You Are a Pirate or an Idiot, Says EA CEO

[TevashSzat]

Sadly, PC gaming is in its death throes. I won't be surprised if the gaming company exec are purposefully alienating whatever is left of the PC gaming crowd in order to have everyone switch to consoles.

Wow....and where is this coming from?

Just to let you know, piracy is hardly limited to PC. Fallout 3 on the XBOX 360 was released through piracy last week, something like 2 weeks before the game is even supposed to come out. Fable 2 has also been released on 360 through piracy, well before the game's official release date. The game companies will have to realize that just because its easier to pirate of a PC doesn't mean console piracy is nonexistant

PC Gaming is slightly declining, but it is still nowhere dead. And don't quote me those figures because they don't account for online sales like Steam which have millions of users or MMORPG revenue like WoW, which is still nothing to laugh at

[Mikeus Caesar]

I don't really buy many games anyway (3 so far this year: Crysis, Sins of a Solar Empire and Spore) but i'll join in anyway.

EA r teh sux lol

I'll mainly join the boycott because of Spore - not for the DRM, but what they did to it. Quite obviously chopping bits out so that it could be used in later expansion packs, makes me rage.

[Koga No Goshi]

Sorry for the slightly OT remark... but in regards to PC gaming being in its death throes... I hope it's not quite that bad, but I think the general sentiment there is correct. Everything is either being primarily developed for consoles, or, if it's a big enough title, significantly dumbed down and flash-gameplay'd up for successful port to console markets. It's pretty sickening.

[Oleander Ardens]

Reading this thread, 0,2% angry consumers can seem quite a lot, I guess.

[Koga No Goshi]

Reading this thread, 0,2% angry consumers can seem quite a lot, I guess.

In my case it's not DRM or EA per se. I'm pretty disgruntled with the PC gaming industry in general. I wish that console titles and PC titles were largely separate like they were in the past, because it truly is not the same market in many cases. There is a reason that a lot of PC games were never ported to console and vice-versa, there are different levels of demand for different things. This move towards making amorphous games for both platforms means pretty much all the games coming out are aimed at about a 14 year old male's attention span and interest.

[caravel]

This brings a whole new meaning to that old "it's in the game" slogan...

[JR-]

I will probably have to buy Dragon Age from EA owned Bioware, but if its loaded with malware i will do what i did for Spore, Mass Effect, and Bioshock, which is to give it a 1 star amazon review.

[CountArach]

This is why I buy mainly from Independent Developers - the ones who actually care about their ustomers, rather than just seeing them as walking dollars.

[Koga No Goshi]

This is why I buy mainly from Independent Developers - the ones who actually care about their ustomers, rather than just seeing them as walking dollars.

I'm very much headed more that way too. I pay much more attention these days to the mixed old game bin or never-sold-well bin where everything's 8.99 than what's brand new and has 50 copies on the shelf for 49.99. There are very few big-title, big-developer games in the last 3-5 years I have purchased that were worth it. The downside is that nowadays I mostly play games no one even knows exists.

[TevashSzat]

This is why I buy mainly from Independent Developers - the ones who actually care about their ustomers, rather than just seeing them as walking dollars.

I would too except that the tremendous cost of making a big name game is so high that the indies mostly only just make the arcade games or adventure games. Even if they do manage to make a half decent game, the odds are that some big company is either going to hire them or buy their small company and we'll be back to right where we started

[Papewaio]

Now everybody who posted about Spore in the Arena and wants to complain here just got roflpwned by John Riccitiello.

His analogy missed it by this much.

DRM is like buying a new TV and having a security camera installed in your house for free. You are then told you can only move the TV 3 times, and if you move it a fourth time the TV will be broken. Even if you sell the TV, the security camera stays. Bonus security camera! Awesome, one that catches any criminals that enter the house! Great! Except this security camera's feed isn't CCTV for yourself. It is used by the company that sold you the TV, ostentatiously too monitor your viewing habits so they can tailor advertising for you. But also a little bit of voyeurism/ over protectionism to see how often you are downloading, making out on the couch and using competitors products.

Mint.

[Veho Nex]

Here's a memo that EA sent out when they whacked Tiberium.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce an end to all work on Tiberium effective immediately. I've consulted with Nick Earl and Frank Gibeau at the EA Games Label and together we have reached the conclusion that given the time and resources remaining, we will not be able to deliver this product to an appropriate level of quality.
The game had fundamental design challenges from the start. We fought to correct the issues, but we were not successful; the game just isn't coming together well enough to meet our own quality expectations as well as those of our consumers.
Unfortunately, this action will result in several individuals on the team being released. We will make every effort to place affected individuals on projects within the studio – and where that isn't possible, to connect them with opportunities in other teams at EA.
This is the right move for the studio and the company, but it's particularly hard for me because of the impact it will have on our people. Many individuals contributed their time and talents to this game. I spent time in the trenches with them and I was continually impressed by their work.
Moving forward, we need to make sure this doesn't happen again. I believe we are already doing a better job of engineering success in from the start. The quality bar has been raised. Now we need to step up our focus on great design and execution, catching any problems early and correcting them quickly.
We will strive to live up to our values: To make great games, treat people right, keep our commitments, and grow our business.

And here is a zoom in on the first paragraph.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce an end to all work on Tiberium effective immediately. I've consulted with Nick Earl and Frank Gibeau at the EA Games Label and together we have reached the conclusion that given the time and resources remaining, we will not be able to deliver this product to an appropriate level of quality.

Part of the last sentence.

that given the time and resources remaining, we will not be able to deliver this product to an appropriate level of quality.

Time and resources has never been a problem with EA I think its their idiotic leaders.

Since EA seems to be buying up the market and no one is doing anything about it even the mass black list around the world doesn't hurt their sales of console crap. Seems like my days of PC gaming, hell even gaming as a whole, are coming to an end, unless EA dies a horrid painful death of a monopolistic company.

To make great games, treat people right, keep our commitments, and grow our business.

treat people right

End quote rage

[Decker]

Are they trying to choke out the PC market?? Wow... where did ya find the article Veho??

[Koga No Goshi]

His analogy missed it by this much.

DRM is like buying a new TV and having a security camera installed in your house for free. You are then told you can only move the TV 3 times, and if you move it a fourth time the TV will be broken. Even if you sell the TV, the security camera stays. Bonus security camera! Awesome, one that catches any criminals that enter the house! Great! Except this security camera's feed isn't CCTV for yourself. It is used by the company that sold you the TV, ostentatiously too monitor your viewing habits so they can tailor advertising for you. But also a little bit of voyeurism/ over protectionism to see how often you are downloading, making out on the couch and using competitors products.

Mint.

Thanks for posting this, very useful to someone like myself almost wholly unversed in cracking game codes or pc game copyright protection methods.

[Husar]

Time and money are a problem when the product is supposed to pay itself in the end, just because EA as a whole has a lot of money doesn't mean they want to make a deficit with a single game like MS and sony were making deficits selling their consoles. Plus, experience tells us that significantly delayed games often become a bit of a joke and may just tank anyway.

[Caius]

EA bought a lot of companies which had good games (Westwood, DICE, Maxis) so they could use their names and brands to keep seeling games (Say, BF2 of DICE; Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, The Sims 2 and 3). If EA goes bankrupt, those companies will no longer exist (they ceased to exist when they sold themselves to EA anyway). The PC gaming market is going down , like Veho Nex said.

BTW, some few good games NOT FROM EA can be get for FREE. Free of piracy, free of DRM. Those might be not good, but its better than EA games, right?