EA will nag you until the end of time

[GONNAFISTYA]

EA making sure all games have online component

"We are very proud of the way EA evolved with consumers. I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single-player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365."

"One of our biggest growth opportunities is Play4Free titles that allow customers to play at no cost and make purchases via microtransactions."

So every single game that EA will produce from now on will have a 50 - 99% chance of nagging you to buy shit all the time and a 100% chance of pissing off the non-casual gamer.

Free2Play will be a MAJOR game changer and I forsee a future (within 10 years) where games are littered with advertisements and eventually looking like this...



This could be the beginning of the end of the glory days of gaming when you could just play the fucking game and enjoy it.

[Pext]

hm... i guess while the main reason might be monetarization the real opportunity for gamers lies in data driven development ~ but again that's ambivalent: it can be either used to benefit the gaming experience or to optimize monetarization.

btw: do you really think free2play needs advertisements? LoL works pretty much without it.

[GONNAFISTYA]

Of course free2play needs advertisements - less than 5% of the gamers within it actually spend money and that 5% spends a ton - because it's their ENTIRE business model.

I'm using the wrong word. They're not "adverts" they're "pop ups that nag you to fucking death".

And if you're asking what will be the priority of either benefiting the gaming experience or optimizing monetization...well...it's EA so what the fuck do you think their priority will be?

[Κracus]

I haven't bought an EA game in years because they charge extra to play multiplayer if you buy their games used. I simply refuse to support them because of this direction they're going in.

[Plan B]

You pirate it, and then slam yourself with a crow bar in shame.
FACT

[scared?]

someone ban the op please...

[Plan B]

A desperate housewive appears...

[Pext]

And if you're asking what will be the priority of either benefiting the gaming experience or optimizing monetization...well...it's EA so what the fuck do you think their priority will be?

i agree ~ i was just playing the naive for the arguments sake. i think we're heading in a dangerous direction there; not only in games!

filter bubble, data driven development, etc... singularity alpha-0.5?

[DTS]

EA games have always been shit. So what difference does it make?
It's akin to complaining about Fox News changning the way they charge for their supposed service. Do you see?

[GONNAFISTYA]

EA games have always been shit. So what difference does it make?

There are huge, massive, insane things that can be affected by this and I could spend all day explaining it to you but I'm pretty sure you still wouldn't get it.

You're thinking about how it'll affect games tomorrow or in the next 3 months and you should start imagining the evolution of it and how bad it can get. There was a time when you could surf a huge swath of the web without flashing adverts or any other annoying bullshit and now an average web page won't load before the advert does and god forbid if you move your mouse anywhere on the page as a bunch of shit pops up under your cursor, including huge fucking adverts that hijack then entire page until you close it. And some of those fucking things aren't muted by default.

But hey...I'm sure some moron way back then said,"What difference does it make?"

Stop being so short-sighted and look at the big picture...the one that not only includes EA but every dev/publisher on the planet. Just imagine a future wherein the average review of a game mentions how many interrupts and distractions there are compared to other games.

Absolutely all of this is nothing more than the brain-dead pursuit of more more more profits. We're living in a time when the games industry is making billions of dollars - sometimes off of one game - but that won't slow down their relentless pursuit of monetizing everything they can think of. Not in the slightest.

[SoM]

i've always enjoyed the NHL series

will warez NHL 2013

[obsidian]

Not all EA games are shit, it's that developers have the intent to make awesome games but then the publisher shits over it all trying to market it, and nickel&dime players.

Free to play might work well for certain indie developers since they can get the exposure that they need and players can try the game cost-free, but I don't see any reason why a major publisher has any reason following this business model other than to annoy gamers.

[GONNAFISTYA]

The very fact that EA has mandated that ALL their games MUST have this shit pretty much solidifies your guess that they don't care about annoying gamers and would rather target the casual gamers...because they can milk those suckers forever.

[SoM]

i wish WESTWOOD was still alive to make C&C games, EA fucked them up

[Captain]

EA's MO is to kill creativity and innovation in the name of profit. Just look at what they turned Bioware into.

[Eraser]

Wait, EA is becoming the new anti-Christ again? I thought we were all hating on Activision now

[mrd]

Monetize that shit!

[mrd]

Reminds me of some ISP CEO rambling about charging for bandwidth in order to monetize all the chumps who waste their time on YouTube. Made me want to stab him in the neck with a pitch-fork. Monetize with sound products, like modems that actually download shit fast.

I don't think I've ever seen a great EA game. Even stuff like Battlefield has this washed-over feel. They all seem to look the same too

[DTS]

GFY:

It needn't ruin the whole games industry; there are adverts on TV during films; but when you go to the cinema a film plays uninterrupted. Also, sorry cause you said you don't want to "spend all day explaining", but your website analogy doesn't work very well, cause in most cases if the adverts get in the way I'll just close the site.

[Eraser]

cause in most cases if the adverts get in the way I'll just close the site.

how about you replace "close the site" with "stop playing the game" and get that analogy right back on track again?

[DTS]

You haven't paid for the site; you paid for the game. If the game is free, you haven't lost anything, the people who made the game will lose advertisers cause they don't get enough viewers, so the people who made the game lose.

[Eraser]

You haven't paid for the site; you paid for the game. If the game is free, you haven't lost anything, the people who made the game will lose advertisers cause they don't get enough viewers, so the people who made the game lose.

Whoa, you're going quite fast and overlooking a few significant things there.

First of all, GKY was talking about free to play, so in that sense, him creating the analogy between a website and a F2P game isn't wrong.

Also, you state that you don't lose anything, but consider the following (rather black and white) portrayal of the future where all games work this way. Won't you find yourself in the situation where you aren't playing any game anymore and you're longing back for the good old days? Sure, nothing of monetary value was lost, but that's not all you can lose, or miss out on.

Finally, if the people who make the game lose, they'll try to find other ways to monetize the game. Ways that most likely are even more draconian. Either that, or they'll stop creating games at all, or maybe just stop funding the risky creative games. Say hello to Call of Duty 14, Call of Duty 15 and Call of Duty 17* all being released in the same year.



*) no one really knew what happened to Call of Duty 16.

[4days]

*) no one really knew what happened to Call of Duty 16.

FFS Eraser, I thought there was a forum-wide agreement never to even mention that. Don't you have any respect for the families?

[GONNAFISTYA]

I raped the shit out of CoD 16's rotten corpse. I'll never say where it's buried because I might wanna go back one day and monetize dat ass.

[GONNAFISTYA]

For the record I don't think that all games will be ruined by this approach, but most of them and more than likely the big-name ones people want to buy.

I can fully understand the reasoning of why some gamers might prefer free to play, especially if they've spent $60 on a game that sucked and only played 3 missions or whatever. I'm sure there are millions who would want to "pay as you go" through a single player game, progressing further at the end of each chapter if they're enjoying the product. But I just don't like the possibility of having the option to purchase the whole game outright from the start hoping to avoid the in-game nagging, but still being nagged anyway to "get a better version of what you're already using" until I finish the game or walk away in disgust. I'm throughly enjoying Skyrim and I can't imagine the headache I'd get if the game wanted to charge me for every dungeon I wanted to enter.

Every game could literally turn into a series of DLC. And while I can clearly see the episodic approach that games have versus television shows or movies broadcast on tv, it's still a fact that nobody likes commercials unless it's the Superbowl or they really need a piss.

However, I don't think it'd ever get as retarded as say, charging 5 cents per dialogue selection in an in-game conversation with an NPC.






...but never underestimate the retarded greed of a corporation.