EA is a huge company that dishes out a huge amount of games which in my opinion, are rarely good.  I will always remember EA for the decade or so of movie-based games that were churned out with strict deadlines and on low budget to try to make a buck off of fans of whatever movies were coming out in the late 90's and early 00's.  Thats around the time that EA forever lost my respect.  I consider EA to be a prime example of game developers putting business strategy first and losing sight of their customers (and in turn, not making quality games).

Heres the article:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/03/ea-announces-server-shutdown-for-14-games-citing-dwindling-player-numbers.ars?clicked=related_right

And here they are again, closing down a bunch of games.  In their defense, they all look like awful games.

add UO Daoc and Warhammer to that list soon.

The entertainment business seems to have products that are awesome, done with extreme love and care; and crappy stuff that just gets thrown out the window to see if it sticks. Some of these very crappy things become major money makers and unfortunately several awesome products sell little. It's not the norm, but it happens. If you have and pay for the infra structure to churn out the awesome products, it probably costs you close to zero to churn out a few rotten eggs to throw at the crowds to see if you can make some extra buck. It's just the way it works and I am glad we have sites like this to help us become demanding customers and get the best bang for our bucks. The more shrewd the customer base is, the less this will happen.

Originally posted by Games888

add UO Daoc and Warhammer to that list soon.

i find uo and daoc too old for me to play them with cluncky mechanics and dated graphics, but EA would be #1 in stupidity if they shut down warhammer knowing that game can be a huge success going free to play with cash shop (balanced cash shop)

The issue is made more complex now that EA has begun shutting down online servers for titles like EA Sports MMA, which require gamers who purchased pre-owned copies to pay a fee to play online, as part of the now-infamous Project 10 Dollar. A used gamer that purchased an Online Pass yesterday will effective paying $10 for less than a month of online gameplay—roughly 40 cents a day.

Yep, keep supporting EA and others trying to "combat used games" with bullshit extra charges.

Battlefield 3 was a surprise. Sign'o'thetimes. Austerity is biting all over the world. :(

Originally posted by rojo6934

Originally posted by Games888

add UO Daoc and Warhammer to that list soon.

i find uo and daoc too old for me to play them with cluncky mechanics and dated graphics, but EA would be #1 in stupidity if they shut down warhammer knowing that game can be a huge success going free to play with cash shop (balanced cash shop)

not a chance with GW2 coming out + EA dont believe in F2P + Warhammer will crash left and right if more ppl go back to that game.

I may be betraying a bit of naivete regarding gaming servers, but, if there are fewer and fewer people playing, could you just do virtual servers and put several games on the same machine(s), as opposed to dumping those people off?  Or at very least provide the means for players to host their own servers?

And secondly, this should have NFS:World players concerned; at least the ones that have spent money for cars and crap...

Originally posted by nyxium

Battlefield 3 was a surprise. Sign'o'thetimes. Austerity is biting all over the world. :(

They shutdown the free iPad game, not the real BF3.

Originally posted by Games888

Originally posted by rojo6934

Originally posted by Games888

add UO Daoc and Warhammer to that list soon.

i find uo and daoc too old for me to play them with cluncky mechanics and dated graphics, but EA would be #1 in stupidity if they shut down warhammer knowing that game can be a huge success going free to play with cash shop (balanced cash shop)

 

not a chance with GW2 coming out + EA dont believe in F2P + Warhammer will crash left and right if more ppl go back to that game.

sad but true....a good example was this other F2P they made like warhammer wrath of something.... instead of fixing the original they give a much inferior crap to get money from cash shop... However, all the games listed for shutting down on the OP link are bad. I only liked the saboteur a bit. Played half game then stopped, its good i never bought it myself.

edit: typo

Originally posted by rojo6934

Originally posted by Games888

Originally posted by rojo6934

Originally posted by Games888

add UO Daoc and Warhammer to that list soon.

i find uo and daoc too old for me to play them with cluncky mechanics and dated graphics, but EA would be #1 in stupidity if they shut down warhammer knowing that game can be a huge success going free to play with cash shop (balanced cash shop)

 

not a chance with GW2 coming out + EA dont believe in F2P + Warhammer will crash left and right if more ppl go back to that game.

sad but true....a good example was this other F2P they made like warhammer wrath of something.... instead of fixing the original they give a much inferior crap to get money from cash shop... However, all the games listed for shutting down on the OP link are bad. I only liked the saboteur a bit. Played half game then stopped, its good i never bought it myself.

edit: typo

EA MMA is a good game if you're into MMA at all, although the demo did everything it could to try and prove otherwise (I hated it until I actually got to play the full game). I still play the game online sometimes, sucks that I won't be able to do that anymore. Though I guess that's what I get for buying an EA product...

Originally posted by Robsolf

I may be betraying a bit of naivete regarding gaming servers, but, if there are fewer and fewer people playing, could you just do virtual servers and put several games on the same machine(s), as opposed to dumping those people off?  Or at very least provide the means for players to host their own servers?

And secondly, this should have NFS:World players concerned; at least the ones that have spent money for cars and crap...

You're probably right.  But it would require EA to give a f&ck.  Those are long odds...

The moral of the story is, don't buy anything from EA, ever.

Originally posted by Quizzical

The moral of the story is, don't buy anything from EA, ever.

This.

The word of the day is "foreshadowing."

Originally posted by Quizzical

The moral of the story is, don't buy anything from EA, ever.

What is wrong with buying fun games from EA?

I played Dead Space, Dead Space 2, ME Infiltrator .. all good games. No regret of giving EA my money.

Being an SWG vet I am not a huge fan of SOE, but even EA makes them look good.  At least SOE has picked up several games and kept them alive for a while longer than they would have been otherwise.  Also SOE has the balls to try something interesting, like FPS planetside and sandbox SWG.

EA doesn't give a shit about doing something good that will be remembered or stand the test of time.  They want to throw up something that will make some $$ right off the bat and longevity means nothing to them.  That is why more than anything else, I feel sorry for fans of SWTOR.  Yes SOE messed up SWG big time, but at least they threw money at it and tried to improve it.  When EA decides SWTOR is not doing as well as they want, they will probably bail on it all together.  At least SWG made it to the end of its LA contract.  Think SWTOR will?  Well, time will tell, but EA has a bad track record for sure.

Originally posted by Quizzical

The moral of the story is, don't buy anything from EA, ever.

Your loss since you missed one hell of a game called Dead Space 1 and 2.