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| By Solomon Carreiro |
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| By: Adam Zimmerman |
And NOW! On Youtube: Our Honest View http://www.youtube.com/user/OurHonestView
With the recent announcement that Electronic Arts (EA) is abandoning its much-loathed online pass program, I began to ask myself, “is EA actually developing a conscience?” The conclusion that I came to was..... maybe. - By Adam Zimmerman
Now before I get a thousand hate letters calling me an idiot and asking if I’ve lost my mind, here me out.
Now, for the few of you who don’t already know, an online pass is a one time use code that needed to be entered before you could access any of a game’s online features, whether it was actually playing against others online, or just downloading extra content for the game.
These codes came packaged with every new copy of a game, and could be purchased for ten dollars by those that bought the game pre-owned. When EA first launched this program back in 2010, gamers across the world raged, calling EA everything from a bunch of money sucking leaches to words that I cannot print in this article.
Soon after a few other companies such as Ubisoft and Activision started using online passes in their games as well. Now, the businessperson side of me could understand why they would do it. They wanted people to buy their games new because they don’t make money on used copies of a game, and this was a way to convince people to buy new. I may not have liked it, but I understood.
EA’s stated reason for abandoning the online pass is, according to Jeff Brown, EA’s VP of corporate communications, gamers didn’t like it. They tried it out for a little while, realized gamers seriously disliked the program, so they stopped. Now obviously I don’t believe that this is the only reason that they ditched the program, but if it even played a part in their decision-making, then to me it’s a good thing. Now you might say, just the possibility of EA listening to their customers does not the beginning of a conscience make, and I would agree, but that is just the beginning of my argument.
My next argument comes from the sports division of EA. Arguably the second most popular sport in the entire world right now is basketball, behind football here is the US, and futbol/soccer in the rest of the world. There is a lot of money to be made with a basketball video game. The last basketball game that EA released however came out way back in 2009, which was NBA Live 2010. They haven’t released one since. They made one. It just never got released because EA realized it was so bad that they didn’t want to release it and they haven’t been able to get it right since then so fans of NBA Live continue to wait. No matter how bad the game was; EA could have released it, made a few million bucks, and continued to put a new iteration out each year and kept trying to make it better. They didn’t do that though, and have sacrificed millions of dollars all in the name of quality control. That’s not exactly something a bunch of money sucking leaches would do.
My last argument involves EA’s purchase of Bioware. Back in 2007, fans of Bioware were horrified that one of the best RPG maker’s in the industry had been bought by the dreaded EA. Fans feared that EA would start making Bioware pump games out every year like their sports games. They also feared that the EA would start insisting upon creative changes and generally just seriously damaging the high quality of games Bioware was (and still is) known for.
These fears have proved unfounded in the long run. In fact, Bioware has been able to do more than they could before with EA’s massive financial resources at their disposal. EA has also stayed out of Bioware’s way, letting them keep their brand identity, and not interfering creatively with Bioware at all.
The cynic in me says that none of this has anything to do with EA developing a conscience. It’s all just good business sense. The online pass program wasn’t dropped because gamers did not like it. It was dropped because it was affecting their downloadable content sales. Not coming out with a basketball game hasn’t been about quality assurance. It’s been that the money that they could have made off a crappy basketball game wasn’t worth the marketing time and effort. The money saved by not publishing and promoting a bad game could be used elsewhere with much better results. Lastly, staying out of Bioware’s way was an easy decision. Why make the effort to get involved in the making of a game when they can just sit back, do some advertising, and reap the huge financial benefits?
In the end, it seems as though EA, the evil empire of the video game world, is pulling a Darth Vader on all of us. Yes they may seem mostly evil, and it is pretty awful to work for them, but deep down there is some good there. They have not entirely forgotten that they make games for gamers. They don’t make games just to make more money for their stockholders (though they have to do that too). Maybe these signs of having a conscience will allow people to see that they aren’t so bad after all. So keep it up EA. Maybe, just maybe, if you keep doing good things for gamers, they might actually start to like you again.
Now let's talk about EA's relationship with Nintendo! - By Solomon Carreiro
It truly breaks down to
Electronic Arts Vs Nintendo or EA vs the Video Game Industry.
I was looking at writing this before EA’s Bob Summerwill’s
tweets came out, back when news that Madden was not going to make an appearance
in Big N’s newest console. Back when news that Frostbite wouldn’t work on Wii
U, but then EA had said that no new games was in the works for Wii U then a few
days later EA was talking about how Frostbite could be made to work on smart
phones and tablets.
It almost seemed like a shot at Nintendo, but a major leader in Video Games
wouldn’t do that, would they?
“The Wii U is Crap. Less Powerful than XBOX360. Poor
online/Store. Weird tablet. Nintendo are walking dead at this point.”
“Nintendo are still operating like it’s 1990. They should
have “done a Sega” and offered Mario/Zelda as PS4/Durango Exclusives.”
“Instead they make this awful console, and this…” (link to
Nintendo online store for Wii U) “ … Just stop it! Just make great games!”
“It is utterly intentional Decision to focus our resources
which actually matter… like mobile, and Gen4.”
“One more :-). Nintendo platforms have always been very poor
revenue-wise for third parties. Only Mario and Zelda make money.”
-Quotes on Twitter from Bob Summerwill showing EA’s cockier unprofessional side.
This has been bubbling up for well more than a year when
Nintendo was looking at 3rd parties for handling its online systems.
EA was pushing its ORIGIN system and wanted full control over all Nintendo
online titles (Mario Kart, Smash Bros) and would have basically taken over
“Nintendo Network” and was something that made Nintendo Back out of
Negotiations.
EA Had originally planed on supporting the Wii U with a lot of
titles but after the break down it had only 3 scheduled at launch and had no
budget behind them. Madden and FIFA 13 were basically Madden 12 and FIFA 12
while Mass Effect was a buggy port.
Criteron (the makers of Need For Speed Most
Wanted) had no marketing behind the Superior Wii U version of its game and
called out to web sites to see the amazing finished product. The games director
was talking how much more powerful the Wii U is over the 360 and PS3 and was
easily pushing PC graphics. Unfortunately this is the company EA actually is.
Back when Sega was in the “Console War” EA had major grips
that Sega was Making Football, Basketball and other games that competed
directly and beat them in sales. When The Dreamcast was released EA would not
support it so Sega went and bought some talent to make sports games. The 2k
sports line was born and was such a successes that EA had to start buying full
rights to make games for the NFL Exclusively. EA tried to do the same with the NBA, FIFA and MBL.
What I come away from all this is that EA is the Walmart of
the Video game industry.
They strong-arm companies into cheaper dev costs and
discounts on dev kits. They are more that happy to buy out companies and gut
them to mill out recycled games and game ideas back into the consumer’s hands.
Honestly how wouldn’t be happy with just an update as DLC on their favorite
sports title rather than having to plunk down $60US a pop for what is basically
roster and UI (user interface) updates? Im typing and my hand is raised. They
have been voted the worse company in America to work for two years in a row.
Give it a year or two and im sure we will have documentaries on them destroying
the video game industry… well probably not. But the Wii had hardly any EA
support and came out number one, try to name one EA game on Wii that isn’t
Madden or medal of Honor! Okay Need for Speed good point.
But when the Wii U get
legs behind it (ZELDA and Smash Bros are released) then I can guarantee that
like a gold digger EA will be back.
Hate or love EA they do have a presence on the Video Game industry and a tight grip on the revenue aspect... Only time will tell with next gen consoles if it's worth investing in EA games!
What are your thoughts on EA?
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