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EA turning all of its brands into "online universes"

Sentenza

Member
Do you know when you read things like "that game sold two millions, still wasn't profitable, studio shutting down, publisher expecting losses" and you wonder "How is this even possible?" What they did with the money"?

My guess? It's this kind of stuff.
 

Ryan_

Member
What's worst is that they took Bioware down with them. They turned the once so pure developer into a dark creature that devours money :(
 
Thanks for making me not be able to get that ten second clip without online or an iOS device, EA. Im sure youll think of more ingenious ways to hide even more single player content in your future games.
 
What's worst is that they took Bioware down with them. They turned the once so pure developer into a dark creature that devours money :(
I hate myself for agreeing with you here. Not only that, Bioware is EA's primary target for this kind of business. One word: massive cross-media campaigns.
Personally I had no problem with that whatsoever but when I saw that idiotic Galaxy at War system (accompanied by iOS apps, ofc) in ME3 I was so pissed off. Direct influence of that crap into your SINGLE PLAYER campaign. Fuck. :(
 
Ramsdale said:
online universes allow Electronic Arts to control "how the customer plays the game, when the customer wants to play the game and on what device the customer wants to play the game".

There fixed that EA quote to better reflect what they are actually doing. They are already restricting single player content unless you play multiplayer which is a huge NO NO to me (ME 3 has a special ending locked off to single player gamers).

I would like to say that "if they do this I am not buying any of their products". Unfortunately I can't say that because I decided to stop buying any EA stuff when they released Origin.
 

Derrick01

Banned
Yay more useless online bullshit. I also can't wait until they put games out where they charge for bullets like in that one investor video with EA's CEO.

They are the biggest scum in this industry.
 

Jamie OD

Member
I was hoping EA meant there were just going to add the Autolog/Ridernet style hubs to their games. I would be ok with that.
 

dr_rus

Member
"Imagine a player gets up in the morning, plays an online match on his 360 before going to work," he said. "On the bus, on his way to work, he practices his free kicks on his tablet. At lunch he looks at the transfer window on his PC. On the way home he chooses his kit on his smartphone.

On the bus, on his way to work, he practices his free kicks on his tablet. At lunch he looks at the transfer window on his PC. On the way home he chooses his kit on his smartphone.
"Here's the thing: when he gets home to play again on his 360 that evening, all those achievements and upgrades will be alive in his game."
Why in the name of fuck would I want to play one FIFA game all day long everywhere I go? It's not like it have any story that'd interest me in beating it.

Ramsdale said online universes allow the consumer to play "how he wants, when he wants and on the device he wants".
But that's a lie.

We've already seen some of this with the BioWare developed Mass Effect 3. Players are able to contribute to their Galactic Readiness in the main game by playing the Mass Effect Datapad companion app on their smartphones.
Yeah, never even installed that crap to my smartphone. Is it even avialable for Andorid devices?
 

Dyno

Member
You know, if some game company had a really novel to have some interesting fuction mapped to a smartphone I might try it out, as a one-off. But for every game to have some smartphone function means that you are going to get some stuff that's really forced, or else the devs. are just going to "phone it in" if you'll pardon the pun.

It's actually a good idea at it's core but the fact that it's the new way forward for everything is probably going to dilute the whole experience.
 

michaelo3333

Neo Member
They said something similar to this years ago when Ultima Online first came out and (at the time) was a surprise hit. It never stuck though.

Of course they didn't have Origin then and online gaming was some new fangled thing at that point. They might actually do it this time.
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
EA can't do cohesive online infrastructure at all. It always feels like a clusterfuck. I bet they will fuck this up to and ruin a few games in the process.
 
But that's a lie.

A-yup. It's not how you want. It's how they want, so there's more control to be had. I think I'm pretty much done at this point (again). I went a few years without touching their shit, and I think I'm going to have to go that route again. Time to cancel SW:TOR.



Actually that last part is overdue.
 
Remember when on-line multiplayer and the services and features to make it happen was in the interest of players getting connected with other players they normally couldn't have due to distance first and foremost?
 

evilive7

Banned
Ramsdale used FIFA by way of an example. "Imagine a player gets up in the morning, plays an online match on his 360 before going to work," - $60.



"On the bus, on his way to work, he practices his free kicks on his tablet. - $7



At lunch he looks at the transfer window on his PC. - $14 Subscription



On the way home he chooses his kit on his smartphone. - $6


Yeah, this sounds like a great deal.
 

Bgamer90

Banned
We'll always have 2K...

Funny you say that considering how EA usually waits about 3 years after a title is released to shut down servers (when most people have moved on to different and or newer versions of the game anyways), yet 2K shut down the server to NBA 2K11 one year after it released.
 
Ramsdale used FIFA by way of an example. "Imagine a player gets up in the morning, plays an online match on his 360 before going to work," - $60.



"On the bus, on his way to work, he practices his free kicks on his tablet. - $7



At lunch he looks at the transfer window on his PC. - $14 Subscription



On the way home he chooses his kit on his smartphone. - $6


Yeah, this sounds like a great deal.

Spot on, right there.
 

Pociask

Member
Ramsdale used FIFA by way of an example. "Imagine a player gets up in the morning, plays an online match on his 360 before going to work," - $60.



"On the bus, on his way to work, he practices his free kicks on his tablet. - $7



At lunch he looks at the transfer window on his PC. - $14 Subscription



On the way home he chooses his kit on his smartphone. - $6


Yeah, this sounds like a great deal.

Don't forget the Exclusive stat bonuses to practicing kicks on iPad, exclusive tournaments for people with the online subscription, and exclusive gear for the smartphone app.
 

Bgamer90

Banned
This is already happening. Look at any game that has an app associated with it.

This is just taking the next step of allowing inputs rather than limiting you to viewing static output from the game.

Shhh... stop making sense! Let people continue on jumping to conclusions!
 

inky

Member
Is taking a game that customers bought from the service so that you can't get it on your device anymore unless you made a backup beforehand just to replace it with virtually the same game with added microtransactions treating them like shit?

I honestly don't know because I never bought an EA game on iOS.

Edit: Wait, I bought PvsZ, which is basically an EA game now. Nice microtransactions too, don't remember whether that was before PopCap was bought. I was pissed.

This post just made me realize that when PvZ 2 comes it will be filled with microtransaction bs. It probably won't be on Steam either. FUCK!
 

Flunkie

Banned
I miss the days where single player games were the main focus, and a multiplayer-enabled game was only a blip on the radar.
 

Bgamer90

Banned
I miss the days where single player games were the main focus, and a multiplayer-enabled game was only a blip on the radar.

If anything, this will make single player a bigger focus if it will mean that you will be able to take your single player game with you on the go & interact with it on other devices.
 

evilive7

Banned
If anything, this will make single player a bigger focus if it will mean that you will be able to take your single player game with you on the go & interact with it on other devices.

For a fee. Per Device. Possibly per month.

You will be paying a separate price for each device you are using this on.

Sure, I can play my MLB The Show season on the go. $60 for the game, $50 for the Vita version, $250 for a Vita. Thats a $110 outlay for the chance to take my game with me. They arent letting me spend $60 and then just allowing me to load it onto whatever I want and play.
 

injurai

Banned
If anything, this will make single player a bigger focus if it will mean that you will be able to take your single player game with you on the go & interact with it on other devices.

Like how? Unless you are talking about Vita specific capabilities or some Wii/U to 3DS crossplat stuff then this would not be happening. Any sort of on the go features would probably detract from the focus going directly into the single player anyways.
 
They took down Tetris on the iOS and replaced it with a subscription model. EA will do anything they want and I blame sports gamers for taking us down this path.
 
If anything, this will make single player a bigger focus if it will mean that you will be able to take your single player game with you on the go & interact with it on other devices.

By very, very likely charging you more for it. Makes business sense, but in reality it's just another reason for a big pub to charge premium dollars for something, not offering the gamer real value.
 
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