Opinion: EA Must Be Stopped

"EA must be stopped. Their recent bid of $2 billion for Take Two Interactive is just the latest in a long history of using money to eliminate the competition, and only fuels the anti-EA sentiment felt by millions of gamers."

[toughNAME]

Microsoft would save the day...

[Genesis5]

Was there any sarcasm in there Tough? Maybe a little.

[Joey Gladstone]

EA = The Borg from Star Trek....they assimilate to no end, until there are no other gaming companies left to assimilate.
..
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...."The JOEY has Spoken"

[MikeGdaGod]

they've got enough issues to deal with

[toughNAME]

Of the two gaming companies that like to throw there money around...I would have Microsoft make my games over EA any day.

[ruibing]

Microsoft isn't that great at keeping their first party developers either. Unless of course you forgot about Bungie and FASA Interactive already. But I suppose it is the lesser of two evils...

[Anything but Cute]

Stop these guys before we see yearly GTA installments for every console on the market. Money isn't everything in video games. It's a passionate and creative business.

EA must be stopped for the sake of video gamers.

[Tempist]

Yeah, EA the omni-corp of games has been getting to me. They seem to have this overwhelming games as a product and not games as entertainment that really needs to stop. I don't want a bland game, I want to be entertained and engaged by my games.

EA seems to stick to a 'what's going to be popular' instead of 'what's new and entertaining.' In fact, look at what happened to Black. Part of the company was disbanded.

But really the power is in the gamer on this one. If we where really adamant about stopping EA, then we would all take a vow never to buy a game made by EA if they buy up Take Two. I'd be for doing it, even with Spore coming out.

[Makroyale]

And I don't know about you, put it makes me cringe just to think about fake products in GTA such as Sprunk being replaced with real products like Coke...

Take-Two needs to stay independent.

[Statix]

Good thing I don't really care for Spore, or any of the Sims games. And I'm not a football fan, so Mediocre-Madden can go fu** itself.

[DJ]

They disband their own internal studios, regardless of creativity or critical acclaim. Like MS, all they look at is quarterly revenue. Def Jam and Fight Night were great games, but even that didn't stop EA from firing everyone in their Chicago studio.

[Salvadore]

But how does one stop a monster like EA?

[EZCheez]

So they could afford making crazy offers to buy out other publishers.

[kewlkat007]

I've never been so upset until today..

We are looking at 1 version of SPORTS games forever..

The Overtaking of some of our favorite franchises, which might be watered down.

Somebody has to do something..EA has been eating companies since early 90's and no sign of stopping. Anybody has money?

R.I.P 2k sports

[HeartlesskizZ]

EA could buy Mc'Donalds for all I care about them....

[Hydrollex]

look at Crysis ! the best looking game in the world

maybe EA wants to improve GTA graphics ?

they said " we don't change anything. We do something that we sell more." lol

EA sucks ! but they have some good games

[M337ING]

The difference there is that EA doesn't own Crytek. Crytek had all the freedom they wanted with Crysis. EA only published it.

[Statix]

Trust me, GTA will NOT improve one bit with EA taking control of it.

[EZCheez]

I've got a $10 in my wallet with Take Two's name on it.

[Tarmgar]

I've got $5! We can't let this happen! EA sucks. Decent sports games though...

[kewlkat007]

Plus I have the right name. Games4GamersbyGamers...

[EZCheez]

I'll just be the PR guy and say stuff that I pull directly out of my ass.

That's what PR guys do, right?

G4GG. By the looks of the acronym our company might start getting called Gag.

What about L33T?

[Keyser]

seriously...

Something has to be done. Can Congress let go of baseball, steroids, and focus on the gaming community! People who really matter! :) They shouldn't allow EA to buy Take Two and I don't even know if either one of those companies is based here in the states or whether the government has jurisdiciton.

Bush, this is the war you need to jump into. Send our troops over to EA headquarters and show them our weapons of mass destruction!!

[Joey Gladstone]

what do you think the odds are on EA eventually purchasing or making a very attractive offer to purchase Insomniac Studios????......never say never in the business world
....
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....."The JOEY has Spoken"

[Adamalicious]

Maybe EA is trying to turn over a new leaf - adding a ton of talented, independent minded studios to their fold. EA will do well to essentially operate like Sony's worldwide studios - do the publishing, marketing and distribution for lots of other studios exclusively and also developing titles in-house. In that case it could be good for everyone - the studios themselves can focus more on content, on making great games, and less on making sure they see the light of day.

Not that I trust EA at all given their track record in recent years, but who knows - maybe they want to turn things around.

[EZCheez]

I'll never be comfortable with the EA juggernaut until another publisher can actually release a competitive NFL game to compete with Madden.

There is never anything good about sucking up the competition, and while a lot of people think they are trying to get their hands on GTA, they will get rid of a lot of competition when they take out 2K Sports.

That's how they would "sell more." They would buy out anything in direct competition to their product.

[Statix]

No matter what you want to believe, lack of competition has always meant less quality for the consumer. That's an economic constant. There's never been a situation where a monopoly meant a better product for the consumer; it's only ever meant less innovation, risk-taking, and far less incentive to improve on the end product.

Things might not change that much in the short run, but the reality is that regardless of what that smug-faced asshole John Riccitiello wants to fool us into believing, the gamer WILL eventually suffer, sooner or later, with the same old games rehashing old formulas of a few big-name franchises over and over again, with little improvement year-to-year. EA WILL eventually realize that with their monopolistic position, they can spend less and less money improving their titles with better development, or better workplace conditions and wages for employees. And you'll have no choice but to eat it all up as a gamer, because you'll very literally have no choice.

[Tempist]

In all fairness EA needs to return to their days as Electronic Arts, not the EA (eat all) that they've become. Back in the day I would have to say their games where well respected and well developed.

The jalopy they've become is shameful. If or when they fail in this acquisition, the over all opinion of the company by gamers is going to be again further damaged. I don't want mass produced games. It's about balance and EA seems hell bent on just making money, not games or good entertainment.

[Adamalicious]

Of course competition is good. My point was more about competitive advantage. EA is good at publishing and marketing, and not so much at making creative content. So if EA sticks to what they are good at and the studios stick to what they are good it then everyone stands to gain from it.

Ideally EA, or another such company, would exist just to provide top tier publishing etc. for independent studios. Studios would have more creative control and a company like EA wouldn't need to be as bloated as they are.

I think a scenario like that would create more competition and more incentive to innovate amongst developers, and really the health of the industry overall really comes down to content - just look at what happened in the early days with Atari.

Free market FTW. (Vote Ron Paul)

[xhi4]

Short answer: Yes!

[kewlkat007]

I have no problem with companies outsourcing work from other devs or publishing works to get their portfolios looking good and to stay competitive
-but-
How do you stay competitive, when you no longer have direct 1:1 competition?

You don't..you loose creativity, devs loose that hunger..we seen this all too often. Eventually them talented Devs will stick around for a bit then take off for new ventures..as they wanna be free.

Under EA they will be work to meet Deadlines every X-mas no matter what game and they goes Quality. Trust me nothing is great about buying out the only competition.

Imagine if MS bought SONY...THIS BS Grrrrrrrrr

[Hydrollex]

GTA series and PS3 games, I don't give a sh1t.

Somehow EA doesn't like Sony. Look at their ported games and crappy games that run better on the 360.

EDIT: Ok so, They Love $$$

[MaximusPaynicus]

It's just that they take the easier route in developing their games. Admittedly, the Xbox 360 is easier to develop for, so they develop their games for the Xbox 360 and then just throw them on the PS3 without even taking the time or effort to maximize the PS3's potential.

[ForROME]

Welcome to capitalism, its whats drives america which I am a patriot of. However there are 2 things to look at, A you cant punish someone for being successful, and B are they doign it to eliminate competition?

A: seriously they earned it and worked there way up this ladder they didnt get here over night

B: The opposite is, well that sux NFL gameday and game breaker were better games in my opinion. So i feel ya, well see in good time my friend. But with alraming production costs compnaies find it hard to say no to that drug called money.

[Statix]

I'm sorry, but as an American, there are many reasons I utterly despise the American capitalistic system as it currently stands, and they're finally manifesting themselves in ways that affect me with predatorial activities by giant software corporations such as this.

The downward spiral of games quality is imminent, and there's nothing gamers can do about it.

[Aaron_V667]

All ea wanna do is kill there rivals in the sports games market and take the GTA name. Some one should stop these bastards from killing this industry. If i ever see a GTA game with the f*cking EA logo on it i will not f*cking buy it. Whats gonna happen to all the great devs like Bethesda and ID in the american market. Thank god for the Japanese devs such as Konami, Capcom and Square as long as they are still around gaming will be fun.

[Whoooop]

we need to support as much as we can developers like Imsomniac, Naughty Dog, Bungie, Incognito, Bioware(when it was independent)...

because these companies work their asses off for a believe which is, make the best possible game for their fans.

[poopface1]

but I dont like the Idea of them owning these games. Im worried for mass effect now too. Not because it might come out on ps3 but because Iv heard bad stuff about EA latley and dont want them messing up these awsome games. Whatever the reason mabe rushing or something but they just buy others ideas instead of creating something original for themselvs(madden: buy out NFL to stop competition. NFL 2k8 possibly coulda whoped up on madden, IM sure PS3 owners can agree with that)

[Aaron_V667]

Sony would stop them buying Insomniac, in fact Sony should try and stop Ea getting there hands on Rock Star.

[timmyp53]

Why do they want to manage all these developers? Quality games is all I want and direct competition makes that happen.
=(

[incogneato]

EA MUST BE DESTROYED!!! DO NOT LET GAMING TURN INTO ANOTHER HOLLYWOOD! HUGE CORPORATE TAKE OVERS AND ELIMINATING COMPETITION WILL RUIN THE GAMING INDUSTRY, PERIOD.

I AM BOYCOTTING EA! JOIN ME!!!

[clrlite]

If all the above posts are any indication, i think people are getting tired of these over competitive (seemingly)shady tactics.
-I dont think direct competition is the only thing that insures quality games, however it definately seems to make some companies step their game up. However, some companies dont know how to handle the pressure of direct competition and their creativity is stiffled.
Thankz

[kevanio09]

...christ! this must be how nazi germany started!.....

[TwissT]

With all these attempts to buying other developers it leads one to think that, Will Ea take a shot at the console business? It makes a person think.

[aftrdark21]

get enough developers than launch the only console you can play their sports games on.