Chris writes, "Many of you know about the Free to Play model, microtransactions, put into Dead Space 3. For those that do not; you can now buy, with real money, additional materials to use in the newly introduced weapon crafting system."
Today Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson provided a look into his ideas for the use of generative AI in the company's development processes.
EA is still a shady shitty company even with or without the help of Skynet. All they will use AI for is new ways to milk loot boxes and come up with the same sports title with a different year on the label. They are one company I truly do hate with a passion. They single handedly ruined some great franchise with their death touch. ME, Dead Space, Alice Returns, Dante's Inferno.
EA layoffs followed by 'Generative AI to Drive Monetization'
I knew it. Wonder what AI salary looks like? Nothing.
And take away creativity, and people's jobs as we've been seeing. Got it.
No thanks. I want my games created by people, not AI.
EA doesn't want to lose their title of worst gaming company ever, always trying their best to remain the champs!
What's sad is that they have so much potential to be a decent publisher.
SSX Tricky / SSX 3
Def Jam Vendetta / Fight for New York
NBA Street
NFL Steet
Mirror's Edge
Bad Company
Burnout 3 / 4 / 5
Remember when EA used to be awesome? It's all over with now. Unpolished, if not out-right broken games these days. Endless monetization and gambling in their sports games, and let's not forget wasting hours of your life trying to unlock characters or equipment using "surprise boxes!"
Gareth, Justin, and JoeyZ look at Layoff news for EA and Sony and reasons behind the downturn in the industry and more.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson writes: "In this time of change, we expect these decisions to impact approximately 5 percent of our workforce. I understand this will create uncertainty and be challenging for many who have worked with such dedication and passion and have made important contributions to our company. While not every team will be impacted, this is the hardest part of these changes, and we have deeply considered every option to try and limit impacts to our teams. Our primary goal is to provide team members with opportunities to find new roles and paths to transition onto other projects. Where that’s not possible, we will support and work with each colleague with the utmost attention, care, and respect. Communicating these impacts has already begun and will be largely completed by early next quarter."
All the big ones doing the same stuff. Terrible. I just hope that all these people are able to get a new job as soon as possible, God know that it is horrible to be left jobless when you have your kids or your parents depending on your financial help
The point I feel is problematic about all of this is that focusing on Owned Ip means more sequels, remasters and more of what was selling last year.
I play a fair bit of SX and have never spent a penny on mictotransactions. The key thing is, Im sorry to say, you're not forced to. What we're seeing in SSX, Dead Space 3 are not microtransactions that add things to the game, but time savers.
Time is a valuable commodity and its not EA putting a price on it, its you. What EA have done is say "Heres Dead Space 3, and you can collect and see and do everything if you put the time in with our game. However if you dont have the time to put in we can offer you this time saving shortcut for a little extra outlay".
If anything it actually assists people by giving those who have a job, family etc the opportunity to experience everything in the game without commiting the time they dont have.
The alternatives are they dont offer these time savers, in which case some people wont experience everything the game offers, or they make these time savers free in which case who would play the game the way it was intended? You'd jump straight to the best weapons and armour and breeze through it.
You skip over "you're not forced to buy it" like its a poor excuse, but its the crux of the issue. This isnt a F2P model, its not designed to be, and the fact that it is in no way forced or incentivised is what makes it acceptable. I never felt the need to buy credits in SSX and I wouldnt feel the need to buy weapons and armour in Dead Space because I can earn them in game, but if the day comes when the time I can commit to gaming is reduced then I'll appreciate the option.