MeleeMonk
Cartoon Pony Wrangler
Part-time gamer, full-time environmentalist, and member of PAPO (People Against Palm Oil)
Posts: 3,651
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Post by MeleeMonk on May 6, 2016 9:44:51 GMT
When do you think Electronic Arts turned into the greedy, thievish empire they are today? I mean, when did their turn to the dark side begin? I ask because a lot of good games from the past that I enjoy playing, like Goldeneye Rogue Agent and SSX 1-3 for example, were published by Electronic Arts, back during the 4th, 5th and 6th gens.
Personally, I think their fall from decency began when the 7th gen rolled around, a generation which saw a widespread introduction of DLC on consoles, which they are famous for abusing, and it was all downhill from there.
What do you guys think?
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Cervantes
Off-Brand Transformable Robot
A former Incompetent Evil Commander (XP: 2423)
Posts: 2,832
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Post by Cervantes on May 6, 2016 14:07:45 GMT
Weren't they already famous for buying smaller companies and destroying them before the 7th gen? Case in point: Bullfrog Productions. Also, Origin Systems.
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Armored Core Raven
Vanguard Ranger
Radio: The test is over. From this moment on, you are a Raven!
Posts: 1,738
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Post by Armored Core Raven on May 6, 2016 14:34:03 GMT
When they took Thrill Kill from us. They were the first company to receive an instablacklist and permaboycott label for me.
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Post by manicottimafia on May 6, 2016 14:53:55 GMT
I think after the success of Dead Space and the somewhat success of Mirror's edge. That was the last really good thing they did, release those games around the same time.
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Balder
Supreme Overlord
Trying to cut down the amount of movies I watch
Posts: 6,828
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Post by Balder on May 6, 2016 15:16:02 GMT
After they changed the slogan from "It's in the game" to "it's probably in the DLC or in the next game/update".
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fsfsxii
Space Striker
What to believe...
Posts: 916
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Post by fsfsxii on May 6, 2016 16:13:48 GMT
If i were a businessman i'd probably invest in EA.
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Cervantes
Off-Brand Transformable Robot
A former Incompetent Evil Commander (XP: 2423)
Posts: 2,832
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Post by Cervantes on May 6, 2016 16:47:22 GMT
I think after the success of Dead Space and the somewhat success of Mirror's edge. That was the last really good thing they did, release those games around the same time. Yes, there was this brief time around 2008 in which they tried their hands at other genres and at some innovation. To be fair to them, I remember Mirror's Edge being a terrible seller, so they went back to their usual crap. That's also probably why this new Mirror's Edge is supposed to have an "open-world" (probably an "icon-hunt") and your standard useless upgrade system (also known as "your character will only do cool stuff after you've already spent 20 hours of gameplay") - these are usually signs of a company trying to make their product as bland as possible. Add to that all trailers showing cinematic custscenes in 3rd person and a lot of combat. Man, I really wish this game turns out good after all, as I love Mirror's Edge.
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Dan E. Kool
Walking Trash Can Robot
Now With Extra Pulp!
Posts: 3,325
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Post by Dan E. Kool on May 6, 2016 22:29:41 GMT
I thought we always hated them. For sure since 6th gen. Maybe even 5th.
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cobretti
Fire Shark Shinobi
Strong Arm Of The Law
Posts: 1,752
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Post by cobretti on May 6, 2016 22:54:51 GMT
I'd say probably they really got bad during the 360/PS3 days when they could get away with shipping incomplete games with crazy DLC schemes. The worst you could say before that was they leaned on franchises like Madden and Need For Speed too much.
Hard to think there was once a time when EA wasn't the evil empire.
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Guilion
Lord Wing
Former Incompetent Evil Commander
Posts: 284
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Post by Guilion on May 6, 2016 23:04:52 GMT
Based on the historical evidence found on the internet I'm going to say 2004 I remember not that many people caring for the closing of WestWood but I still find random rants about the closing of Origin and Bullfrog to this day.
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Post by spidershinobi on May 7, 2016 1:10:45 GMT
Stop everything, guys. Are you telling me that the same EA that gave me Mirror's Edge for free is evil? Do you guys know what happened to Bullfrog? They were a small bunch of developers who got too much money and support, divided their production into multiple projects and ran their performance/business into the ground.
There surely is some form of "evil" inside every business, gotta deal with money, gotta sell products, and selling products involves tricking people into buying stuff. Still, people blame EA in an exclusive fashion for doing things supported by consumers! They publish the worst popular FPS series in the market, but I can't blame them, people rush to buy those!
And of all companies related to video games, how come this topic isn't asking when Nintendo turned evil?
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Cervantes
Off-Brand Transformable Robot
A former Incompetent Evil Commander (XP: 2423)
Posts: 2,832
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Post by Cervantes on May 7, 2016 1:21:30 GMT
And of all companies related to video games, how come this topic isn't asking when Nintendo turned evil? Because Nintendo was evil from the get-go. Remember their policies on the NES era, when developers were prohibited to create games for other consoles? Or how they sided with the stupid politicians against Sega in the whole Mortal Kombat / Night Trap debacle? Nintendo was always evil, I say.
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Post by spidershinobi on May 7, 2016 1:28:06 GMT
And of all companies related to video games, how come this topic isn't asking when Nintendo turned evil? Because Nintendo was evil from the get-go. Remember their policies on the NES era, when developers were prohibited to create games for other consoles? Or how they sided with the stupid politicians against Sega in the whole Mortal Kombat / Night Trap debacle? Nintendo was always evil, I say. You are right! But during those times everyone had at least one foot on the evil side of the force... Remember when a developer was threatened by a member of the yakuza - affiliated with a company he would rather not reveal, but we all know very well which one - so he would stop the production of one game? And they seemed to have gotten better from SNES to Wii.
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Cervantes
Off-Brand Transformable Robot
A former Incompetent Evil Commander (XP: 2423)
Posts: 2,832
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Post by Cervantes on May 7, 2016 2:56:21 GMT
spidershinobi - I've read that article. The japanese industry was hardcore, man.
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spooie
Authority Wing
Posts: 132
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Post by spooie on May 7, 2016 4:07:19 GMT
EA has had a bad reputation for a number of years. I'm far from the biggest sports gamer out there, but one of their most well-known issues outside of buying out companies and kill them not soon after was their attempt to monopolize every single exclusive 3rd party sports license in existence. Back a little over a decade or so ago, they tried this over the span of a few months and pretty much exceeded on all fronts with the exception of Baseball as I recall. EA worked their best to kill off their competition and forced a lot of (purportedly better) games and studios to go under (apparently, Sega's and Take 2's sports games were amazing), and, in the process, all for them to be the exclusive 3rd party publisher of titles so that they could raise prices on their annual titles while introducing little to no improvements year-to-year. Take-Two Interactive ended up getting the exclusive MLB license as a way to counter EA pretty much getting everything else from them. EA also shut down a number of their still-very-popular sports servers every other year as a means to force gamers to go out and buy the next iteration if they wanted to play online. They also used the likenesses of hundreds of thousands of athletes without their permission or paying royalties and were later sued and had to settle.
Of course, it's not just sports and gobbling up smaller companies. EA had a history of forcing their employees to work 80-100 hour weeks without overtime or additional pay, baring them from seeing their families. One of the wives of an employee later exposed a number of their tactics online under the pseudonym of "EA Spouse." They staged an event with fake protesters pretending to be Christians enraged by the release of Dante's Inferno to stir up publicity for the game, causing a lot of ill-informed nitwits to begin attacking Christians. Their Dead Space 3 in-game micro transactions supposedly (I haven't played it yet) helped kill the franchise. Their Dungeon Keeper f(r)ee-to-play app debacle is just one of their more recent events. Of course, then there is Take-Two Interactive that I mentioned above. What do you do when you try to create a monopoly and kill your competitors off, only to have one of them make an exclusivity deal against you? Hostile Takeover! Which is what EA tried to do with Take-Two for 8 months. They also took similar actions with buying up Ubisoft's stock at one point, but later sold it off years down the line.
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