The thing I find unusual about the apologists is that if/when EA does decide to start charging for demos - they're not going to suddenly turn around and go "Oh shit.. wait, I was wrong. This is messed up." Instead they'll continue defending them at every opportunity. I'm sure the new rhetoric will be something along the lines "If you don't like it, nobody's forcing you to buy it. Well of course they're charging for demos. If people will buy it they'll charge for it. I'm surprised it took this long." so forth and so on.
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EA/Rockefellers indoctrinating youths to alien cults (demo pricing errors on Xbox)
- Thread starter WarpathDC
- Start date
So everything must have some purpose. You can't just assume everything is these companies trying to get at you, not everything is some conspiracy theory. I wonder how some of you live. I'm sure you the same people who think that everything is illuminati. We not naïve, thank you very much, we just decide not to freak out until we have further proof. When EA does do it or there's a rumour (even then), you can go ahead and freak out. People make mistakes and you can't assume that they out to get you. Its called giving a benefit of the doubt, I'm sure some of you would like that if you someone said you did something, when you actually didn't. But people rather be angry.
Even better, when they never ever start charging for demos the conspiracy theorists won't have to admit they were wrong.They can just keep repeating that eventually EA will charge for demos.
And if they don't and this is simply an error, do you think the other side will come running back, cap in hand?
Anonymous people have no incentive to apologize for their previous errors. And frankly it's ludicrous to expect or want that.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Given how Early Access is pretty successful on Steam, and early access to betas of games has already been bundled with the purchase of a different game, I wouldn't be surprised if non-refundable preorder cash down and immediate access to a demo (ie buying a demo) is a thing that happens. Its basically what MGS just did.
To those that would never believe this was anything other than exactly what EA tells you, do you not realize the implications of what you're saying? Your attitude is is giving any company carte blanche to try to test the waters in screwing you over so long as they can come up with a remotely plausible excuse for their experiments. I say any company since if there was a list of companies that DO NOT deserve the benefit of the doubt, EA'd definitely be on it.
Neuromancer
Member
I'll take them at their word that this was a mistake, but I still maintain this is absolutely something EA would do if they thought they could get away with it. These are the same people who brought us online passes, forcing people who bought their games used to pay for multiplayer while they were already taking a cut of Microsoft's Xbox Live Gold subscriptions.
This isn't a question of "sides". One "side" is acting voluntarily naively for no apparent benefit. It makes no sense.
Thinking cynically of companies -even if only those that "deserve" it which certainly includes EA- helps keep them honest, encourages them to improve their procedures when they do mess up and of course also helps stop you from being taken advantage of when a bad actor does decide to start acting maliciously. Actual conspiracy theories are rarely particularly grounded in reality and so companies or individuals acting to work against them is rarely beneficial. Obama showing his birth certificate helps nobody. Backlash at a negative action not only discourages that action, but also helps make sure that if was an honest mistake - that it never happens again.
In this case for instance it seems very difficult to believe that it was just a mistake. For one person to be able to suddenly set prices for a variety of games from a single company with various region specific price levels, all by himself... with no sort of peer review or oversight pipeline? Even in the happy case of this being an honest mistake that's a shockingly insecure system for a front end that can directly impact not only the millions of consumers, but also the various companies that can end up with negative press or poor user impressions due to pricing mistakes. The backlash helps ensure that Microsoft/EA absolutely make sure that this never happens again. This "Oh sure, I fuck up at work all the time too. It's no prob." type attitude just encourages complicity, incompetence and when we end up with a bad actor - consumer exploitation.
That leaves out one of the more relevant contemporary examples:
EA: "We sim [Simcity] on the server, so [offline play] just isn't possible.
That was shortly before hackers enabled offline play. And eventually EA also released an offline mode patch as well.
EA has a long history of happily exploiting and lying to their players in attempts to try to increase their profit margins. They deserve no credit whatsoever. Why people still think it's reasonable to take everything they say at face value is just stupefying.
Exploratory
Banned
EA doesn't set the prices MS does. This error didn't occur on P so why are you guys still arguing this?
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
EA set the prices for this. Microsoft didn't.
However now reading more about it and knowing it was an error, it doesn't make the actual conspiracy so far fetched. I mean, the Sims 4 launching without a lot of stuff kind of sets the tone, and the same thing with Simcity... So, maybe a little cynicism is warranted imo
BumblebeeCody
Member
Wouldn't surprise me if it was a testing idea for EA.
People set the prices. They can work for MS, EA or both (since MS wouldn't set the prices on its own). This didn't happen as an error and I'm sure of it. It was some sort of a test. They knew it wouldn't be seen as a nice thing, but they were interested in seeing the actual internet reaction.
This isn't a conspiracy theory, this is common sense.
This isn't a conspiracy theory, this is common sense.
The Shift
Banned
Nothing to do with EA or videogames in particular - this thread reminded me of something I encountered recently.
In the world of Digital Audio Workstation software paid for demos( time limited) are a reality.
For example:
Cubase 7.5 (30 Day Demo)
Requires the purchase of a $24.95 eLicenser USB device.
http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/cubase/trial.html
Pro Tools 11 (30 Day Demo)
Requires the purchase of a $49.95 iLok USB device.
http://www.avid.com/trial/protools
Crazy.
In the world of Digital Audio Workstation software paid for demos( time limited) are a reality.
For example:
Cubase 7.5 (30 Day Demo)
Requires the purchase of a $24.95 eLicenser USB device.
http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/cubase/trial.html
Pro Tools 11 (30 Day Demo)
Requires the purchase of a $49.95 iLok USB device.
http://www.avid.com/trial/protools
Crazy.
CouldBeWorse
Member
You must think that EA and Microsoft have the dumbest collection of middle managers this side if the Darwin Awards winners. There is NOTHING logical about taking something that WAS free for weeks and then putting a price tag on it. It's absurd.
If EA and Microsoft were going to actually to do something like this, it would be packaged and "sold" completely differently to consumers than this stealth change. They know that the only way to get away with this would be to promise some kind of extra value for consumers when the full game hits, such as bonus content, continuing your progress, early access to the full game, or something else so that the backlash is minimized as much as possible.
The company's downs are normal people, but the higher ups are totally retarded because of too many years of having tons of cash for pretty much nothing.
Also, this was never about selling those demos. It was a test.
How sure of it are you? So you can say for sure this was a test, for certain. So you have a source, some insider information you would like to share, because if you don't, don't act like you know any better than anyone else or say it's common sense.
The Cowboy
Member
Remember how it was with Origin and deleting your account after 2 years of non usage, despite the fact EA never once deleted an account (and changed the terms to make this clear if I recall correctly) - for quite a few years after you always heard it as a reason to not use the service.
I can see this being the same sort of thing, in that it will be something used to slam against EA despite the fact its really nothing at all.
mullet2000
Member
Nice mind reading. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong and I'll admit it. I'm no EA apologist, I'm just not jumping to conclusions about what is so utterly obviously a price error to me.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I'm not wrong. It's a pricing error. And like I said earlier, it's insane to me that people are convincing themselves otherwise. I mean, that says a whole lot about the mindshare that EA has right now that people are thinking that, but at the end of the day people are letting that mindshare cloud the obvious explanation here.
Honestly, it's funny to me that people are still pushing that it wasn't an error after the thread title has already been changed to mock the people taking that position.
No, it wasn't. That would be about the most pointless and self-destructive "test" I could possibly imagine.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
Apologists? I can't speak for anyone else but I saw the thread shortly after it was made and it looked like a pricing mistake so I waited until we found out what was happening before I commented. I don't see how not jumping to conclusions and inventing conspiracy theories is being an apologist. If they actually ever do this I'll be in the thread about it complaining.
Yeah I mean next thing you know people are going to start claiming Microsoft would hire a company to pay youtubers to speak positively about the XBone while also forcing them to break the law as a part of contract by specifically forcing them to not mention they were paid. Lol conspiracy theorists. A big company could NEVER be so retarded.
So it was just a glitch after all?
Shining Sunshine
Banned
I don't know why EA is apologizing. This is MS's fault.
The process of putting up a store item and price is done with Microsoft paper forms. They get filled out, goes through a few hands at EA and a few hands at Microsoft for review. There is no way something like this gets through all these barriers and eyes.
It comes down to the last person who has control of the switch at Microsoft who made the change.
The process of putting up a store item and price is done with Microsoft paper forms. They get filled out, goes through a few hands at EA and a few hands at Microsoft for review. There is no way something like this gets through all these barriers and eyes.
It comes down to the last person who has control of the switch at Microsoft who made the change.
Review / quality assurance type pipelines don't typically work that way because of the possibility of the exact situation you're stating.
Typically a change is submitted, entered and then put in a queue for live. Everything that is in that queue (and already entered) is then reviewed by however many other eyes check it versus what was expected and only then does it go live. Any changes made result in going back to the beginning and starting the process over. A single person plugging everything at the end destroys the entire point of a review pipeline since as you mentioned then you end up with the possibility of a mistake by a single individual resulting in something that shouldn't go live doing exactly that.
A pricing pipeline is a huge deal and there's typically going to be a large level of redundancy involved to avoid mistakes. Imagine a game that was supposed to sell $59.99 goes live for $5.999. It goes viral and suddenly you've lost millions of dollars in a matter of hours.
tokyostomp
Banned
Wishing UFC had a error and the full game was $4.99
Macho Madness
Member
I think this is a great situation where basic probabilistic thinking is useful.
Let's start in the case of zero information as a baseline. We know nothing besides that an event has happened and could have one of two causes. You should naturally assign a base probability of 50% to either outcome. In this case of course we don't have zero information. We have quite a lot. It's up to you to measure out the importance of each bit of information and determine whether it makes on cause or the other more likely. So for instance:
Market experiment more likely:
Market pricing is going to be a system with numerous levels of redundancy to ensure its security and stability. There's a reason "oopsie" style pricing mistakes are all but unheard of.
-EA has a history of unethical actions and lying to consumers for the sake of attempts at increasing profits in unusual ways. Simcity/sims are recent examples of this.
-The precision of the accident. The price wasn't set to $59.99 or other more normal prices. It was set to figures that EA might believe consumers would find reasonable for a demo.
-The lack of randomness in the assignments. Both games targeted were mainstream sports titles from EA.
-Companies this gen have been far more aggressive than usual in relation to creating new monetization methods even when it increases dissatisfaction in consumers. EA is at the forefront of this brave new world of pay to win and offering out free-to-play games so abusive of players that they've faced legal/governmental challenges in labeling them "free." Charging money for something that's always been free would not be far from inconceivable for EA if they felt they could "get away with it".
Pricing mistake more likely:
-This was restricted to the XBone which has a less broad audience than the PS4 and would potentially devalue any data collected.
-Trying to charge money for demos is somewhat unprecedented and would be a now low even for a company like EA.
I am giving EA's statement zero weighting since they have a lengthy and consistent record of lying to consumers, including extremely recently. As such I think they deserve 0 benefit of the doubt. For a more reputable company the fact they simply stated it was a pricing mistake would certainly be not only a weighting on the pricing mistake side of the bar, but a very substantial one.
In a nutshell very few people know exactly what happened, so it's up to you to lay the odds as you see fit. People who are 100% certain this was a market experiment (lacking inside knowledge) are idiots. People who are 100% certain this was a pricing mistake (lacking inside knowledge) are idiots. The truly reasonable position is to simply think of the scenario probabilistically. All that's left is to debate and decide on exactly which action/event/datum that should be considered and what their individual weighting should be. I think in general you're going to be hard pressed to commingle the variables such that a pricing mistake is more likely, let alone substantially more.
In theory. This is real life and the true iditos are people going along with the EA Fail Train.
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