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I read this before. And geez, what is EA thinking to just rehash everything and make slaves of their hundreds of people just to get things done? Doesn't The Sims have, like, 10 expansion packs by now?

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Interesting dee-lee.

I myself am not a very big fan of sport games, and I find it odd that there are new hockey, football and whatnot games released every year. I have a few Electronic Arts games, as when I had a step dad, he worked for EA, and often when he bought us games, they were from EA. Though the last EA game I was really fond of was one of the older Need for Speed games when I was younger.

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I think "money farm" sums EA up pretty accurately. It's prettly clear there's no passion or creativity over there. It's all about turning the biggest profit possible over there. And if that means you need to fuck over a team of engineers for a few months (it's not like they have much choice), then so be it.

Anyway, I have friends who've worked there. The place seems to be a royal hell hole.

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I've been angry with EA ever since they killed off Origin Systems (creators of the Ultima series). The shameless milking of the Sims franchise led that anger to hatred, and killing off Westwood Studios (Command and Conquer, etc) led that hatred to the Dark Side.

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killing off Westwood Studios (Command and Conquer, etc) led that hatred to the Dark Side

Why I hate EA so much myself. All they gave us was Generals and that game just plain stinks.

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EA is an old company - and it's outlasted its usefulness. I won't mind if they go down the drain. Hopefully if they do go down, the result will be a couple smaller companies that produce quality games - hey, a man can dream right? :-P

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Hrm, I saw this on another forum. *goes to get comment from there*

I wrote on another forum:
Even though this isn't exactly... objective... I can see where she's coming from. This is just an example of what happens when big companies get too cocky... a chink in the armor forms, in this case someone's BS detector finally goes off.

[rant]EA Games... the fact that a company can make so much money (2.5 billion, was it?) a year cranking out mostly sports titles (which is what we see on TV ads, anyway) speaks volumes about the population of gamers these days. I mean, I love new game technology as much as the next guy, but I can't help but groan every time I see/hear about some guy who just got an Xbox and buys, like 3 or 4 sports titles a year for his system. Wonderful... feeding two huge giants (Microsoft and EA) at once for half-assed games that, for some inexplicable reason, need to be updated every year. I can almost hear the sports-game addicts yelling "OMG I can't play last years version!!1" every time a new one comes out. But you wouldn't catch these guys playing the classic NES games... heaven forbid they play something that isn't 1337.[/rant]

That said, I can see the fall of EA Games, at least eventually. EA is not just a games corporation, correct? They're like Microsoft in this respect: make a killing on one very focused market. But I think this can only last for so long. Just look at Microsoft... out of all three companies it has the most marketing muscle, and it's probably going to be the first to die.

Anyway... this is certainly a sad story. Although, in fairness, you have to remind yourself that you can't get all worried about every one of the world's problems. We're only human, and if we try to solve everything we can only drive ourselves insane.

As far as I can see, we need only wait - eventually one of two things will happen: (a) the bulk of the employees will decide it's not worth it and leave, or (b) more BS detectors will go off - and when that happens often enough people tend to do crazy things (and heaven help you if you're the target of said crazy things).

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I never did understand the need to release new sports titles every god damned year. Oh wow, the graphics are very,very slightly improved, and not much is different. But hey, it's new, so it's guaranteed to make a jillion dollars on sales. We wouldn't want anyone playing a game that's a year old, would we?

I strongly dislike EA. Most of their games suck. Namely, the Sims. It got boring about 10 expansion packs ago. The Sims 2 isn't that much different either, besides the improved graphics. Shame on you Maxis. I'm sure your next The Sims expansion will be just the same old bullshit over again, with a little bit added crap that nobody really need anyways.

I used to play Red Alert 2 alot, though. I lost any and all respect for the C&C series after Generals came out. What a load of horse-shit.

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I knew EA was Ass ever since they Ruined Goldeneye[with Rogue Agent] and Medal of Honor.As for their sports games,They suck too.All they do is repackage the same Garbage with Slightly pretty Graphics every year.And Need for Speed Sucks.I use to be a fan of NFS till that shitty Midnight Club wannabe Underground came out.Screw EA.

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footman said:

Need for Speed 3 was the pinnacle of the series, imo. I loved the police system. :D


Agreed.Thats game came out back when EA actually made good games.

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That's the price you pay to work for such a monstrous company. EA's the most successful third party video game company in the world. Their titles dominate every single game genre there is. If EA was to go first party and make their own console, all other console-dependant companies would perhaps implode from their lack of titles. But I don't need to tell anyone that.

I mean, really. What was the last major game that EA produced that wasn't lauded by the same drunken frat boys that thought Goldeneye was a good game? I can't think of one. Please, tell me.


The Command and Conquer series pretty much owns it.

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EA hasn't made a good game since they called themselves "ECA".

*Wonders if anyone remembers the old logo*

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Numbermind said:

EA hasn't made a good game since they called themselves "ECA".

I dunno, even in the old days EA didn't release many decent in-house games. Only 688 Attack Sub, Budokan and Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer are really regarded as classics.

Or did you actually mean "published" rather than "made"?

BTW you guys might want to bear in mind that every other major games publisher is just as guilty of greed and stupidy as EA.

EIDOS: responsible for destroying off my favourite developer of all time, Looking Glass Studios (the money which should have been given to LGS was spent on Daikatana instead :()

Activision: kept churning out an endless wave of crappy Star Trek games, and would almost certainly still be doing so had they not lost the license.

Sierra/Vivendi: tried their hardest to kill the adventure game.

LucasArts: abandoned the adventure game in its hour of need, in favour of hordes of terrible Star Wars games (though admittedly they do come out with the odd decent one).

Interplay: lost sight of what makes a good game so badly that it ended up killing them.

Infogrames/Atari: the least said about them, the better... :(

Lord FlatHead said:

What did the 'C' stand for ?

IIRC they've always been called EA. The 'ECA' thing came about because their old logo looks like it says ECA, but actually doesn't. 'Course I could be wrong :).

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Or you could be right.


I don't know, I'd assumed that was it.

Anyway, Chuck Yeager's Flight Simulator was the shit. So was:

Archon
Caveman Ugh-lymipics
Bard's Tale
Adventure Construction Set
Arctic Fox
Hard Hat Mack
Marble Madness
Jordan vs. Bird
Skate or Die
Racing Destruction Set

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