Anyone else hate EA?

Are you allergic to message boards and game reviews, Lord of Conquest got plenty of feedback from consumers on how it feel short. A lot of people like SimCity 4, and SIm City Societies has series technical issues late in teh game. You also need to lay some blame on the developers. Hey, I am not an EA lover by any stretch of your imagination, but it sounds to me you are throwing your money around without any research. Maybe this is the part where I should tell you the City XL is boring as hell and not getting much good feedback. My favorite part is where they say you don't have to pay to play the game but you don't get mass tran without paying their monthly fee. It's a a slow boring game that tacks on a monthly fee for fun. No thanks.

sadly EA games has gone downhill, there was a time when EA games Label was a good thing to see

anymore I ignore who made the game and check as many reviews as possible about the game to see if it is worth buying, and yes there are still some reviewers that give reviews that are not colored by outsiders

Lord of Conquest was 15 dollars, and I have plenty of money. I'm just talking about the Quality of Games from EA games is poor. Besides if I Listened to half the reviews I have seen on the internet, I wouldn't have most the games I really like, or watched half the movies I really liked.

Quoting Mogmoogle,

reply 3

Lord of Conquest was 15 dollars, and I have plenty of money. I'm just talking about the Quality of Games from EA games is poor. Besides if I Listened to half the reviews I have seen on the internet, I wouldn't have most the games I really like, or watched half the movies I really liked.

Well then it looks like you are not looking for a solution to your problem but want to vent against EA. Go ahead. I don't "hate" EA as it's a company. I dislike a lot of their games and i choose not to purchase even more due to their DRM practices. Like the other person mentioned, I don't pay nearly as much attention to the publishers anymore as they've all pretty shown to be unreliable at best.

Actually, I see glimmers that EA is starting to move in a positive direction. And at least they're willing to try creating some new material, as opposed to Activision.

EA raped Spore.........a game I had been looking forward to for years.........ruined.

I see no change in EA Games' behaviour so far. They recently released a new Need for Speed that's actually good - I bet they churn out over-priced downloadable content for it, and then release too many sequels. They seem to throw cards at a dart board, and once one sticks in, they go with it until they can't milk it any more.

SPORE is a shadow of it's former self. I bought Galactic Adventures, which at least makes Space Stage bareable, however it doesn't change that the game in it's BETA demo SPORE had more features and content than the retail release. Considering Will Wright left Maxis after it was shipped, and he created that company, and they recently fired off a load of Maxis employees, I'm guessing the fans weren't the only ones unhappy with SPORE. It had potential to be the greatest game of all time - the annoying part is they already pulled off the impossible part of an entire Galaxy of content at your finger tips and failed at pretty much everything else.

Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth 2 is, in my opinion, the best RTS out of all the C&C/StarCraft derived ones out there, and the expansion is brilliant as well. Mass Effect is one of the few great single-player RPGs that have been released recently for the PC, and Mirror's Edge has gotten pretty good opinions though I haven't played it yet.

Do they release trash that would've been best burned and buried under half a ton of lead? sure, but so do all other companies, it's just that they have the indecency to market them just as aggresively as their decent titles, and due to their size they still sell (see also: Spore). But they do have their good games, and with their recent move away from DRM they've gained my support as well.

I'm with the OP on this one. I try to read up on games before I buy them, like at least one review, but see the EA logo as a gigantic warning label, interpretable as "this game is NOT suitible for people with an IQ higher than a glass of water"

I can't think of a single company/franchise/game series they've bought out and subsequently failed to completely ruin. They're like a gigantic killer slug, snatching victims and sucking the creativity and life out of them.

Quoting DraekAlmasy,

reply 8

Do they release trash that would've been best burned and buried under half a ton of lead? sure, but so do all other companies, it's just that they have the indecency to market them just as aggresively as their decent titles, and due to their size they still sell (see also: Spore). But they do have their good games, and with their recent move away from DRM they've gained my support as well.

This.

Quoting Nesrie,

reply 1

Maybe this is the part where I should tell you the City XL is boring as hell and not getting much good feedback. My favorite part is where they say you don't have to pay to play the game but you don't get mass tran without paying their monthly fee. It's a a slow boring game that tacks on a monthly fee for fun. No thanks.

Awww... I had my eye on City XL and on paper it seemed like an interesting premise. Pity.

Sim City 4 is a good game for me, but I would like it if neighboring territories were a little more automated. Not easy making fully self sufficent lots yet.

Quoting PegasusJF,

reply 11

Quoting Nesrie,
reply 1
Maybe this is the part where I should tell you the City XL is boring as hell and not getting much good feedback. My favorite part is where they say you don't have to pay to play the game but you don't get mass tran without paying their monthly fee. It's a a slow boring game that tacks on a monthly fee for fun. No thanks.

Awww... I had my eye on City XL and on paper it seemed like an interesting premise. Pity.

Sim City 4 is a good game for me, but I would like it if neighboring territories were a little more automated. Not easy making fully self sufficent lots yet.

I was into something else when Sim City 4 came out, but I loved the original and 2000 and play all sorts of sim/strategy games. City XL is just lacking something. They have a 7 day limited demo so go try it. Really though, it lacks life. There doesn't seem to be any evolving and, as my sister would say, their online portion seems to be as interesting as buy and selling water. Pretty sure they missed the mark on this one and not just with me.

As for EA, sure, they're going nuts with microtransactions on top of full priced game on top of expansion and stuff packs (pure greed there), and their DRM stance is wishy washie, pretty dependent on how pissed off fans get before they release a game, they destroyed Spore, but Battle for Middle Earth II was awesome, I enjoy the Sims franchise (for the most part), and people liked some of the recent RPGs (titles i skipped over because of DRM), they also publish Left4Dead so its a mixed bag that I am not willing to avoid entirely but yes, yes I research all my games now, largely due to EA's behavior actually.

As for LotR: Conquest, I was interested at first but was turned off as soon as I found out about the details. From what I heard it sounded like SW Battlefront 2 with some LotR characters and pretty much nothing to do with the series at all. The moment I heard about the character classes I promised myself I would not buy the game.

As for me I have nothing against EA. On contrary. Yes, I refused tu buy Spore because of the stupid DRM. On the other hand I like their effort they made in my country releasing Dragon Age: Origins. They decided to add the Prima guide (the same it is available for 15 bucks worldwide) for free. Well it is not quite the same - ours has 200 pages, while the paid version has 300 pages. However such behavior is good. I would have bought this game anyway, however this is great reward for not pirating the game and it is better than all bloody DRMs.

EA does still have a few good IP's left. Sadly though for the most part they make crap. I'd say one out of every 8 or 9 games they put out is decent. My wife is big into the Sims so of course I had to get her Sim 3. I's decent for a Sims game. EA's lost my respect for their decision to stop porting a lot of titles to the PC. Even a crappy port of some games is better then not being able to play the game at all. Lately I've solved that problem though. I have a Wii, a X-Box 360, and two PC's, so I'm good across all the platforms except PS3 exclusives.

Quoting DraekAlmasy,

reply 8

Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth 2 is, in my opinion, the best RTS out of all the C&C/StarCraft derived ones out there, and the expansion is brilliant as well.

Totally agree about BFME2. Excellent game--I still regularly play it. I have nothing against EA. They have made some excellent games and some duds as well. What offended me most about them was the draconian DRM with online activation AND limited installs. I simply will not buy games with DRM that greatly restrict my rights as a consumer. However, I was pleased to learn that Dragon Age will only have a disk-check as DRM, which is a sign that EA has heard at least some of the consumer complaints.

EA has been making an effort in the last couple of years to do better. While they still put out lousy licensed IP games, they've also been working at putting out more original stuff. Sometimes that doesn't always pan out (Mirrors Edge could have been better then it was), but thats the risk of doing new stuff.

They did pick up Brutal Legend after it was abandoned though, and for doing that they got a +1 from me. At the moment Activision is trying to become what EA was in the past: buying stuff and churning out sequels until its run into the ground.

Quoting the_hunger,

reply 16

However, I was pleased to learn that Dragon Age will only have a disk-check as DRM, which is a sign that EA has heard at least some of the consumer complaints.

You can thank the Devs from Bioware for that one. EA had little say in the matter.

My guess is for many independant game developers EA was the pot at the end of the rainbow. Developers were creative, worked hard, developed solid IPs; then, "cha ching" EA swoops in and buys the whole company. Now the original owner has to serve out their contracted time which is maybe a year or two. Then what do you know they leave and open up a new studio to start all over. Except now they have a big house, sweet boat, hot wife, and for some even a trip to space. Think about it. Peter M. at Bullfrog - Richard G. at Orgin etc. etc. They've all cashed in thanks to EA. So while EA has a unique talent for killing successful IPs and Development teams they have been a boon for CEO's of development companies. I'm with all of you though I miss some of those old companies.

Quoting Raven X,

reply 18

You can thank the Devs from Bioware for that one.

While this is likely true...

EA had little say in the matter.

...this likely is not. EA owns BioWare and you can be sure they have a lot of say in the matter. But I suspect BioWare did put a lot of pressure on EA about it, after the uproar caused by Mass Effect's DRM scheme.

I hate EA too. You know that they are the reason we haven't been playing Dragon Age for the past 6 to 8 months or so. Since EA is publishing it, they made Bioware wait till the console versions were complete to launch them at the same time. Bioware initially was going to release the PC version first and then put out the console versions at a later date.

Yeah, I just don't buy EA games anymore. They're well past third strike in my books. Maybe in a few years I might give them another chance, but with the pain of Spore still fairly fresh it'll be a while.

Quoting TheDude37,

reply 21

I hate EA too. You know that they are the reason we haven't been playing Dragon Age for the past 6 to 8 months or so. Since EA is publishing it, they made Bioware wait till the console versions were complete to launch them at the same time. Bioware initially was going to release the PC version first and then put out the console versions at a later date.

Well this certainly sounds like EA, they are not the only one doing this sort of thing. Seems like a lot of companies are giving consoles preferences these days.

Quoting Coelocanth,

reply 20

EA had little say in the matter.

...this likely is not. EA owns BioWare and you can be sure they have a lot of say in the matter. But I suspect BioWare did put a lot of pressure on EA about it, after the uproar caused by Mass Effect's DRM scheme.

I've had my eye on Dragon Age for almost 2 years now. I've read just about every article and forum post I could get my hands on. The BioWare team had a HUGE internal debate with the people from EA about the DRM for Dragon Age. This "debate" almost led to Bioware CEO Ray Muzyka leaving his own company and taking half of his employees with him. In fact when the phrase "Contract Negligence" came up in reference to him quitting he was quoted as saying "Contact be damned, I can buy my way out of it". I'd say they felt pretty strongly on the matter. BioWare has been making games since their Black Isle days and they were always on the "less protection" side of the fence because they knew the consumers hated intrusive DRM and would sometimes boycott games entirely over the issue.

Need For Speed: Shift would be the arrow I'd broke for EA at this moment. What a cool game, man!.

Just my current 2 cents

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