Lately I seen a lot of articles that has put a lot of hate towards EA, but really I want to know why?
I believe that there are a lot worse companies out there and in this article I will be naming some companies and listing some games.
The biggest game out there is the Call Of Duty series, (yes I have played them) and from my point of view it's just the same rubbish every year, the multiplayer is broken, the whole game is just a copy & paste theme and there noting really new or exciting in there.
It's not just the Call Of Duty games that have I have issues with.
The walking dead survival instinct is another game, it's buggy as hell and the combat is weak and its had so much hype it's just well crap. (I know this because I have experienced the game first hand and I did not enjoy it.)
Their customer support isn't any better either, when you go onto Activision support and explain you got a problem with the game or some sort of other issue as soon you done explaining to them, they decide to mark your case as resolved (even though it clearly hasn't. I had plenty of cases of this.)
Furthermore they have hardly improved there graphics or physics engine for years now (as you can see from there games.)
That’s not the only company what has screwed up in some way just look at Capcom and look at some of their recent games for example DMC remake and RE both was ruined in various ways.
RE was ruined by the franchise becoming an action game when it started out as a brilliant horror survival (the last decent survival horror in my opinion being RE:CVX.) The DMC remake was just a poor effort it didn't feel like I was playing DMC anymore but instead just a cheap copy.
konami has also had it fair share of fuck ups with games for example Silent Hill homecoming was yet again more action instead of survival horror and Metal Gear Solid Rising was over the top, it took away the element of stealth and it became more like Ninja Gaiden.
For my final example look at Dead Island Riptide (made by Techland) and how little things have changed from the first one, the combat is still sluggish, the missions are still boring and repetitive and it does not feel like a survival horror.
I not saying EA is the best but it’s not the worst, yes I understand they made some bad choices so have other companies. I also understand that EA have ruined some of their own game franchises like when Need For Speed went from illegal street racing to track racing, or dead space 3 being too much action.
I just saying just think about all the other game companies out there what have done bad ideas to their games and haven't fixed it and don't judge EA so radically.
Sea of Thieves stared off life as an Xbox exclusive, growing over time into a genuine hit with a large, committed community. Now, in an effort to increase its audience still futher, it's become a key part of Microsoft's multi-platform push.
Video games -- particularly AAA video games -- have become too expensive to make. The intel from every fly on the wall in every investor's room is there is an increasing level of caution about spending hundreds of millions just to release a single video game. And you can't blame them. Many AAA game budgets mean that you can print hundreds of millions in revenue, and not even turn a profit. If you are an investor, quite frankly, there are many easier ways to make a buck. AAA games have always been expensive to make though, but when did we go from expensive, to too expensive? A decade ago, AAA games were still expensive to make, but fears of "sustainability" didn't keep every CEO up at night. Consumer expectations and demands no doubt play a role in this, but more and more games are also revealing obvious signs of resource mismanagement, evident by development teams and budgets spiraling out of control with sometimes nothing substantial to show for it.
It’s a question that I’ve pondered myself too. How are these developers spending this much money? Also, like the article stated, I cannot tell where it’s even going. Perfect example was used with Starfield and Spiderman 2.
They claim they have to increase prices due to development costs exploding. Okay? Well, I’m finding myself spending less and less money on games than before due to the quality actually going down. With a few recent exceptions games are getting worse.
I thought these newer consoles and game engines are easier-therefore-cheaper to make games than previous ones. What has happened? Was it over hiring after the pandemic, like other tech companies?
Costs quite a bit to maintain a team of 700+ employees. Which is what it takes to create something with state of the art fidelity and scope. Just imagine how many 3D artists you'd need to create the plethora of 3D objects in a AAA game. There's so much stuff and each asset takes time and effort.
That's atleast one of the things that didn't get easier. Also coding all the systems and creating all the character models with animations and everything. Animations alone is a huge thing because games are expected to be so detailed.
Back in the day a God of War type game was a 12 hour adventure with small levels, now it has to be this 40+ hours of stuff. Obviously it didn't have to be this way of AAA publishers hadn't convinced themselves that it's an arms race. Games probably didn't need to be this bloated and they probably didn't need to be cutting edge in fidelity.
Starfield’s animation and character models look like they are from Oblivion, a game that came out about 20 years ago. I cannot tell the difference between Spider-Man 2 and the first one at first glance. It’s been a joke in some YouTube channels.
Seven hundred people for 1 game? Make 7 games with 100 people instead. I think recent games have proven that it’s okay to have AA games, such as Hell Divers 2.
I guess I’m a bit jaded with the industry and where things are headed. Solutions seem obvious and easy, but maybe they aren’t.
I believe that it is due to this unsustainable rise in production costs that more and more companies are looking to AI tools to help ‘lower’ costs.
I genuinely believe it's mismanagement. Why are we seeing an influx of one person or games with a team no bigger than 10 create whole games with little to no budget? Unreal Engine 5 and I'm sure many other engines have plugins that have streamlined to many things you would have had to create and code back in the day.
For instance, before the cull, there were 3000 Devs working on COD alone. I'm a COD player but let's be real, there's been no innovation since 2019s MW. What exactly are those Devs doing? Even more so when so much of the new games are using recycled content
ESTNN writes: "The easiest campfire can be found in the middle of the lake close to Restored Reels. Landing in the middle of the island immediately puts you near the campfire, which is surrounded by a tent, a barrel and a single lawn chair."
Ok, first of all this isn't really long enough to be in the blog section. It reads like something that should be in the forum section.
As for the content, this just sounds like you had a CoD problem that Activision didn't solve to your satisfaction and so now you hate them. EA is a FAR worse company. Activision may release the same crap every year, but given that that garbage sells around 12 million units every time and has become a billion dollar franchise, that's just good business sense.
Activision haven't used online passes, for any of their games. EA are among the biggest users of it. EA also LOVE day 1 DLC. EA buys out smaller dev companies and ruins them. EA's influence ruins sequels and potentially franchises by making developers go the "accessibility" route (Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2&3 are considered worse than the original games).
EA are incredibly anti-consumer. They push microtransactions (yes, even the kind that are Pay-to-Win microtransactions), and they neglected to learn the lesson that Ubisoft had to learn the hard way that always-online DRM (and no matter what Peter Moore says, it is DRM) is wrong, is not something anyone wants, and will be fought (at least by those who can fight it) until it's removed.
EA are arrogant and believe none of their anti-consumer practices are wrong because they make millions off of casuals who don't know any better. They state outright that, because of these millions, obviously they are doing something people love and want to support knowing full well what kind of people they are talking about.
There is a reason EA earned the "Worst Company in America" title from The Consumerist twice, and it's not because they are a better company than Activision. They may not have DESERVED that title (there are many more deserving companies), but they certainly did everything they could that people felt was anti-consumer enough to EARN that title.
Simcity.
It's an example of what EA stands for.
Spending a lot of money for nothing.
Other publishers are also heading into a direction that they are forcing gamers to spend on things they don't want.If the product is fine people will buy.But to leave out choice only aggravates.And from what I can see EA is king of aggravating people.
Disappointment in a game will start this snowball of feelings effect and then we get the hate. quoting yoda "fear is the path to the darkside." "fear leads to anger." "anger leads to Hate." Hate leads to suffering." and so you have manifested hate by feeling it and speaking about your hate of EA. I love EA for the great games they make and a amazing company it is!!! :)
Because they don't care about their customers. Case in point, I decided to upgrade my BF3 to the premium and got it cheap online. Only trouble the code doesn't work. Good job EA...
The problem with EA is that they never lead. As the biggest company in the industry, you would think that they would try and lead the industry. They do not do this. They follow the most recent trend and try and steal sales from a game that already exists. Look at how many military shooters they've published in the last few years to try and compete with COD. Look at how many MMO's they've published to try and compete with WOW. Look at how many games they've shoved too much action into that clearly didn't need it (DA2, ME3, Dead Space 3).
That's the problem with EA. They have so many great IPs, but they ruin them by trying to appeal to an audience that doesn't care about that IP. You can't make a Dead Space game that's not a survival horror to try and appeal to an action genre.
Create your own creations, make them successful.
That's the problem with EA.