Sean Halliday of Pixel Gate.co.uk looks at the growing trend of video game companies treating their consumers badly. Is it getting worse? how will it all end? is the marketing heading for a crash?
''The video game industry, at least in it’s modern state, seems to hate it’s consumer…and we just accept it. It’s utterly bizarre that a industry which shows such disdain for it’s customers is still reaping the rewards. It’s hard to suppress the cynical side when you sit and look at the industry on the whole, be it those hopefuls on Steam Greenlight, to those big names pumping out ‘Triple A’ games.''
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.
It's not that bad. For every release disaster there's a triumph. People forget the good things too quickly and just focus on the bad.
Because it is easy for sites to write stuff that says lolcompanieshateconsumers.
Because businesses totally hate money
Great article. It's very important we start speaking out against things we don't want in our games. I don't think voting with your wallet works anymore now that there are a million other casuals who will blindly encourage these practices.
Gamers nowadays seem to only buy the same games over and over again, I would love if the market couldn't be so easily manipulated by some of the practices mentioned in the article.
The games industry was so much better when it was less popular because there was less money to be made. Just like sports e.g. the recent FIFA scandal, the integrity of AAA gaming has been tainted by money.
Great article. I am especially frustrated with the Activision/Bungie Destiny DLC fiasco. This was my first purchase of a"season pass", after spending too much on dlc last gen, only to 'break even', then Activision/Bungie realease another DLC and expect me to pay more than my initial $100! No way! Warframe has twice the content and is FREE!
I just built a custom rig sli-bridge and pre-ordered Arkham Knight and now i have to wait on an update that probably never come. smh. This industry is corrupted by greed and it's justicegusting. These publishers need to take a page out of Rockstar book to make some money. I don't know about y'all, but Rockstar got me 4x. Thats $240. I know I'm not the only one who bought GTAV more than once. Speak wit your wallet.