EA, a plague on the industry?

so we all know ea (electronic arts) is probably the biggest company when it comes to games these days, a ridiculous amount of games come out under their name and an even more ridiculous amount of sequels. it seems to me that every single one of their games is the same, all of them are highly polished in their appearance and technologocally speaking however it seems like none of them ever deliver on gameplay or substance. their have been some exceptions however usually these exceptions are followed up by a series of sequels that are exactly the **** same everytime with minor touches added all purely made just to make money from the franchise rather than to add volume or quality to the series. alot of the time these types of series' end up becoming utter crap aswell, the medal of honour series is a prime example, compare allied assault to say frontline and you'll see why.

another thing that bugs me is the fact that all their games are incredibly short lived, not one ea game i have come across that wasnt just a franchise they bought outhas ever lasted me longer than a week before i got bored of it. All their games especially recently haven't added anything to any of the genre's they have entered, they all seem to just copy other games' ideas, make them good graphically, make them incredibly short (single player wise) and then get all the credit from reveiwers.

so my question is do you think the same thing about ea as i do and that they really arent doing anything good for the gaming industry but just seem to be like a plague?

i liked futurecop and BF series =D

I like EA and its a very good company who makes decent to excellent games . :) indzman

I agree, they have developed/published many great titles.

Well, are we talking EA the game developer or EA the publisher? Because each "Sims" game has lasted me over 3 years. The Battlefield series (except 2142, didn't buy it) has lasted me 2 years each. The Madden series accomplishes what it should, each year a new iteration with small additions. With a series like Madden I don't mind if they only update small things. If EA put all the best gameplay elements they can think of into one Madden then you'd still be getting the same exact thing every year.

Now if a Madden comes out that is an exact copy of last years then I would not buy it. I only started playing in 2006 which had that vision cone. The next year I bought it for the Wii, so for me there was a huge update in that year though I did go from PS2 version to Wii.

I need some examples of what you don't like. It seems like people are giving EA a bad rap because they are a massive company and that is it. It seems popular to complain about large companies. I think I would direct my frustration towards id with their bleh Doom 3 and slightly above average Quake 4. Or Infinity Ward for making CoD II a version 1.5 of CoD I (only had better graphics).

Since EA publishes and releses so many games, they will inevitably have lots of hots and misses. From a business point of view, they are very smart. They find out what works and decide not to reinvent whe wheel because it's too expensive. I like some EA games, and dislike others.

Didn't Gamespot have a big fiasco with EA at some point? Can someone fill me in on that?

so my question is do you think the same thing about ea as i do and that they really arent doing anything good for the gaming industry but just seem to be like a plague?

Minglis

Last year, Ive purchased three games made and developed by EA. The godfather, tiger woods 06, andbattle for middle earth is whatI got. Each game were very good and pretty fun.

EA makes lots of high quality and stable games toplay. Theyalso havebig pockets to help smaller developers develop games.I think Crysis is suppose to be published by EA, they also probably doing some of the funding for the game too.

Well, are we talking EA the game developer or EA the publisher? Because each "Sims" game has lasted me over 3 years. The Battlefield series (except 2142, didn't buy it) has lasted me 2 years each. The Madden series accomplishes what it should, each year a new iteration with small additions. With a series like Madden I don't mind if they only update small things. If EA put all the best gameplay elements they can think of into one Madden then you'd still be getting the same exact thing every year.

Now if a Madden comes out that is an exact copy of last years then I would not buy it. I only started playing in 2006 which had that vision cone. The next year I bought it for the Wii, so for me there was a huge update in that year though I did go from PS2 version to Wii.

I need some examples of what you don't like. It seems like people are giving EA a bad rap because they are a massive company and that is it. It seems popular to complain about large companies. I think I would direct my frustration towards id with their bleh Doom 3 and slightly above average Quake 4. Or Infinity Ward for making CoD II a version 1.5 of CoD I (only had better graphics).

cametall

its got nothing to do with the fact that they are big, its fine to be that big if you produce alot of quality games but imo they have far more crap stuff than good. one thing that i also hate is that none of their games bring anything innovative to their respective genre's,too much of the time they are just the same **** with good graphics.

and they make way too many sequels which have little or no improvements.

some examples of series' or games which show one or more of these characteristics would be the moh series, need for speed series, fifa series, almost all their sports games in fact and now they may do the same to the C&C series.

I agree about ID, however thats only 2 games. ea has made a ton of crap

I like EA and its a very good company who makes decent to excellent games . :) indzman

I like EA and its a very good company who makes decent to excellent games . :) indzman

You don't know what you're talking about...

Its not just EA, but specifically every publisher in the PC gaming industry imo. Theyre not mediators, theyre middlemen...and what do middlemen do? Not much on a practical level, they just pretend to broker a deal between two parties (consumer and developer) while taking advantage of both.

I realize that publishers pay developers to make a game, and this lessens the risk to the developer since theyre not spending their own money to make a game, but the problem is that developers are not making THEIR game! Theyre making the PUBLISHER's game. In a world where 90% of restaurants fail within two years and small businesses struggle constantly, is it really so horrible to ask developers to take a risk and take out a loan, make a game they want to make, and then distribute it cheaply across the internet? I dont think so.

We need more companies like Valve, who were previously wronged by publishers (Vivendi, I believe) and decided to say "screw them" and developed their own method of distribution, such as Steam. In my opinion, programs like Steam are going to be the key to saving the PC gaming industry, or at the least keeping it alive. It allows the developer to set their own release dates, and while this isnt ideal as it means delays, it is extremely good because we get a finished game, unlike what we often get from publishers such as EA (Battlefield 2/2142 anyone?).

Just imagine a world where Obsidian had a few extra months to optimize Neverwinter Nights 2, a world where DICE had time to listen to their beta testers and fixed the sentry-gun-shooting-through-walls problem, imagine a world where publishers didnt force Starforce onto thier products and insteadall people had to do was log into a Steam-like program to authenticate a genuine copy of a game...well, my friends, that is a world without publishers.

I realize publishers, specifically EA, have brought us amazing games in the past. THe C&C games, Freedom Fighters...the list goes on. But their wrongs greatly outweigh their rights imo.

[QUOTE="indzman"]I like EA and its a very good company who makes decent to excellent games . :) Odissius

You don't know what you're talking about...

Sure he does, he knows that EA published the EXTREMELY famous battlefield series, and there publishing Crysis, not to mention the Sims which has sold billions.

In the end though they are a company, if i was leader of EA id want to make the most money i could so yeah i think there alright i guess.

i like Ubisoft too :)

EDIT:I forgot to mention EA + Ubisoft are just publishers, meaning they didnt actually make the game, they just give the money. like a book the publisher dosent write it he just sells it.

So dont blame EA for a crappy game.

They brought battlefield 2 and 2142 which are one of the best shooters ever created. I loved Fifa 06 but 07 was a let down . Hopefully they make a comeback with 08.

Capcom innovative? Apparently you never heard of their fighting games.Zero_Space

Ever since I played street fighter back in 1992 I have been a fan. It's a great game up to this date.

sometimes EA is dire, but sometimes they are pretty good. As people say BF2 etc. What I dont agree with is The Sims, a game I quite liked, but the slew of expansions is getting wearing...Javaguychronox

It remains the top selling PC title even up to this date even though the game came out 2 years ago.

I don't know what the deal with EA is. When people on this forum complain about EA, it usually has to do with a game being unfinished or unstable or whatever. I've played some of their games...I think Black & White 2 was one of their games, and I played The Godfather as well. Those were fun games.

If people are going to complain about the lack of innovation, then this complaint can be used against the vast majority of publishers methinks.

so we all know ea (electronic arts) is probably the biggest company when it comes to games these days, a ridiculous amount of games come out under their name and an even more ridiculous amount of sequels. it seems to me that every single one of their games is the same, all of them are highly polished in their appearance and technologocally speaking however it seems like none of them ever deliver on gameplay or substance. their have been some exceptions however usually these exceptions are followed up by a series of sequels that are exactly the **** same everytime with minor touches added all purely made just to make money from the franchise rather than to add volume or quality to the series. alot of the time these types of series' end up becoming utter crap aswell, the medal of honour series is a prime example, compare allied assault to say frontline and you'll see why.

another thing that bugs me is the fact that all their games are incredibly short lived, not one ea game i have come across that wasnt just a franchise they bought outhas ever lasted me longer than a week before i got bored of it. All their games especially recently haven't added anything to any of the genre's they have entered, they all seem to just copy other games' ideas, make them good graphically, make them incredibly short (single player wise) and then get all the credit from reveiwers.

so my question is do you think the same thing about ea as i do and that they really arent doing anything good for the gaming industry but just seem to be like a plague?

Minglis

I think I would direct my frustration towards id with their bleh Doom 3 and slightly above average Quake 4. Or Infinity Ward for making CoD II a version 1.5 of CoD I (only had better graphics).cametall

[QUOTE="Odissius"]

[QUOTE="indzman"]I like EA and its a very good company who makes decent to excellent games . :) gamerchris810

You don't know what you're talking about...

Sure he does, he knows that EA published the EXTREMELY famous battlefield series, and there publishing Crysis, not to mention the Sims which has sold billions.

In the end though they are a company, if i was leader of EA id want to make the most money i could so yeah i think there alright i guess.

i like Ubisoft too :)

EDIT:I forgot to mention EA + Ubisoft are just publishers, meaning they didnt actually make the game, they just give the money. like a book the publisher dosent write it he just sells it.

So dont blame EA for a crappy game.

[QUOTE="Minglis"]

so we all know ea (electronic arts) is probably the biggest company when it comes to games these days, a ridiculous amount of games come out under their name and an even more ridiculous amount of sequels. it seems to me that every single one of their games is the same, all of them are highly polished in their appearance and technologocally speaking however it seems like none of them ever deliver on gameplay or substance. their have been some exceptions however usually these exceptions are followed up by a series of sequels that are exactly the **** same everytime with minor touches added all purely made just to make money from the franchise rather than to add volume or quality to the series. alot of the time these types of series' end up becoming utter crap aswell, the medal of honour series is a prime example, compare allied assault to say frontline and you'll see why.

another thing that bugs me is the fact that all their games are incredibly short lived, not one ea game i have come across that wasnt just a franchise they bought outhas ever lasted me longer than a week before i got bored of it. All their games especially recently haven't added anything to any of the genre's they have entered, they all seem to just copy other games' ideas, make them good graphically, make them incredibly short (single player wise) and then get all the credit from reveiwers.

so my question is do you think the same thing about ea as i do and that they really arent doing anything good for the gaming industry but just seem to be like a plague?

JN_Fenrir

I think I would direct my frustration towards id with their bleh Doom 3 and slightly above average Quake 4. Or Infinity Ward for making CoD II a version 1.5 of CoD I (only had better graphics).cametall

i cant believe you bagged raven games, they are responsible for some classics. sof2 is also considered a classic btw.

quake 4 was fine, i mean its hard to reinvent a series this much after the original and still remain with the times, hopefully the next one in the series will make up for it though.

EA does take some risks every now and again - sort of. I'll restate that, they take risks that will basically not fail because of their popularity.

Take Medal of Honor for instance. Now, Allied Assault wasn't the first medal of Honor, true, but it was the first one to come along that made people say "Hey! There's something to this whole WWII shooter thing..." In other words, EA practically invented the WWII Shooter sub-genre. Although, to be fair id made Wolfenstein a long time ago, but it had about as much to do with WWII as the original BloodRayne did - which is absolutely nothing except for character renderings. Medal of Honor was always about the reality of WWII whereas those titles were complete fantasy fabrications - cool games though...

Anyhoo, EA isn't evil. They're smart. They don't have to be innovative when their games, albeittried and trued, are just good games. EA to the entire gaming populace is like Blizzard is to MMOs. Everyone talks about how great WoW is, but in reality, there is absolutely nothing new there. I hate the game, but I respect its appeal and overall success as being a solid game.

All that being said, there are maybe two games EA has ever released that will go down in time as being truely great games. One is a given (MoH:AA), and the other is merely reserved in the event that I forgot that they ever had a better game or at least one that was as groundbreaking. The rest, as solid as they are, won't walk in that hall alongside Mario, Link, Master Cheif, Prince, Lara, and the like. You should take pride in at least that fact.

EA does take some risks every now and again - sort of. I'll restate that, they take risks that will basically not fail because of their popularity.

Take Medal of Honor for instance. Now, Allied Assault wasn't the first medal of Honor, true, but it was the first one to come along that made people say "Hey! There's something to this whole WWII shooter thing..." In other words, EA practically invented the WWII Shooter sub-genre. Although, to be fair id made Wolfenstein a long time ago, but it had about as much to do with WWII as the original BloodRayne did - which is absolutely nothing except for character renderings. Medal of Honor was always about the reality of WWII whereas those titles were complete fantasy fabrications - cool games though...

Anyhoo, EA isn't evil. They're smart. They don't have to be innovative when their games, albeittried and trued, are just good games. EA to the entire gaming populace is like Blizzard is to MMOs. Everyone talks about how great WoW is, but in reality, there is absolutely nothing new there. I hate the game, but I respect its appeal and overall success as being a solid game.

All that being said, there are maybe two games EA has ever released that will go down in time as being truely great games. One is a given (MoH:AA), and the other is merely reserved in the event that I forgot that they ever had a better game or at least one that was as groundbreaking. The rest, as solid as they are, won't walk in that hall alongside Mario, Link, Master Cheif, Prince, Lara, and the like. You should take pride in at least that fact.

crimson_axe

A quick additon:: You playedMike Powell in MoH:AA

Well, EA are just smart, they buy the company's of game developer that went really good.

Example Battlefield, made from the Swedish Dice company, EA saw directly it was a winning concept and bought them up, still Dice that made the games though, just EA that publish them.

Same for Westwoods C&C Serie, bought up by EA Games, because, as we know, it was a winning concept, and we all see it

EA Games dont "make" games (exept for some ofc), they just publish them, they buy the companys that made them, so its pretty wrong to say EA "making" bad games ;)

I like EA...most of my favorite games are from EA, i.e. Fifa, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Need for Speed, Sims, Lord of The Rings: Battle for Middle Earth, Command and Conquer, etc. Infact, whenever I go game shopping, I buy 1 or 2 games from EA. All companies try to make money--they are out there for business purposes, not for any charity reason or for "providing us entertainment". The main goal is to make money. EA is good in milking out cash from their successful franchises...is it a crime? I find this thread totally meaningless.

I am okay with 2/3 bad games if I can get 10 other great games from a publisher like EA.

"they're in there to make money"......oh wow you genius lol, ofcourse they are. thats not the point, that post was meaningless though ;)

i dont know EA team was changed or not but i dont like their games much since NFS4: High Stakes. they have absolutely no idea about AI. in all games your enemies or random stuff ( like traffic in racings ) are all set and they act always according to your position, like everything is homing missiles.

i was really annoyed with NFS: Underground. they used only 10 maps in 111 races, homing traffic so game became torture instead of enjoyment. in last 4 NFS games ( Underground 1,2, Most Wanted, Carbon) i only liked Most Wanted and i thought at last NFS will become like its old days.

before 2001 when we see EA logo we were getting hyped but now we know all EA games are just graphical garbages. some games may pass average score to reach good level, but they are not great because they serve nothing to gaming. now when i think of it i can only say NFS: Most Wanted, SSX3 ( even it was pain in terms of controller ( compared to THPS or X-Games ), it was fun game), DefJam Fight for NY and Battlefield 1942 ( i didnt even look at its single mode ) were fun. there are so many games out there but i can only count 4, so its really not good.

but as long as there will be fanatics, EA will live long thanks to its sports games. if i get 1 soccer game thats enough for me, why would i buy it every year to see new names only. i would only do that for Sensible Soccer, which is still more fun than any 3d soccer game. before fifa series started Sensible Soccer had already everything, playing matches yourself, making your own tactic, tranfering other players to your team, it had the best carreer mode still.

also as long as people continue to think good graphics = good game, EA will long live again.

so now i see EA as killer of fun, graphical junk producer. once in a year they release exceptional games, but thats all for me.

i dont know EA team was changed or not but i dont like their games much since NFS4: High Stakes. they have absolutely no idea about AI. in all games your enemies or random stuff ( like traffic in racings ) are all set and they act always according to your position, like everything is homing missiles.

i was really annoyed with NFS: Underground. they used only 10 maps in 111 races, homing traffic so game became torture instead of enjoyment. in last 4 NFS games ( Underground 1,2, Most Wanted, Carbon) i only liked Most Wanted and i thought at last NFS will become like its old days, but with carbon my thoughts vanished already.

before 2001 when we see EA logo we were getting hyped but now we know all EA games are just graphical garbages. some games may pass average score to reach good level, but they are not great because they serve nothing to gaming. now when i think of it i can only say NFS: Most Wanted, SSX3 ( even it was pain in terms of controller ( compared to THPS or X-Games ), it was fun game), DefJam Fight for NY and Battlefield 1942 ( i didnt even look at its single mode ) were fun. there are so many games out there but i can only count 4, so its really not good.

but as long as there will be fanatics, EA will live long thanks to its sports games. if i get 1 soccer game thats enough for me, why would i buy it every year to see new names only. i would only do that for Sensible Soccer, which is still more fun than any 3d soccer game. before fifa series started Sensible Soccer had already everything, playing matches yourself, making your own tactic, tranfering other players to your team, it had the best carreer mode still.

also as long as people continue to think good graphics = good game, EA will long live again.

so now i see EA as killer of fun, graphical junk producer. once in a year they release exceptional games, but thats all for me.

ali_kerem

Well, I say you are right about many games , but this is unfair to call them plague.........and I agree with Agent_13

they are so scared and at least they do not take the challenge very easily while they are making money out of their old strategy ............. unless they have to......

i dont know EA team was changed or not but i dont like their games much since NFS4: High Stakes. they have absolutely no idea about AI. in all games your enemies or random stuff ( like traffic in racings ) are all set and they act always according to your position, like everything is homing missiles.

i was really annoyed with NFS: Underground. they used only 10 maps in 111 races, homing traffic so game became torture instead of enjoyment. in last 4 NFS games ( Underground 1,2, Most Wanted, Carbon) i only liked Most Wanted and i thought at last NFS will become like its old days.

before 2001 when we see EA logo we were getting hyped but now we know all EA games are just graphical garbages. some games may pass average score to reach good level, but they are not great because they serve nothing to gaming. now when i think of it i can only say NFS: Most Wanted, SSX3 ( even it was pain in terms of controller ( compared to THPS or X-Games ), it was fun game), DefJam Fight for NY and Battlefield 1942 ( i didnt even look at its single mode ) were fun. there are so many games out there but i can only count 4, so its really not good.

but as long as there will be fanatics, EA will live long thanks to its sports games. if i get 1 soccer game thats enough for me, why would i buy it every year to see new names only. i would only do that for Sensible Soccer, which is still more fun than any 3d soccer game. before fifa series started Sensible Soccer had already everything, playing matches yourself, making your own tactic, tranfering other players to your team, it had the best carreer mode still.

also as long as people continue to think good graphics = good game, EA will long live again.

so now i see EA as killer of fun, graphical junk producer. once in a year they release exceptional games, but thats all for me.

ali_kerem

well said, i totally agree

Every time someone has a valid opinion you insult them or claim their logic is flawed. This thread is now degrading people who like sports games. Fans buy these sports games so they can play as Manning or control Urlacher and Taylor. We don't want to play a game where we control Joe Bob the quaterback. Maybe with the new 2k7 (or whatever it is called) football game coming out having the oldies (Unitas, Nameth) they will put some pressure on EA because older sports fans appreciate what these players did in the day.

EA does not take big risks often so they can maintain their size. They make small modifications to their sports games so they can release a new one every year and the majority of people (as shown by sales) like it that way. If their sales show that people like it that way then they will continue to do it. Same for their NFS series and MoH. Now CoD is spanking MoH and it is going to force EA to up the ante.

Lets look at Clover Studios. Very creative and innovative company who got canned by Capcom. Why? People did not want to take risks buying a no-name game no matter how innovative it is. Sad but true and I wish it weren't. If EA did what you want them to do I bet within 10 years Ubisoft will overtake them size.

As in my earlier post I have no problems with EA, if a company released as many games as EA did a year then they would have the same amount of garbage games coming at as EA does. The acutal games of theirs I play (Black and White 2, the Sims, Battlefield, C&C, Madden) have all kept me happy with each iteration.

The new C&C game has been praised to no end because it goes back to the original formula. Reviewers and critics are just plain hypocrites.

lol okay mate, again you missed the point. i never said "ea should try to create a new revolutionary game everytime they release something new" just so u know ;).

and sports games are great, i own several sports games and some by ea so stop putting words into my mouth.

whats ridiculous is releasing a new one each year just to update all the players and all that crap without having hardly any improvements in terms of graphics or gameplay. Doing that has helped kill the credibility of sports games

lol okay mate, again you missed the point. i never said "ea should try to create a new revolutionary game everytime they release something new" just so u know ;).

and sports games are great, i own several sports games and some by ea so stop putting words into my mouth.

whats ridiculous is releasing a new one each year just to update all the players and all that crap without having hardly any improvements in terms of graphics or gameplay. Doing that has helped kill the credibility of sports games

Minglis

With just about every console being connected to the internet I feel a 3-5 dollar fee for updated stats should be a reasonable way to upgrade your sports game. There is no reason someone should have to pay close to 60 dollars for Madden 08 or something just so the game says such and such has 200 extra yards and three more touchdowns.

EA seem to model themselves on Hollywood - find something that sells well then release as many sequels as possible to cash in.

Bad thing? Not always. Quite often sequels (for games) build substantially on the original version (C&C: RA was much better than C&C, for example). It gets fatigued, though. Frankly C&C3 was the game I played more than a decade ago with shinier graphics. Compared to SupCom, which although is very much the sequel to Total Annihilation, manages to completely change that style of "Big" strategy. It took what we knew, refreshed it and built on it. Even Blizzard with Warcraft has made each game stand on its merits.

(THQ, by comparison seem to be "up there" with releasing top notch games. While Dawn of War has become something of a franchise, Relic is an awesome developer and offered something new with each iteration).

EA are the biggest criminals when it comes to turning out mediocre games and endless franchises, but the whole concept is not something unique to them. They've just got to set their sights so much higher to make sequels something new, not something we've seen before.

[QUOTE="Minglis"]

lol okay mate, again you missed the point. i never said "ea should try to create a new revolutionary game everytime they release something new" just so u know ;).

and sports games are great, i own several sports games and some by ea so stop putting words into my mouth.

whats ridiculous is releasing a new one each year just to update all the players and all that crap without having hardly any improvements in terms of graphics or gameplay. Doing that has helped kill the credibility of sports games

mrbojangles25

With just about every console being connected to the internet I feel a 3-5 dollar fee for updated stats should be a reasonable way to upgrade your sports game. There is no reason someone should have to pay close to 60 dollars for Madden 08 or something just so the game says such and such has 200 extra yards and three more touchdowns.

I completely agree with you there. Talk about printing money. People complain about MMO's, well at least you are getting new content and dedicated servers. With the sports franchises, they make subtle changes and update the rosters. There is no reason why they can't offer new rosters other than wanting to con people into parting with their money. On the PC versions, at least you can get updated rosters from other fans which is great.