EA: Hardly a Generous Corporation

[7stringking]

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

2k's Hoops game is more than "slightly better" than Live......


Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[dbrandon]

The thing that sticks out to me the most is how little they really care as to what we want in a game and customer. Example we have been asking for "In game save" for over 10 years. We have been asking for sliders that work along with penalties. Until they address these basic issues that we have been asking for for years I will continue to bash them. There is NO reason to leave these things out and when ask they don't answer. Also there starting to charge for content that should be free we are paying an extra ten bucks.
EA is taking advantage of us and we know it and their stock keeps falling in value, Peter Moore is a joke who doesn't seem to know much if anything about sports and has never has believed in support.

[PaulZweber]

That potential you talk about is the reason people get upset and judgemental. We have been shown great sports games, we give ideas, feedback, and suggestions for "next years game" all the time, and they fall on deaf ears. Like the guy said, in game saves have been asked of for years, still don't have it. We saw a FALL in video game prices, a FALL, a $20 price tag on a high quality game, and EA put an end to that.

"There is the potential for sports gaming bliss being laid on us by EA and people get upset because its progress is so measured and it buys up licenses and doesn't do anything special with them. I am 100% sure that if there was an ESPN NFL 2K9 this year Madden and NCAA would both be further along than they are today. "

[asu666]

$20 for ESPN NFL 2K5 was the best return on my money for any game or movie I have ever purchased. Half a decade of playing it probably equals out to around a penny an hour now. The price forced EA to defend its cash cow (Madden) and ultimately ended up hurting football gaming.

EA's business model has been intentionally built around providing moderate annual upgrades to sports franchises. That model generates revenues on a consistent basis and that's very attractive in the game development world. The problems come in when the Marketing team needs a hook to sell the update and the board of directors presses the CEO to deliver more value to shareholders. This feeds into dev teams with limited resources having to come up with a few gimmicks to sell the game and limits the resources that can be applied to improving the gameplay or something like building all of the stadiums in NCAA Football. The premium paid for exclusive licenses and the need to always play beat the number with the stock market crowd put the devs in a tight spot.

The answer is to spend a little more and release a product that really shines. Take Two has built there business around this concept with its cash cow GTA. The issue for a company that puts out annual updates is that they need to produce something every year and there's a benefit to leaving the users wanting more next year, it keeps their dollars coming back.

Outside of the exclusive licensing issues, EA really didn't do itself any favors with the target video for Madden, the lost feature sets from last gen, and the completely insane idea that they would release uniforms and stadiums as download content at extra cost.

[H to the Oza]

Taking away the competition is just going to hurt the gamers.

I mean, I used to play NBA Live (from 03-05) then the games started sucking severely on the next gen. This year people have been saying how much of an improvement it was from the last few years. Well I gave it a try. After 2 days, and about 8 games later I was so fed up! You can't even control your players all that well. You try to run to a certain spot on the floor and they will break into a random animation where the player ends up 10 feet away from the intended spot. And the rebounding system? WORST rebounding system I have ever seen. EA has taken a serious step backward in the gameplay department. And this is coming from a guy who hated 2k basketball with a passion up until 2k7. Then I had no choice but to play 2k, cuz Live was such a mess.
And Madden? that game is not very good either. I resorted to playing NCAA (no complaints here) because the gameplay just did not deliver like it does in NCAA. I was just lucky I had 2 different options to chose from. Also Note that I've never owned a copy of Madden longer than a month. Just something about the gameplay... So the first NFL game I owned longer than a month (and still do!) was 2K5.
EA is just going to piss people off by buying take-two. Instead of putting all that money into eliminating the competition, they should (but wont) put the money into improving their Madden and their Live because those games have sooooo much potential.
I realize this is a rant about how crappy these games are. But, they've also done a very good job on other games (such as NCAA, NHL, and FIFA). I find it hard to believe they can't do the same with their Madden and Live series. Its not that hard.

Just my two cents...

[PaulZweber]

They can, but that would involve putting more money into the games and getting less profit out of them. Bottom Line.

"I realize this is a rant about how crappy these games are. But, they've also done a very good job on other games (such as NCAA, NHL, and FIFA). I find it hard to believe they can't do the same with their Madden and Live series. Its not that hard.

Just my two cents... "

[H to the Oza]

That may be, but better games also means better sales

[spit_bubble]

Quote: Originally Posted by koshi

And this was just an unnecessary post. Welcome to the internets.

And just to be clear... This was not a bash of the article or the response. Lord knows I've had my rant or two... Or twenty.