EA & Consumer Respect

[Phobia]

I want this to remain civil and discuss the issues EA makes routinely with consumer satisfaction.

This generation of EA sports games have been littered with bugs and glitches which can easily be considered major. Fight Night Champion for example had multiple freezing issues that affected many consoles. My 360 slim has frozen 4 times only and ALL those freezes came from FNC.

Then you have the NCAA & Madden franchises which every single year are released with a multitude of issues. Some of these issues such as the recent "roster bug" makes the game unplayable for many on this site due to the fact the game on a technical level is broken due to recruits coming in broken even if you play with default numbered rosters.

Now I completely understanding that games have bugs and no game will be completely bug free. I am perfectly ok with seeing some bugs and are prepared I might cross some. But there are situations where these bugs should not exist. This roster bug is a perfectly example of the current level of testing being done. It is a obvious bug which went gold across the entire buying public. It was not a bug that happened once in a blue moon or a bug you might cross once every 100 games. This was a simple matter of TESTING your product and seeing there was a issue and this was obviously not done.

Now I will say this, I would be embarrassed if I was EA. This is not a "small" bug, this is a major ordeal that could really put a dent in their first week sales next year. But I think it would GREATLY lessen the blow if you came out and gave some common consideration to your user base.

Releasing a apology, stating you are working on fixing this issue, when a possible fix is expected, and possible THANK YOU for understanding would go a LONG way in making your consumers feel respected.

I for one don't appreciate being used as "free labor tester". Even if this was not intended by EA that is clearly the way it comes out when you make no statement and don't show any consideration to your fans.

I am hoping this can remain open and be civil by our community here. I think it is only fair we let EA know how we feel about this situation. You can do this respectfully and let them know as a consumer how you feel about this situation.

Sincerely, frustrate of feeling EA does not care about its consumers.
Phobia

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edit: Just wanted to pass along to you guys the e-mail I got from EA. Just so everyone knows this post helped get the patch notes out.

Hey Derek,

In case you haven’t seen already, an announcement about the patch was just made in the NCAA ’12 blog: http://www.ea.com/ncaa-football/blog/title-update-2. Don’t think that you and your fellow community members didn’t have something to do with that.



Regards,

Heh. Looks like we emailed each other at the exact same time.



I realize that ‘by the end of the month’ might be a long wait for some guys, but believe me, getting the studio to pre-announce a patch like this is a pretty big deal.



Thanks again,

So Thanks everyone for making a push to get EA to make a announcement because it clearly shows they are listening to us!

[SECElit3]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

I agree, as a loyal customer over the years. I simply want 3 things:

Apology, time frame, and resolution to the problem. I don't think that is too much to ask.

The thing that is just driving me batty this year is the coverage issues on deep passing routes. I swear, I have chewed my knuckles down to the bone because of this one issue.

[Phobia]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

I agree, as a loyal customer over the years. I simply want 3 things:

Apology, time frame, and resolution to the problem. I don't think that is too much to ask.

The thing that is just driving me batty this year is the coverage issues on deep passing routes. I swear, I have chewed my knuckles down to the bone because of this one issue.

I completely agree SECElite. I like the game a lot and want to do nothing but play the game they created. But if I must hold off touching my purchase a month to month and half then I should of held off buying when it was used or possibly off ebay for little less. But I wanted to get the game release day because I heard it was going to be great and the new coaching improvements and everything sold me over.

But now I am stuck not being able to enjoy those features I paid for. I think this is a huge black eye for EA and just a simple come out and addressing the issues, giving a time frame of fix, and a thank you for being patient would go such a long way.

Because the way it makes me feel now is they don't care about their average consumer. Which is sad, because many of us have been DECADE or more long time fans. Little respect is not to much to ask for I think.

[northface28]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

Good thread, I agree. Im upset, I want answers and ill just stop there.

[ViLLiO]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

I agree that EA needs to address the issues and quit celebrating their sales, but what bugs exactly are we talking about?

I think the gameplay is almost perfect, so I'm assuming these are dynasty related?

[Daniels2386]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

I agree, as a loyal customer over the years. I simply want 3 things:

Apology, time frame, and resolution to the problem. I don't think that is too much to ask.

X3!

Ive been playing EA football games since like PS1. I never really forum posted up until recently, only coming to get rosters in the past. I traded in every game I own to get NCAA lol. Black Opts, Madden 11, Modern Warfare 2, Forza 3, & Fight Night. Im a loyal customer and NCAA & Madden are the games on a year to year basis I honestly look forward to getting. Ive had to good of experiences in the past to not give them a shot every year. Yes I do think EA is kinda dropping the ball, but theres still time to at least make it better known your trying to make things right. That is all

[JalenTigh]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

I agree. Some of these problems with the game are so blatantly obvious to anyone playing the game, there is simply no way they did not know about them before the game went to gold. I also understand that they are locked in on their release dates. It is not like some computer games where a developer can push back the release date over and over again until the game is right. I can forgive them for releasing a buggy game because of that, what I have a hard time forgiving though is not having a fix all ready for it by release day, or soon thereafter. It has been two weeks since the game arrived in stores, and no fix. I would like to know what they were working on from the time they discovered the problem and now, because there is simply no way they could not have known about some of these problems long before the game went gold... particularly the roster issue.

One thing they have defiantly assured with this customer... I will not be spending my money on any more of their products until they have been out for awhile, when they have been all patched up... which coincidentally will mean they should be available used.

[Kingfish]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

I just want to know they are really aware of the issues, get at least a weekly update on progress and to know what they are looking to fix.

I guess I'm wanting some PR attention from the devs...someone should talk with the community who is apparently their beta testers (that we paid to do it is another issue all together).

[roadman]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

Phobia;

I agree with everything you said.

I just don't know if it will happen. The reason I say this(said it in another thread), no one can guarantee that the replies to whoever comes on here will be civil. You know as well as I do, that some posters treated the Madden developers like dirt.

They could apologize a thousand times over and you will still have people come back and say, well, it's about time, apology not accepted, yada, yada, yada.

It would be nice if it happened and I guess I would be surprised, though, in a good way.

[boilermakernet08]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

I agree Phobia!

I believe the problem is this: EA knows there are gamers out there that will pre-order the game so they can have it on release date no matter how many issues there were in the previous year's game.

Let me pose a question to everyone. If you were selling a product and you KNEW you were going to have a large number of orders before the product was even released, how much effort would you put into quality assurance in order to get it right the first time?

For those of you that are upset with this game, do these two simple things next year:
1. Do not pre-order the game.
2. Rent. Do not buy the game right away.

Remember folks, you can come on this message board - or any other message board for that matter - and whine, complain and get on your soap box all you want and it won't make a darn bit of difference to EA. The only GUARANTEED thing that makes a difference is your dollar (60 of them to be exact).

[uclabruins4ever]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

This is what happens when you have exclusive licenses to one company.

EA has ZERO competition for both NCAA and NFL football games and they know they are going to sell millions every single year even though new features are limited and major bugs continue to make it into the release product.

No competition only hurts the consumer.

[Strings74]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

I agree with most of the posts above.

I think what gets lost here is that no one goes into this wanting to hate EA or their products. Really. All I want to do is love the game but there are just always a bunch of issues.

But yes, it just strikes me as sloppy work.

Believe it or not, there really is a point when people stop being excited enough to buy the next title and I'm just about there. I'm 37 and I love sports games and have since I was a kid playing Micro League Baseball on the Apple IIE. Like a lot of you guys, I'm lucky enough to have the disposable income to drop money on these 70 dollar games every year across various sports.

But you know what? My time is limited as it is and I'm basically tired of having to spend time reading forums and tweaking settings and workarounds to make the game live up to what I thought I was getting. It should shine like a gem right out of the box, imo.

I notice that EA has really slick and developed commercials and advertisements, they have a polished suite of DLC for my purchasing pleasure (yuck) and even a fancy new TV show this year. But a finished product at the center of it all?

Not so much.

I mean, just start by not making your customers feel like suckers for buying the game in the first place. Then maybe so many of us could overlook the rest of the nitpicks.

[SECElit3]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

"But yes, it just strikes me as sloppy work."

Year after Year after Year after Year... Should I keep going?

[Phobia]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

Phobia;

I agree with everything you said.

I just don't know if it will happen. The reason I say this(said it in another thread), no one can guarantee that the replies to whoever comes on here will be civil. You know as well as I do, that some posters treated the Madden developers like dirt.

They could apologize a thousand times over and you will still have people come back and say, well, it's about time, apology not accepted, yada, yada, yada.

It would be nice if it happened and I guess I would be surprised, though, in a good way.

I hear you Road, but I think part of the issue of why people have become sour towards EA is because of reasons such as this. People are bitter and their is reason to be so.

Sure they made a good playing game, but what good is it, if it does not work as intended. If you bought a excellent made controller and you could clearly tell it was made very sound. Yet when you push the A button it really is the X button. That is a loose example of what NCAA 12 is. A great game with poor quality assurance equals poorly for the consumer

[MaddenFranchise10]

Re: EA & Consumer Respect

I wholeheartedly agree with the OP's sentiments. EA Sports has a reputation of being a lazy developer, but this year's NCAA game seems like it was pushed out even more perfunctorily than many prior titles.

Perhaps it's the slumping economy, and EA's trying to save a buck by cutting the QA & CQ budgets.

At any rate, it does feel like I spent $60 to be an unpaid beta testers. This, coupled with the stupid DLC boost packs makes for a shady business model.

It's very hard to like EA Sports right now. Gotta play some NHL 11 to quell the rage.