EA May Be Dying

mraltair · #1 by **mraltair** » Oct 27, 2012 2:58 pm

Pacific Crest‘s Evan Wilson today cut his rating on shares of video game maker Electronic Arts (EA) to Sector Perform from Outperform, writing that he questions the company’s “competence” after cutting estimates for the game “Medal of Honor” and for the company’s digital online games.

Wilson writes, “This year we liked EA as a hated name, in a hated space with all-time low valuation. Unfortunately, we now think the consensus got this one right.

“In the past year, EA has sustained three unimaginably disappointing events that have crushed our confidence in its ability to develop hit games.”

In particular, Wilson cites the newest edition of Medal, which is “comprehensively bad,” the failure to drive subscriptions for “Star Wars,” and the failure to make any progress with “NBA Live.”

Source

Good news. That giant piece of shit is ruining great games by adding their shitty experiences. Maybe they'll cut all this DLC and Origin crap and release games without the hassle. Either that or die to allow better publishers to release top games.

Macros1980 · #2 by **Macros1980** » Oct 27, 2012 3:35 pm

Yup. Fuck 'em and their draconian DRM. All it achieves is to make it harder for people to play their games legitimately.

mraltair · #3 by **mraltair** » Oct 27, 2012 3:43 pm

Oh yeah DRM too. :nono:

they love that shit.

aban57 · #4 by **aban57** » Nov 21, 2012 4:46 pm

Even FIFA 13 was full of bugs this year, more than any other previous iteration

Wuffy · #5 by **Wuffy** » Nov 28, 2012 6:47 am

I will happily dance on it's fucking grave.

Though here's a thought. If EA dies it takes Origin with it. What responsibility does EA then have to people who bought things through origin and now are no longer able tog et their products.

tuco · #6 by **tuco** » Nov 28, 2012 7:05 am

Unless those who run EA are totally incompetent I do not see it dying anytime soon. Sure, they might have a bad season or two, but the way the gaming industry is evolving - market is not saturated yet, technology opens new avenues or games getting recognition of art for example - its not extremely hard to make a living out of it.

Well, EA is often being pictured as evil while it seems that all they try to do is to make money. Whats wrong with making money? In this sense yes, it is indeed a good news as it might give EA a hint they are not doing it right.

----
“When you are six hours into playing Battlefield and you run out of ammo in your clip and we ask you for a dollar to reload, you’re really not that price sensitive at that point in time.”

“So essentially what ends up happening, and the reason the play-first, pay-later model works nicely, is a consumer gets engaged in a property. They may spend ten, twenty, thirty, fifty hours in a game. And then, when they’re deep into a game, they’re well invested in it.

Riccitiello continued, “At that point in time the commitment can be pretty high. It’s a great model and it represents a substantially better future for the industry.”

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news ... hing-.html
----

There are geniuses among us.

Wuffy · #7 by **Wuffy** » Nov 28, 2012 8:21 am

If you are asking me for a buck to reload. I will pay 4000 for my one way ticket to the US and beat Riccitiello to death...

DarthHelmet86 · #8 by **DarthHelmet86** » Nov 28, 2012 8:27 am

I think he is mistaken with his analogy, that would never work but he is right about the general concept. It is how F2P games are working at the moment, you get people into your game, you get them to play for it then you start adding in extra things that you want them to pay for. You also make it micro transactions, cheap easy things that will slip under the gamers money radar. Companies are making money doing this, a lot of money.

Rome Existed · #9 by **Rome Existed** » Nov 28, 2012 8:43 am

I guess this is what happens when you tell your customers to go and fuck themselves.

Jumbo · **#10** by **Jumbo** » Nov 28, 2012 9:35 am

Well, EA is often being pictured as evil while it seems that all they try to do is to make money.

One of the things that got them that label was their horrific labour practices circa 2004. Though churning out endless variations on the same game is not a crime the way they had been treating their employees should have been.

Rome Existed · **#11** by **Rome Existed** » Nov 28, 2012 9:42 am

People were quite angry after the whole Mass Effect 3 thing. Many people blame EA for the decisions Bioware made in regards to falsely advertising the game.

DarthHelmet86 · **#12** by **DarthHelmet86** » Nov 28, 2012 9:49 am

I think EA tends to get a lot of the blame for what developers do. While I am sure EA does push developers do things quickly and get things out on a set date and even to include what EA wants I don't think EA is so controlling that it dictates everything about the game. Sure EA is a money hungry pushy jerk, but I just don't think they are the uber evil people make them out to be.

Jumbo · **#13** by **Jumbo** » Nov 28, 2012 10:27 am

The issues were not at an outside developer with EA being just the publisher. They were at EA itself.

They had their own developers on 7 day work weeks of 9am to 10pm with no overtime (actually no pay at all outside original hours given the weird status the workers had under Californian law) and no time off in lieu of working outside the original 9-5 5 day week. There was no time off to make up for things planned after the project had shipped either. That was the most palatable part of the working conditions.

It ended with a successful class action lawsuit and EA being forced to pay out nearly $15 million to the workers affected to make up for the lack of pay.

Wuffy · **#14** by **Wuffy** » Nov 28, 2012 11:05 am

Other things EA does. Take a studio, buy the rights to it's name, hire another less known studio, rename it to variation of said name, publish game leaning heavily on Studio name.

Crush said original studio and take team members now under contract and send them to lesser cheaper under performing studios...

Mazille · **#15** by **Mazille** » Nov 28, 2012 11:28 am

DarthHelmet86 wrote:I think he is mistaken with his analogy, that would never work but he is right about the general concept. It is how F2P games are working at the moment, you get people into your game, you get them to play for it then you start adding in extra things that you want them to pay for. You also make it micro transactions, cheap easy things that will slip under the gamers money radar. Companies are making money doing this, a lot of money.

Indeed. Riot are in fact making so much money that I firmly believe they plate their office buildings in platinum and fill their pools with money and whores. And probably cocaine.
That Ricotello gave the specific example of paying for reloading your weapon just goes to show that he does not understand the concept of f2p at all, which means that - sadly - EA only makes enough money to cover their buildings in boring old gold and has way less hookers in their pools.

tuco · **#16** by **tuco** » Nov 28, 2012 3:06 pm

Jumbo wrote:
Well, EA is often being pictured as evil while it seems that all they try to do is to make money.

One of the things that got them that label was their horrific labour practices circa 2004. Though churning out endless variations on the same game is not a crime the way they had been treating their employees should have been.

So did they lose them, productive employees?

edit: answered in next reply, sry

EA May Be Dying

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