When did people start hating EA?

[Michael*]

The first I heard of the widespread hate towards them was after the much-maligned ending of 'Mass Effect 3', and of course, the Origin debacle. Did those two things simply combine and irritate people, or is there another reason from way back when? Franchise-milking, perhaps?

[ILUVAdrianaLima]

^ From a personal experience here with the latest Simcity installment I understand the "why" more then ever, it's the way they manage issues and take a franchise to a different tangent, whatever they may be, that gets a resounding middle finger from a lot of the public. For instance, they claimed Simcity had to be ONLINE ALWAYS but soon that was disproved and a huge uproar from the Simcity community came out to basically point out their short comings and bold faced lies. It seems more was pressed about releasing a game ASAP then actually completing it in its true entirety, and no local saves...just bad direction and management once again. They ruin franchises for the sake of $$$ and this has been going on for some time now. I am no hardcore gamer so I can't say when it started but it's been going on for at least a good 3 years now, that's a certain.

[Michael*]

So in addition to franchise-related cash grabbing, we have horrid management and rubbish public relations. Probably not the best combination if you wish to avoid rubbing your customers the wrong way.

[donbot]

I don't know how much EA had to do with Mass Effect anyway - Bioware seemed to know what they were doing, although you never know what happens behind the scenes

 

EA do seem to meddle in their developers' games a whole lot, especially compared to someone like Take Two (2K, Rockstar, Irrational) who conversely give a great deal of freedom and trust to theirs. You don't have to look far to see examples of their cynical money-grabbing schemes though (eg. taking the piss with Need For Speed DLC, micro-transactions in Dead Space 3  ...)

[ILUVAdrianaLima]

^ Oh those DLC's That was one of the most laughable moments for me and Simcity. Core game issues and what does EA/Maxis decided to do? Charge us $5.99 for a few new buildings in a DLC pack (some of which were offered for free down the road). FYI, game to this day is still not were it needs to be

 

#Priorities

[Michael*]

On 3/17/2014 at 3:11 PM, donbot said:

I don't know how much EA had to do with Mass Effect anyway - Bioware seemed to know what they were doing, although you never know what happens behind the scenes

 

EA do seem to meddle in their developers' games a whole lot, especially compared to someone like Take Two (2K, Rockstar, Irrational) who conversely give a great deal of freedom and trust to theirs. You don't have to look far to see examples of their cynical money-grabbing schemes though (eg. taking the piss with Need For Speed DLC, micro-transactions in Dead Space 3  ...)

 

I've seen a lot of people alleging that EA pressured Bioware into fast-tracking 'ME3' for the so-called 'March Holiday Rush'. Not sure how much truth there is to that, though.

[ILUVAdrianaLima]

^ I wouldn't doubt that claim. They had a similar tactic with Simcity and its disastrous March release

[Michael*]

< B U M P >

 

Apparently, we can now add Maxis to the list of developers absorbed by EA and then eventually discarded.
 
http://kotaku.com/ea-shuts-down-simcity-developer-maxis-1689454903
 
I hope this means we can finally get a first person shooter game, or perhaps even a survival horror game featuring zombies. There seems to be a real shortage in that area at the moment.

[ILUVAdrianaLima]

^ Read this news yesterday and I'm not surprised at the least after the disaster that last installment of Simcity was

[Michael*]

I suppose to be fair, looking at their last few projects, it was clear that they became fairly dysfunctional after EA snatched them up. Long development periods, dropped features and confused application of the ones that were kept.

 

The one thing I could never quite wrap my head around was the thinking (or the alleged thinking ) behind telling people that Sim City had to be online at all times. It'd be interesting if one or more of Maxis' former developers were to lift the lid on how things were behind the scenes during that whole crazy fiasco.

[ILUVAdrianaLima]

^ I still get a good chuckle out of the supposed always online component they added to this game at start. If anything, Simcity was the complete opposite of such a game set-up. EA was not listening to the fans from day one and Simcity fans are notorious about being loyal with there games to the very end. Something tells me EA will make the list of most hated companies of 2014 me thinks In the sum end, EA was the reason they failed, clean and simple! Hmm, I do hope someone spills the beans on the inner happenings of Maxis under EA. Should make for some good laughs and "I knew it!" moments