EA must die! Several reasons why EA is bad for gamers and the art of gaming.

One of the most amusing things you can do with a blog is find some artical that you totally disagree with , and tear it apart paragraph by paragraph. The blog in question where the artical was posted won't let you post on them , of course, but still , you can do it on your own and then just drop links everywhere.

http://www.gamespot.com/users/Lucavix/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25672615


Have you ever heard of the series Dungeon Keeper? Dungeon Keeper was a Bullfrog Studio's creation that was a cult hit in 1995-97. In 1999 Dungeon Keeper 2 made the game entirely 3D, and it still looks acceptably good by today's standards. The game was known for it's wickedly dark humor, it's interesting cast of creatures and heroes, it's humorous parodies, and it's dark yet fun atmosphere.

I played dungeon Keeper. Even in it's heyday it was a mediocre at best game. The reversal of playing the dungeon full of evil monsters instead of the hero's trying to fight their way in was interesting at first , but it didn't translate well into a game. And you can only slap chickens so many times before you become bored of it.

Dungeon Keeper 2 ended with a teaser for Dungeon Keeper 3, but Dungeon Keeper 3 was canceled. Because EA had limited sales of Dungeon Keeper 2 after their hostile acquisition of Bullfrog Studios, Dungeon Keeper 2 never generated enough revenue and most people obtained it through piracy. Dungeon Keeper 3 was considered too risky, and it was literally cancelled to free up the studio and funding for Harry Potter - Quidditch. This is but one reason EA is bad for the industry, but oh there are more. So many more.

I'm not following your logic. The game lost money , they stopped producing the series. Thats not "bad for the industry" , thats good. People vote with their pocket books, and they voted that game out.


I have no doubt the piracy issue could be fixed (most games require you to log on and registure before you can play them , thus getting rid of piracy and explaining why mmo's are so popular) but if the game was losing money , no one really wanted it anyways. I know I don't miss it.

Westwood Studios, responsible for such games as Command and Conquer: Renegade (believe it or not that game did very well online) fell into EA's clutches with it's ambitious Space MMO Earth and Beyond. Having the server power to host such a game, EA used Earth and Beyond to ensnare Westwood Studios. EA then moved on to lock Westwood out of making decisions effecting the game, and slowly destroyed it. All plans for PvP introduction, extended career paths, and so on were canceled, and then EA moved to cancel the game and abolish Westwood Studios. Earth and Beyond players had their accounts deleted, and critics often allege that the entire purpose of EA's acquisition of Earth and Beyond was to eliminate Westwood Studios as competition. But wait, trust me, there's much much more.

A nice conspiracy theory. Maybe even a few hints of truth. But Command and Conquer was a StarCraft rip off from the get go , and inferior in every respect (I've played both). The only thing that game ever did for me was convince me to go back to starcraft.

Played that horrible World of Warcraft clone Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning yet? It didn't start off the horrible unoriginal mess it is, it was initially an incredibly ambitious project and a full PvP experience that was supposed to cut out grinding all together. Electronic Arts thought the project was too ambitious, and forced Mythic Entertainment to go a different rout, copying World of Warcraft. EA then began cutting funding and putting increased pressure on Mythic Entertainment, eventually forcing Mythic to release Warhammer Online unfinished, with several playable classes removed. EA then moved to sell back the cut and unfinished content in an expansion pack. But wait, there's more.

Except that the "full pvp" experience generally alienates 90% of your paying customers , as they found out the hard way when Ultima Online first came out. After which you're desperately trying to salvage something by making an imitation game ... yeah it needed to die. Full pvp games have been tried, and have died for good and proper reasons.

Played the Sims lately? How about The Sims 2? Did you find it suspicious that after fleecing you on expansion packs for the Sims, they reset it all with the Sims 2 and began the cycle again? Now they're doing it with The Sims 3, which is actually a good game (that one out of ten EA games worth playing) but they're already going expansion crazy. This time with Micro Transactions but rest assured a full fledged Expansion pack in already in the works and will also come with a swath of "Pay to Access" content. Unfortunately for EA this financial model encourages piracy, and many gamers including legitimate customers who actually purchased The Sims 3 have already downloaded all of the Pay to Access content via third party sites.

Everyone is experimenting with pay to play (except TOR) in various forms.
And having seen wow with half the guild members at max level , maybe resetting it all when starting a new game is the way to go. Certainly the lower levels wouldn't be so completely empty any more.


And the phrase "financial model encourages piracy" is just blaming the rape victem for getting raped. It's a complete non starter. Pay these people to make games, or they will stop making them. It's just that simple.

Moral Outrage is not the only reason Spore is the most pirated and boycotted game ...

Due to moral outrage ,you will now commit immoral acts , like theft. Oh thats a good argument.

Moral Outrage is not the only reason Spore is the most pirated and boycotted game of all time though. With Spore EA decided to introduce invasive DRM policies, that limited Spore to three installations. This punishes legit gamers but it doesn't punish Pirates, who never have to suffer the effects of DRM. With no warning, EA also slips SecuROM onto people's computers, and while this doesn't cause problems most of the time it is known to make CD/DvD Drives, particularly writable drives, to stop reading properly. In fact, it's known to disable drives all together sometimes, though this is rare. My only experience with SecuROM causing me problems was when I tried to play the old game Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. For some reason SecuROM seemed convinced I was using a virtual mount even after I had installed the game, and I was forced to download the version of the 1.3 patch that disabled the need for a CD check. Others have reported similar issues with other games, but the problem isn't so much with SecuROM, it's that EA installs SecuROM without warning or permission, which brings up a whole lot of legal issues. Since SecuROM has been stripped from most pirated copies of Spore, it also encourages Piracy. But wait, there's more.

This I will grant you. Loading up my computer with buggy software to crash it is now stepping into the territory of the virus writer. I don't care what you put in your end user agreement, I want that piece of crap off my computer and I don't want your games under any circumstances.

That being said, there must be a dozen different ways of securing a program from piracy , in this internet age, without having to load anything even remotely like malware on your computer. MMO's do it all the time. And new games typically are written with some kind of link to the internet so you have to have an account so you can't steal it. Think pokemon, essentially a single player game , but if you want to trade pokemon with other players ...

EA bought up exclusive rights to the NFL, no other gaming company can make an NFL game now. Without competition, EA released the same game over and over again with very minor alterations, often quite literally keeping all the same gameplay bugs with each season. Most gamers aren't football fans, I know, but this is an example of what EA does to the industry. It monopolized the NFL license and has since driven it into the ground.

A better explanation would be they bought up the rights to a game no one wants to play. Lets face it. Gamers want to kill dragons ,not toss around a pig skin. And most people who do like foot ball would rather watch reruns of the game and drink beer than fiddle with a joy stick. Or better yet, go play flag foot ball. Who really plays sports games anyways ? The used game shelves are full of them , meaning whoever actually buys one dumps it fairly quickly . How about the game flopped because it had no market ?

I'm not saying EA is a saint.
But I'm not saying it's a monster either.
EA is a business. It makes games. And if you want those games, they have to stay in business. And that means you have to pay up. This crap about "I'm committing piracy because I'm morally outraged .." is crap of the worst sort. Don't buy their games is your option. Maybe even protest their games. But don't steal them. That's you making up excuses for your crimes. That isn't moral anything.

It's just crap.