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[Tyraniboah]

I think dead space and mirror's edge were the height of EA "improving". I don't think they are that bad now, but cutting story essential content from Mass Effect 3 and selling it as DLC was when I realized that's where they are headed. Thankfully online passes aren't a thing anymore. Mass Effect is probably the only IP they own that I'll spend money supporting at this point

 

[RMI]

haven't cared about an EA published game since Shadows of the Damned :-/

 

[MegaSackman]

From bad, to worst, to golden poo:

-Warner (something DC related at E3? we'll see).
-Ubisoft
-EA (could improve their rank with Titanfall 2 and Mass Effect Andromeda)
-Activision

 

[angelic]

Please also enjoy a sequel to the commercial flop that was Mirrors Edge.

And to a game that makes our lineup look childish in Unravel.

And a fairly unique game in the crowded market that is know as the Garden Warfare

And let us give you an amazing service in EA access.

There's a lot of bad to EA and there's been a lot good this gen.

I treat them like any other publisher really. They are what they are.

I'll give you unravel, great little game. Not so much Mirrors Edge, thats just your standard AAA blockbuster and its not really all that much like the 1st one.

 

[Ushay]

Great games in the pipeline, but those prices and season passes are as terrible as they were 3 years ago.

 

[SlipperyFishes]

The idea that this defines the worst company in America is pathetic.

Never seen EA as evil, they're a business and when devs don't perform as they'd like creatively and financially then they can do what they want.

Worst company at a time when banks were fucking over people the hardest. But hey, videogame fans are just the loudest which doesn't make this title accurate.

 

[NippleViking]

Your pic reminds me that as unlikeable Ubisoft can get each year, at least theres Ubisoft Montpellier

I believe Ubisoft have some of the best talent and teams of any publisher. They just seem too often to be jerked around by corporate, profit-centric BS.

 

[Peltz]

We probably shouldn't really try to analyze EA without also discussing their sports offerings in the OP. They're a pretty big part of EA's identity.

I have to be completely honest, I haven't actually played an EA game at all this generation. It's nothing personal against them, I just haven't been interested in most of their offerings. The one title I wanted, Titanfall, did not come out on any platforms I've owned.

I will say this though: the graphical polish of Battlefront is absolutely mind blowing and I think that EA will continue to build on that tech to deliver some more cool games in the coming years. They'll hopefully deliver more cool looking, creative titles as we settle into the modern console hardware architecture for the long haul.

Titanfall, battlefront, battlefield, and bioware's stuff all look like they will continue to impress.

I'm genuinely looking forward to TF2 and am still kicking myself for missing out on the first one.

 

[BeforeU]

EA Access is fantastic, so yeah. I am happy with EA now than I was before.

 

[Switzer]

I always found the whole "worst company in America" thing to be so overblown and hilariously petty. So no, they haven't improved, because I never had as low an opinion of them back then as most people did. They've generally been doing the same stuff the past few years, just with less controversy recently. But honestly the only EA title I have purchased in recent memory was Titanfall, I'm not really aware of what they are doing good or bad.

 

[Steel]

They've been talking a better talk, but DA:I and new battlefront are actually worse than ME3 era EA's output. I'm at the point where I don't care about Bioware anymore and I don't think there are gonna be anymore star wars games produced that I'd be interested in.

So, no. I don't think they've improved. Though, to be clear, I never thought they were the worst company in America.

 

[Ponchito]

I don't like their single player franchises. There's something about them that feels so "synthetic" and dumbed down like a Michael Bay movie (Transformers era).

 

[Malcolm9]

All of their sports games are pretty stagnant right now, and I hate how they monopolise the licenses.

 

[DudeWithNoName]

Absolutely. EA Access is the best value in console gaming. That is a long way for a company that at one point locked MP behind a one time use code.

This conversation starts and ends with EA Access, IMO. Love it.

 

[Simply Sami]

Fifa is a joke and needs serious updating.

We'd see how battlefield one servers work day one.

 

[LCGeek]

Not where it counts

When the company owns up to shitty optimization or removing features for the sake of only putting them back in give me a call.

 

[The Giant]

Nope. I consider EA a lost cause in the industry along with Activision.

 

[Caronte]

The only game I play from them is The Sims 4 so... I don't know. I like it more than The Sims 3 but it's too buggy and limited for my taste.

I doubt I'll ever touch a BioWare game again.

 

[Possumowner]

I think EA access is a pretty decent idea/product.

But other than that I think there as shitty as normal

 

[FriedConsole]

The industry always needs a villian. Ubisoft is the popular villian right now. If you have two villians, it will dilute the memes.

 

[Silent Chief]

Ah, no. They're pretty much dead to me.

I don't play their sports game. I don't like their shooters. I detest first person platforming.

Even Bioware is a constant disappointment, so I just pick those up in the discount bins.

 

[Steroyd]

Hard to say, I mean on the face of it, they haven't fucked up as badly as Activision and Ubisoft in the past year because they've been relatively low key, and what they have on the horizon looks promising, but as with your Dead Space reference I'm waiting to see if they've fuck up with Mirror's Edge somehow, before I even entertain the thought that they've "improved"

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Honestly, I'm not even sure. They went from terrible to just plain boring. But that's mostly because of some of their shady practices -- their actual games still haven't been interesting for years.

 

[The Lone Courier]

They haven't put a majority of their sports titles on PC, so no not in my eyes.

 

[nillah]

EA BIG

 

[Goose_Se7en]

EA improved to me back in 08-09 under Riccitello when they really invested in new IP. Mirror's Edge, Dead Space and Army Of Two. It showed me that they were taking a chance on new and interesting properties. But now EA is just ol' EA.

To put it in perspective the only EA games I've purchased this generation have been Titanfall and Battlefront.

Last gen and especially during the ps2 era my library was littered with EA games.

 

[Mr Git]

The other massive publishers also started vying for place as the king of dicks. I'm not sure EA has got better, just the competition is now just as bad.

 

[old manatee]

This conversation starts and ends with EA Access, IMO. Love it.

EA Access is a top-notch way to play a lot of bottom-of-the-barrel games.

 

[Linkark07]

Well, they made Mexican Origin the default one on my country, so they got some points from me.

But I still dislike them for killing Bullfrog and Westwood.

 

[bounchfx]

SW Battlefront was amazing (no i didnt lack content)

out of curiosity how old are you? If I had to guess I would say under 20.

the fact that you think it didn't lack content is pretty much a justification of the route a lot of AAA games have gone, which is bigger production values for a far smaller product. If you haven't seen the comparison image of the new Battlefront compared to the previous one, you should take a look. It might surprise you. (edit: here is the image http://ps4daily.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/battlefront-features-633x1000.jpg)

from a purely objective standpoint, the game has very little compared to what the standards were in the past, and in my opinion that's very sad, because as a customer base we are getting trained to accept and be gracious of less product. It becomes easy for a company to do this over time because a younger audience won't have the previous games in their memory as much and as such doesn't see it as an issue, simply because it's all that they're really used to. It's the new normal, and it's honestly kinda shitty.

 

[Muzicfreq]

I used to have a problem till I saw just how garbage Westwood turned out to be when they recreated their studios away from ea...

They were chasing a market at the time taken by StarCraft...

 

[Gamezone]

Nope. Battlefront was not even half a game, and they are still pulling off always online for no reason at all.

 

[Wagram]

Not really. Worse if anything.

 

[nillah]

out of curiosity how old are you? If I had to guess I would say under 20.

the fact that you think it didn't lack content is pretty much a justification of the route a lot of AAA games have gone, which is bigger production values for a far smaller product. If you haven't seen the comparison image of the new Battlefront compared to the previous one, you should take a look. It might surprise you. (edit: here is the image http://ps4daily.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/battlefront-features-633x1000.jpg)

from a purely objective standpoint, the game has very little compared to what the standards were in the past, and in my opinion that's very sad, because as a customer base we are getting trained to accept and be gracious of less product. It becomes easy for a company to do this over time because a younger audience won't have the previous games in their memory as much and as such doesn't see it as an issue, simply because it's all that they're really used to. It's the new normal, and it's honestly kinda shitty.

Ungrateful, the game has content...

 

[xealo]

Haven't had major issues with them since simcity 5, and at this point I don't care about past grievances there. I got Dead Space 3 for free out of that which iirc was a pretty new game at the time, which was a nice gesture basically saying "we know we really fucked up, we're sorry".

Last EA game I played was inquisition which I've probably spent at least 300 hours on since. They're ok with me, for now.

 

[...Scatter...]

"we have no time for remakes or remasters - we as a company like to push forward" - peter moore.

Now please enjoy Fifa 17, NFL and Battlefield, along with season pass 2 for Battlefront and new Fifa ultimate team content.

Annualized sport franchises should be excluded. I need my yearly Madden.

 

[Necron]

They still have a lot to learn... but they've gotten better (otherwise Mirror's Edge Catalyst wouldn't exist). A new Dead Space and/or Burnout are sadly missing though.

At least we still have Dragon Age and Mass Effect. So that's nice, I guess.

 

[Gtagentleman]

No, after the Battlefront fiasgo I just refuse to buy anything from them.

Except Garden warfare, those games are my jam.

 

[Brandon F]

Outside of Dragon Age Inquisition(two years old almost), there is/has been almost nothing in their portfolio to incite much excitement from me.

Hopefully their Star Wars titles will hit beyond Battlefront, but those are so far off, I am left picking from an ocean of MP competitive shooters and what looks to be a rough Mirrors Edge reboot. I haven't booted a game up with the EA logo in a good long while unsurprisingly.

 

[CTLance]

EA is still as EA as always.

Why would I change my tune so easily? I've developed my deep distrust of them over years, to make me even consider mending that will take easily thrice the time. Trust is easily lost and hellishly hard to regain. They could give me an all-access login to origin for free and I'd still take the time to comb through the fine print with a microscope in search for a catch - and after that I'd probably even complain about all the work I had to do to claim my (free) games. You can't win against a mindset like that, at least not in the short run. They will need the long con to get me back to their side.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Honestly, I'm not even sure. They went from terrible to just plain boring. But that's mostly because of some of their shady practices -- their actual games still haven't been interesting for years.

This is exactly how I feel. The only EA title I've purchased in the past five years is Peggle 2.

 

[I'm Spartacus]

While they can still do a lot to improve (No remasters? Surely easy money for virtually zero risk), I still happy to buy into some of their IPs and have EA titles in my collection. In contrast, Ubisoft and Activision are all but dead to me.

So they must be doing something right?

 

[ps3ud0]

We should wait for the Star Wars licensed games - Im sure those will confirm suspicions...

ps3ud0 8)

 

[spindoctor]

I pre-ordered Mirror's Edge 2 the other day and it occurred to me that it was the first game I bought from EA since Dragon Age Inquisition back in 2014. And before that was Battlefield 4 in 2013. Both of which I deeply regretted spending money on, and it finally dawned on me that EA just does not serve my interests in gaming anymore.

 

[Saty]

Metacritic wise, 2015 was the year with the lowest average score for EA games published in 2015 since Metacritic has been collating that data (since 2011).

EA\ Origin Access is probably one of the few things you can put on their 'Pro' column.

Cons:
- Continued utter failure with their NBA product.
- Increasing reliance on the Star Wars brand.
- Terrible attempts at shoving always-online requirements for no reason, NFS being the recent example.
- Continued mishandling of the C&C franchise.

 

[ngower]

Hell no. FIFA has been the same game for years with emphasis on FUT. It's gross. Look at the launch of NHL a few years back...that was downright embarrassing.

And their CoD/Battlefield games aren't up my alley so I can't comment on those, but no. EA have done nothing to regain my faith in them.

 

[Mithos]

I wouldn't know, they haven't made games for my main gaming platform since 2012 ;P ;P

 

[Ragnar Blackmane]

I think dead space and mirror's edge were the height of EA "improving". I don't think they are that bad now, but cutting story essential content from Mass Effect 3 and selling it as DLC was when I realized that's where they are headed. Thankfully online passes aren't a thing anymore. Mass Effect is probably the only IP they own that I'll spend money supporting at this point

EA between 2007 and 2011 was absolutely amazing.
They did not only push out Dragon Age 1, Mass Effect 1/2 and Dead Space 1 and 2 but also rather niche games such as Dante's Inferno, Red Alert 3, Mirror's Edge, Brütal Legends or Shadows of the Damned (yes, EA funded and published a Japanese niche game by Suda51 last gen, not kidding), all of them unusual and either innovative and/or great games. People seem to forget those games all the time. Thing is that after Dead Space 2 and Battlefield 3 (2012 onward) EA totally jumped off a cliff when it came to the mainstreamification of every title, a AAA-only policy, the total disregard for customers, 'money comes first' and broken releases.

The new Mirror's Edge and Battlefield 1 (thumbs up to them for actually greenlighting that) seem to be a good sign, though I won't hold my breath or think that their golden age of early last gen will return.

 

[m_dorian]

Well, here's the thing.

IMHO EA's games lack flair and -most importantly- soul. They really feel like they were designed in the accounting dept by the people that work there.
However, we do not have any more Dungeon Keeper stupid incidents for a long time and i hope that this is a sign which says that EA is trying to steer the ship. And yes, if they do this, they need time.
On the other hand and, concerning a genre that interests me, if i want to play all of the DA:I DLCs, and missed an offer, i have to pay something equal to 55 €. I paid less than 40 € bying the Withcer 3 expansions, which was a great value (greater if i have bought the season pass).
For a company as big as EA i have not seen as big as value for money as i have with the witcher expansion modules.

EA of today is much better than EA of the recent past, EA of Simcity for example, but they need to do more.

 

[Trojita]

It was super nice of EA giving me a demo of Battlefront with 90% of the game.