Over the past few years, EA has managed to sneak in its online pass code into a few of its games. Is this really justified?
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.
Replies(1)
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.
... IF they make sure they keep the servers for those games up and running for at least 10 years or whatever.
Now, you see people buy a relatively new game 1-2 years old and read that although it's being advertised as having MP, EA takes the servers down and they are basically missing out on a huge part of the game.
Personally though, I feel the whole Online Pass thing is horrible. What happens when you somehow lose your account for whatever reason, or you want to take the game to a friend's house on a sleep-over, or there are other people in the household who want to take the game online and it only has an online pass for 1 account... etc etc etc.
Not to mention the problem that it pretty much kills the online community for a game much faster, cause certainly not all gamers who buy a game 2nd hand will invest in buying a new online pass, thus you won't see those online ...
I think the industry should stop taking content out of games, and start offering value for money so people will be more inclined to buy their games, and will also want to hang on to them, instead of selling them after a month orso.
If a developer announces FREE DLC-support will follow 3 months after release, many gamers won't be selling their game!
It's as simple as that.
That means those games won't be hitting the 2nd hand market, thus meaning gamers who are interested will have a harder time finding 2nd hand copies, thus more inclined to just buy a new copy, plus free DLC is already an incentive to support a developer/publisher!
I think the online pass is a way to be greedy. They want to make more money off the same title that was already purchased new off the shelf and off a title that has ran its course. I own the game I should be able to sell the game after it brought me joy and fun. So someone who hums and haws about the game their not sure if they want to buy it they rent it at a movie store and they like it chances are they will buy the game. Why be out $60 bucks for an over hyped title that is suppose to be a great title but turns out it has flopped big time. I would rather be out $10 bucks then $60 for a game that trades in at half the value. Some of these companies like EA or Capcom or who ever forget that some of their fans cannot afford a new game off the shelf like everybody else. If a parent can't afford to put their kid in an after school activity a used title for $40 provides a means of entertainment for them. An online pass hurts those people its like EA is turning their backs on those who game on a budget.
Online passes will lead to trouble like hackers hacking the servers then what they shut down the servers. And I can't play online with the online pass I bought with the game waste of cash and the fans will demand someones head on a pole. An online pass hurts people who game honestly because some hacker is pissed off. If you want people to enjoy the games get rid of online passes there nothing but being greedy. Way it works I buy the game I own the game I can do what ever I want with the game if I want to sell the game to some kid who might enjoy it as much as I did i am going to do it. But I can't do it now because of the online passes. And now I try to avoid games with online passes. God I wish we had the SNES and Sega Genesis those were great gaming years when developers actually gave a shit about their fans. And games were actually fun to play and had great stories. Everything now is sequal after sequal shooter after shooter.
Just wait until they charge everyone yearly online subscription fees.
Blame the fact that the majority of gamers now spend most of their time playing MP over SP.
It doesnt matter. They have every right to charge for a online pass as much as microsoft charging for online play.
It's only justified if the consumer is well aware of the cost and the length of support. OnLive tells you that access will last at least a certain amount of time (2 years I believe).
EA can do as they wish, it's their investment. We are only there for the ride so how can we argue against it other than buying the product or not? We as consumers need to educate ourselves on what the online passes represent and that we don't have unlimited access even though we bought the game. We also need to educate ourselves into knowing used merchandise must come with less value. It works with all other things we buy so why should games be exempt? Games don't devalue like cars so they must be devalued in other ways because we want part of the proceeds to go back to those who create the games we want to continue to enjoy. Otherwise it can collapse on itself. Piracy and used games act as one to a publisher in a sense those who play those games are not supporting those who made the game. One could argue it could open up potential customers if they enjoy the game but that's what demo's are for.