EA has surprisingly called time on its controversial Online Pass program. Andrew Testerman wonders what the publisher will turn to next
EA is laying off an unknown number of individuals from across its Battlefield teams, including workers at Criterion, Dice, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studios, IGN understands.
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When logic meets EA it generates anti-matter ..... so try not to apply it in any meaningful way. Entropy is what matters in there !!
cue the apologist saying that these are mostly just contractors hired for this specific project bla bla bla
The free-to-play reboot topped 15 million players in under three weeks, but EA now claims it needs to reshape the development team.
The community warned them this would happen but nope they knew better they continued with the live service push the made the art style cartoonish and this is the result
It's always so bizarre when studios announce something super early in development under the suggestion of forming the game to player feedback, and then they push against all feedback heading straight for the cliff while everyone is warning them along the way
The Congressional Labor Caucus sent a letter to the FTC warning the debt-financed, largely PIF-owned deal could be bad news for workers
lol ya think? they're sending all that work to the cheaper labor market as soon as possible. and FYI, that labor market has exploded in the last 5-10 years. They have enough people to replace every single job. But honestly, EA is over filled with useless upper management as it is. You could probably trim 25% of their staff with no real loss in production. They aren't gamers, they're business execs. Just look at how many AI related jobs they're already starting to post. Its also hilarious that PIF owns Battle field 6
Wait,
The same congress that attacked Lina Khan when she fought the Microsoft Activision purchase.
The same congress that allowed Disney to buy 90% of Fox
The same congress that allowed Liv Golf to buy the PGA
The same congress that sits back while Paramount tries a hostile takeover despite losing the bid for Warner Bros.
NOW, the suddenly cares about doing what's "right" for works? Yeah, right.
EA now owned by The Saudis and Ubisoft to inevitably be owned by China. In hindsight, once EA and Ubisoft started having their financial woes, they should have pulled a Koei Tecmo/Bandai Namco by merging their operations into one.
I think the that EA is definitely going to increase it's microtransaction model, however I don't think this is the death of Online Pass, merely the killing and rebirth. It would not surprise me in the least to see some "version" of Online Pass with a different name and no actual code will reappear, similar to how they do always on for products like Sim City. Sure, that launch was a disaster, but from a business point of view, it didn't hurt sales and they still got their DRM. Look for Online Pass as a non-publicized but super annoying feature in all EA games to come.
About time I say, if CD Project Red never complained about used games or piracy and the Witcher II got pirated like hell (4.5 million copies to be exact). But they worked within their means instead of going "triple A" then made enough to live and create a sequel.
More developers need to re-manage their money especially when it comes to advertisement.
DO NOT pay any credence to this....Quite simply, the next gen consoles have this all sewn up.
EA abandoning Online Passes is only making way for a similar system that's built-in & a very 'important' part of the next gen infrastructure.
Even Sony & MS will play this down as to not affect sales, but they will both still penalize pre-owned purchasers in some way.
Don't be fooled people....this is EA we're discussing here!
*EDIT*
Piracy is one thing, but why should I have to pay to play online when I already pay my IP and purchased the game? If I purchased a Blu Ray movie, watched it, and then sold it for $5, why should the movie studio get any of that? They made their money the first time around.