Avalanche Studios On DRM: ‘It treats our fans like criminals, which they are not’

"We recently asked a bunch of questions to Avalanche Studios founder Cristofer Sundberg about his views on the cancelled AionGuard game–which he revealed was still in development–the Just Cause series, and piracy in general, and he had a lot of interesting things to say to us."

[majiebeast]

Somebody gets it. EA has only just made themselves even more hated by gamers if that was even possible at this point.

[gameseveryday]

I don't understand the hate towards EA. Let's see what franchises they publish:

Mass Effect
Dead Space
FIFA
Dragon Age
Battlefield

Those are some of the biggest games in the industry and millions of people buy it.

I understand that some of their DLC/Micro transaction tactics are weird, but you can't deny that they have some of the best IPs in gaming today.

And...let the disagrees come :)

[DFresh]

The dislike towards EA is because of their business practices not their games.

[Yi-Long]

... yet they also manage to often completely screw up those great IPs with very bad decisions.

Just this week we saw the results of those decisions with the Dead Space 3 news (poor sales, mediocre reviews, angry fans), and ofcourse SimCity.

Before this week, we've already seen the WiiU getting a very poor version of Fifa 13 (basically Fifa 12 with less content), a mediocre reboot of SSX, a lazy Dragon Age 2, a Mass Effect 3 that had an ending that nearly ruined the trilogy experience for many fans, and Battlefield 3 which had far too few proper 'Battlefield maps' and far too many close-space narrow lineair maps, where you didn't have that typical and much-loved 'Battlefield freedom'.

Oh, and ofcourse all the crap with DLC and online passes, which sadly is a given by now.

[Root]

Yeah great franchises but the problem is they've ruined all of them

[grassyknoll]

Battlefield 2 was better than 3, Mass Effect 1 was better than 2 & 3, the first Dead Space was ten times better than 3, Sim City 4 is better than the new one. I think I see a theme emerging...

[Wenis]

BF started going downhill after EA began to have too much 'creative control' over the franchise.

[Christopher]

Mass Effect 1 before EA was better.

Dragon Age: Origins before EA was better.

Dead Space 1 is better.

FIFA is the same cash in sports game every year.

They either do next to nothing to progress the IP every year or they change it so much that it is lessened in one way or another (typically in many ways).

[2pacalypsenow]

They have also

Ruined all those games
Made online passes the norm (even tho THQ started them)
Doing micro transaction on paid games
using always online DRM on single player game (sim city)
Dont want to give refunds for a broken game

There is no such thing a a pirate free game someone will crack the game if it isnt already done so DRM is useless

[GreenRanger]

Most people aren't criminals but you still have to lock your car when you leave it.
I'm not defending EA, i'm just saying that there has to be some form of DRM in place to fight piracy.
They just have to find a better and more user-friendly way of implementing it.

[DFresh]

Your not going to stop piracy just like your not going to stop crime in the real world.
In the end it's only the good people that get affected and the people who are causing trouble always find a way around it to continue doing what their doing.
I don't see any outcome where anyone benefits.

[steve30x]

That has to be the most stupid comment of the year so far. Tell me how does DRM stop Piracy? Even Diablo III got cracked for single player offline , StarCraft II got cracked and all other games with DRM got cracked eventually. Putting DRM on games is just a futile attempt at stopping piracy and if you think otherwise you are delusional.

[catch]

I think a closer analogy would be if you bought the car but the car manufacturer could randomly lock you out of it despite it being yours.

[GiantFriendlyCrab]

the only real criminals are the big corporations

[Lvl_up_gamer]

Didn't Naughty Dog say that the Multiplayer demo of The Last of Us will have DRM?

[shivvy24]

its exclusive to GOW Ascention thats why they dont want it spreading to random ppl who dont buy GOW Ascention

[Reverent]

And THAT is the ONLY way having DRM is understandable.

[shivvy24]

i really like their games but i hate their bs policies and practices ! its such a turn off when the origin thing pops up time to time when i play , heck even the demos have origin now

[Derekvinyard13]

Avalanche are awsome

[Plagasx]

Just announce Just Cause 3 already!!

[KumquatGOATBEEF]

I hope Just Cause 3 has multiplayer. Just Cause 2 is awesome, but my buddies and I have always imagined what it would be like just to goof off with the game in some sort of sandbox mode. Games don't NEED multiplayer, but multiplayer expands on the greatness of certain games and not enough sandbox open world games (GTA, Just Cause, Saints Row games) are taking advantage of online experiences.

[LAWSON72]

I love reading ea hate comments.