EA's Massive Failures Surrounding the Release of Dragon Age II

Joseph Jackmovich of gamrFeed writes about the shameful activities EA has engaged in following the release of Dragon Age II, namely the silent addition of SecuROM and forum bans halting the playing of purchased content.

[Machina]

Well, it is EA...

[imvix]

Yep, i dont like any of their games to begin with. I liked Bioware but after this nvm.. I rather buy an RPG like Witcher instead of wasting my time on this.

[ssdninja]

Yeah the copy-pasted dungeon thing turns me off. Hell, it turned me off in the first ME, so I'm not going to go through that again.

[limewax]

WOW! read the linked thread in the article, just skip to page 9 and the final comment.

It seems as if the staff are actually enjoying it and rubbing it in their faces a bit

[teething]

I like Bioware games... the problem is the vocal minority of fans who are passionate and resist change. It is impossible to make everyone happy.

From the article: "Being banned from a forum is one thing, but having that ban apply to purchased content, including content that hasn't even been played at all yet, is obtuse beyond words."

^^^ The lesson here for the original poster that got banned is to not go on to offical forums and bitch and moan about about how bad a new game is BEFORE actually registering and playing the game. THAT is obtuse beyond words. He got locked out because he was banned BEFORE getting/installing/registering /playing the game. He got what he deserved.

The is my problem with all these day one crybabies. "whaa whaa you changed my game but I have yet to play it", "whaa whaa you punished me for being a jerk but I am spoiled and entitled like every other little brat these days so how dare you."

Fact: Bad publicity hurts game sales. I am all for constructive criticism, but the above kind of childish comments/reviews before giving a game a proper chance is doing gamers no good. If anything, if Dragon age 2 sinks, EA/Bioware may just kill it off. Not enough RPG elements? how about no RPG elements!

[darksied]

@Teething

Couldn't have said it better myself. I see all these criticisms against EA and Bioware, when other publishers and developers get away with it (repetition? what about the same CoD for the past 3 games -> biggest seller ever; no offense to them, but it's true).

It seems to me these people who complain do so just for the sake of complaining. I guess you guys like creating all this negative feedback for a decent game and then would be happy if they don't make any more of them ...? Constructive criticism is one thing, but criticizing a game that you have never played because of what others do, or just because it's an "EA game," (which makes no sense to me; some of my absolute favorite games are EA published: Dead Space 1,2, Mass Effects, DA:O, etc.).

I also don't understand all this recent EA criticism. They have done a lot to improve their game library and their image, but people still assume it's the same EA from 6 or 7 years ago; it's not. All all this blind hatred of them, it's as if they sent someone to your home and murdered your families. I just don't get it.

In the end, it's just games, not real life. Either like their stuff and buy it, or don't like and and don't buy it. Do some actual research on it before you buy it so you won't be angry when a game is not to your liking.

[trainsinrdr]

if anyone bought this game day 1 i pity you

[Eternus]

I did, just beat it today. Despite some of the changes it was a great game and I'm looking forward to playing through it again.

[trainsinrdr]

o well atleast wait till the inevitable complete edition before giving in to the monthly dlc craze :P

[k4rma]

Casual gamers and weekend warriors are gonna think this action button mashing fest is the shit. Its designed specifically for them. In fact I think I remember reading one of the Doctors or other devs saying they want the Call of Duty fans to play their games.

Thats why they're scoring highly. They are appealing to the lowest common denominator, same as CoD. Easy to pick-up, not too much thinking involved, easy on the eye, lots of explosions and over the top action.

Its what Michael Bay would make if he designed CRPG's

Bioware no longer makes games for the old-school CRPG fans.

[jdktech2010]

so what if I've played games a long time and enjoy games like BC2, Gears 3 and the like....and enjoy Dragon Age 2....

sure it has it's problems but stop trying to classify what people like what game....if you don't like it fine but geeze

[Eternus]

I've been playing RPG's since classic FF games, and I still enjoyed DAII. Stop making generalizations.

[Izanagi-no-Okami]

I got the game, and it's very good. I don't know why the low scores.

[Anon1974]

It's not getting low scores. The majority of reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, but for some reason it's currently en vouge to hate this game. Go figure.

Xbox magazine said "this game offers some of the deepest, nerdiest, most worthwhile 40 to 60 hours you'll ever love losing sleep over."

The Escapist gave it a perfect score and said "I could point out the improved combat and graphics till there's blood covering my face, but BioWare is one of the few companies that uses the advanced computing power available to modern game designers to let you actually play a role."

It's sitting currently at a metacritic score of 81, a feat that 90% of games released are unable to crack. The only sites panning this game are the small, no-name sites and sites known for low scores of good games for hits.

And the whole "EA banned forum member and wouldn't let him access his game," is a complete fabrication. All he had to do was start a new account and activate his game, or wait for his 72 hour ban to be lifted which was the result of an ongoing troll campaign against the forums.

Personally, I haven't played this game yet as I have a pile of games and no time to play them, but as soon as that pile is whittled down, Dragon Age 2 #1 on my list of new games to buy. Bioware hasn't let me down once since I started purchasing their games back in the late 90's and if the bulk of reviews are anything to go by, it looks like they delivered again.
Haters gonna hate.

[radphil]

"And the whole "EA banned forum member and wouldn't let him access his game," is a complete fabrication. All he had to do was start a new account and activate his game"

Yes ignore the fact that the DLC products that they push so much through new copies gets tied to accounts and you're locked out on that. >_>

[TheGameLlama]

A Metacritic score of 81 for a sequel to a GotY is NOT a good score.

[k4rma]

Maybe you should play the game first before defending it.

[00000000000000000001]

I got all the important DLC and didn't pay a dime, Pre-orders!
Great game, I feel I got my moneys worth, 23+ hours and not even half was threw!

[stuntman_mike]

agree i pre-ordered and got every bit of DLC free with it, you get most of it for registering your game on biowares site.

[Perkel]

He forgot about high resolution pack for PC not included in game itself !!!!!

And still you can't use those textures if your card is DX9 only LOL

[DangerTick]

Bioware still hasn't fixed all of the glitches in DA:O either. Some trophies/achievements are glitched and can't be obtained or are randomly obtained by doing things completely unrelated to it. This is the main reason I have stopped playing WRPGs because WRPG devs always release games full of bugs and they never manage to fix them (or they just don't bother to fix them and release more broken games/DLC).

[krazykombatant]

I'm sorry but Fallout 3 and New Vegas are just abominations of bethesda. Bioware releases good games. Just cuz you're and achievement/trophy whore, and decided you were gonna sleep with all of your companions starting with zevhran. Doesn't mean WRPGs suck. In this case we can all blame EA of this game being rushed.

[k4rma]

Bioware games suck these days.

Bethesda still actually make CRPG's.

[k4rma]

I really hate whats become of Bioware recently. Ever since they were purchased by EA the company and its games have really gone down hill. All that pre-order incentive crap and cutting content from the games to release alongside the full release a couple of days later, its bullshit.

Also they're fucking liars. I found that out after spending a year following Mass Effect 2 on their community forums and believing everything the community devs spouted out to us.

Never again. I'm done with them.

[jdktech2010]

won't be missing you....oh and when mass effect 3 hits and is amazing, you better still be boycotting bioware

[BeardedGamerShow]

Looks like EA will be going back to court for the stealth installs again. No wonder they can't turn a profit, blow all their money in court.

[Megaton]

If they screw up Mass Effect 3, I will show the world nerd rage of biblical proportions. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy Mass Effect 3.