I've been wanting to make this rant for a long time

EA. We know them. We hate them. We want them to die in a firey lake... Well some of us.

But in reality, friends, I believe EA gives us a valuable lesson. A lesson that you can't buy your way to the top. Now, granted, EA is a VERY large corporation who has a considerable amount of wealth (Not so much any more since they've been losing millions each quarter for five years) however, it's becoming more and more obvious that EA will never be the leader in.. Well, ANYTHING.

EA will always sorta be... Second best. What do I mean? Well lets see what EA has tried to introduce in the past 5 years, starting with their newest flag ship campaign, the MMO.

SWTOR, which will always be second to WoW (If they're lucky)

Origin, which will always be second to Steam

Battlefield Heroes, which will always be second to Team Fortress 2

Mass Effect, which will always be second to Gears of War

Dragon Age which will always be second to Elder Scrolls

Rock Band which will always be second to Guitar Hero

Battlefield will always be second to Call of Duty

Command and Conquer which will always be second to... Well everything since they've ruined it completely

But I'm sure you've noticed a pattern, and it isn't coincedence. EA's business stratagy has been to look at the top and copy the king. But unlike that one's who ARE at the top, EA lacks anything really "special"

Nothing is really special about SWTOR, or Origin, or Command and Conquer. Nothing about EA is very spectaculer aside from their ability to overhype... Well, fuckin EVERYTHING.

EA are coat tail riders, ladies and gentlemen. They can't innovate, they can't create anything really special, they're simply a bland, boring company who tries to square off with companies like Activision and end up getting embarresed, like when your big brother grabs your head as you try to swing at them.

That's what EA is... The little brother of everything successful.

I feel better

Props that was one of the funniest threads ive read today... oh wait you were serious.

Originally posted by LadyNoh

Props that was one of the funniest threads ive read today... oh wait you were serious.

Sorry, is what I'm saying NOT true?

For some of those you compared apples to oranges, as to others that is sheerly opinion. honestly i prefer rock band for a better song selection, Call of duty hasnt changed since MW2, EA has games on Steam, origin was put into place just like every other developer has created their own version. Gears of War is the only game Epic makes anymore and even then its mediocre at best.

Shall i continue. im curious how you paired acouple of these. oh! those 2 both have elves, its a copy.

oh got another one, Both those have Guns its a copy.

Originally posted by LadyNoh

For some of those you compared apples to oranges, as to others that is sheerly opinion. honestly i prefer rock band for a better song selection, Call of duty hasnt changed since MW2, EA has games on Steam, origin was put into place just like every other developer has created their own version. Gears of War is the only game Epic makes anymore and even then its mediocre at best.

 

Shall i continue. im curious how you paired acouple of these. oh! those 2 both have elves, its a copy.

Battlefield sold 10 million copies. Call of Duty sold 20 million

Rock Band hasn't come close to outselling Guitar Hero

And lets be honest, EA wants to get Gears of Wars audience with ME3, unless you think "Story, combat, and RPG mode" is just a coincedence

no i really dont think that at all. if anything is to be a copy of its resistance not ME3. or are you going with a sentient race of beings threaten the earth cause honestly i can bring up plenty of games who did that before Gears. the gameplay is standard in shooters now aswell so thats not even worth mentioning.

also for rock band, their third game was released at about the same time the genre from that was starting to fall. so they had 2 games against Guitar heroes 5 or 6 depending on what you include.

i guess this is the time where i explain how EA is actually doing the best thing for MMORPG genre at the moment. as it stands going to any company like blizzard and giving them a original idea would get you laughed out of the building. however EA is there for any company who wants to make a game. some flock to make a cookie cutter, others go to it to be innovative.  EA doesnt care if your idea is good or not, they will make the game and reap the profit. thus you can make what ever you really want through them. if your idea doesnt work, you fail, if your idea works you can push the genre forward. of course EA cares about none of this they just want money.

Now this model makes alot of bad games and afew good ones. think about it as throwing a handful of rocks at a target, some will hit dead on while others miss. see why this is good. MMORPG is currently in its infant years, we need a producer willing to just make whatever is thought of. this we can find out what works and what doesnt.

Originally posted by LadyNoh

i guess this is the time where i explain how EA is actually doing the best thing for MMORPG genre at the moment. as it stands going to any company like blizzard and giving them a original idea would get you laughed out of the building. however EA is there for any company who wants to make a game. some flock to make a cookie cutter, others go to it to be innovative.  EA doesnt care if your idea is good or not, they will make the game and reap the profit. thus you can make what ever you really want through them. if your idea doesnt work, you fail, if your idea works you can push the genre forward. of course EA cares about none of this they just want money.

 

Now this model makes alot of bad games and afew good ones. think about it as throwing a handful of rocks at a target, some will hit dead on while others miss. see why this is good. MMORPG is currently in its infant years, we need a producer willing to just make whatever is thought of. this we can find out what works and what doesnt.

That's assuming EA gives you the time you need.

Remeber, EA wanted SWTOR to launch 12 MONTHS ago... Can you even imagine?...

If SWTOR wasn't EA's biggest investment in history, they would have kicked it out without a second thought... Hell they practically did

your wrong on that, SWTOR was in development way before then. its development started about 2-3 years ago. TSW has been in development for even longer. double check your numbers.

Well there is some stuff I can agree about in those games, I don't really see connection between Gears of War and Mass Effect, well maybe a little, but none the less technically you are incorrect about buying your way to the top *cough* Microsoft *cough* but of course Microsoft is also better at improving what they have bought off of others, but like the times are going, EA is just going along with the flow of corporate consumerism, buy what they think is interesting buff it up and throw it out on the  market as fast as possible, and for some this works, if its good enough to be improved in short time, but due to alot of bad decisions on EA's part, and excessive company buyouts, they have done nothing to improve on their image and have hurt not only EA as a publisher but also the industry.

Where does the gears of wars and ME combination come from? They are nearly nothing alike. Only way they are similar is in the cover system but wow let's see how many games now have a cover system just like that? Uncharted, Infamous did, and just about any third person shooter that comes out now. So, by your logic, all those games are Gears of War clones and should probably sell nothing.

Dragon age and Elder Scrolls? Really? Dragon age is a guided RPG with medieval fantasy setting, it's basically ME but with swords. If anything Dragon Age is a Mass Effect clone. Elder Scrolls is a Sandbox RPG, a completely different game.

Rock Band was never a copy of Guitar Hero. If you followed the news around it, what happened is the guys who made Guitar Hero wanted to add new instruments in the 3rd one. Activision said no, that won't sell at all. So they quit, founded Harmonix and made Rock Band which sold very well, same with Rock Band 2, EA published the game for them.  By this time, Guitart Hero was hitting #6, people were burnt out of the plastic instrument genre. Not too mention, the only way to make money in the genre was to sell those plastic instuments which by then everyone had if they wanted it.

Battlefield heroes of course will never trump Team fortress and EA was never aiming for that audience anyway. Only way the games are alike is the cartoony graphics. And I'm sure that was more of a technical limitation of browser based gaming at the time. Battlefield heroes was for battlefield fans.

You might hate EA, but none of the games you have mentioned have done bad. They are all successes. Sure, battlefield has not sold as much as CoD, but neither has WoW, or any other game for that matter. Most games are lucky to make it to a million copies. Don't just throw out hate information because you don't like a company. If you don't like them, don't buy from them and if other people do, so be it.

Originally posted by Jason2444

 

Battlefield sold 10 million copies. Call of Duty sold 20 million

 

And lets be honest, EA wants to get Gears of Wars audience with ME3, unless you think "Story, combat, and RPG mode" is just a coincedence

we have to see the reality here. Call of duty is more popular than Battlefield because most people dont like realistic warfare, just play run and gun on small maps with no sense of strategy / tactics. That said, Battlefield is actually a better game when it comes to real shooting action / warfare (i personaly prefer CoD campaign, but multiplayer goes for BF in every sense of the word).

Regarding ME and Gears, all i can say is i would not give up on Gears for ME.

Originally posted by LadyNoh

your wrong on that, SWTOR was in development way before then. its development started about 2-3 years ago. TSW has been in development for even longer. double check your numbers.

I'm not saying it was being developed for 12 months, I'm saying that's when they wanted it to be released

Originally posted by Jason2444

Originally posted by LadyNoh

your wrong on that, SWTOR was in development way before then. its development started about 2-3 years ago. TSW has been in development for even longer. double check your numbers.

I'm not saying it was being developed for 12 months, I'm saying that's when they wanted it to be released

You know what I don't get? How on EARTH were they targeting a Spring 2011 release?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/bioware-confirms-swtor-for-spring-2011

How could EAware have actually believed that they were on track for such a release date, when they had to delay the game almost a full year and STILL put out one of the most generic, bland, short-lasting, MMOs in the last 5 years?

There is really only three possibilities:

1. They knew they had to delay but chose to string fans along anyway.

2. Something went horribly, horribly wrong between Jan 2010 and Spring 2011.

3. They were behind schedule all along but were too incompetent to accurately predict their own development cycle.

Anyway, I don't know if you can say EA doesn't do anything right, but they certainly fail at producing MMO's. Warhammer, APB and SWTOR can attest to that.

you cant even say they fail at producing MMO's they made money off all those. if they make a profit its not a failure is it. i explained this earlier in the chat i really dont want to go over it again.

Anyways SWTOR was released early because they knew they couldn't compete with the up and comers. thus they released early so they could try to get solid ground and maybe survive the storm. releaseing SWTOR in the middle of TERA, TSW, GW2, Archage and Planetside 2 is practicly suicide, specially for a game that is Very Mildly innovative at best.

cause your coders didnt kow wtf they was doing

Mass Effect will always be second to Gears Of War.... what????

Dragon Age will always be second to Elder Scrolls..again what?

It is like saying bannana will always be second to pineapple. They are two different kind of fruits.

Originally posted by fundayz

Originally posted by Jason2444

Originally posted by LadyNoh

your wrong on that, SWTOR was in development way before then. its development started about 2-3 years ago. TSW has been in development for even longer. double check your numbers.

I'm not saying it was being developed for 12 months, I'm saying that's when they wanted it to be released

You know what I don't get? How on EARTH were they targeting a Spring 2011 release?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/bioware-confirms-swtor-for-spring-2011

How could EAware have actually believed that they were on track for such a release date, when they had to delay the game almost a full year and STILL put out one of the most generic, bland, short-lasting, MMOs in the last 5 years?

There is really only three possibilities:

1. They knew they had to delay but chose to string fans along anyway.

2. Something went horribly, horribly wrong between Jan 2010 and Spring 2011.

3. They were behind schedule all along but were too incompetent to accurately predict their own development cycle.

Anyway, I don't know if you can say EA doesn't do anything right, but they certainly fail at producing MMO's. Warhammer, APB and SWTOR can attest to that.

1. I imagine this came along later. 

2. The "something" was likely BW saying "Alright, we will be finished buildign the game by October, 2012". But then EA was like "LOL NOPE! Your budget goes as far as Spring 2011, kthxbai." Why? Because that's what greedy corporations do. BW couldn't meet that goal, and they ended up with a clearly rushed product.

3. As I indicated above, I believe that it's more an issue of pressure from the publisher than a failure by BW to understand their needs.

Originally posted by fundayz

Anyway, I don't know if you can say EA doesn't do anything right, but they certainly fail at producing MMO's. Warhammer, APB and SWTOR can attest to that.

Get your facts straight. APB was not a product of EA. EA had nothing to do with developing the game, they were just handling the publishing and distribution.

EA Partners Program

The EA Partners co-publishing arm is dedicated to publishing and distributing games developed by third-party developers. Notable publishing/distribution agreements include:

• APB – Realtime Worlds
• Bulletstorm – Epic Games
• Crysis series – Crytek
• DeathSpank – Hothead Games
• Hellgate: London – Flagship Studios
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – 38 Studios, Big Huge Games
• Left 4 Dead series, The Orange Box, Portal 2 (retail release) – Valve
• Overstrike – Insomniac Games – the long-term third party developer for Sony is working on a multiplatform game to be published by EA.
• Rock Band series – Harmonix and MTV Games
• The Secret World – Funcom
• Shadows of the Damned – Grasshopper Manufacture
• Shank – Klei Entertainment
• Warp – Trapdoor
• Unconfirmed project – Respawn Entertainment – founded in April 2010, formed a partnership with ex Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella.

No need to add insult to injury here.