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StormHammer: Hardly surprising. I just feel sorry for the thousand people losing their jobs - but I can't sympathise with EA as a corporation due to their consumer-hostile policies.
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MrAlphaNumeric: Exactly my sentiments. It's really a shame because EA wasn't always this draconian and greed-ridden. * sigh * I miss Westwood Studios..
Don't we all.
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keeveek: Why do you hate EA?

If I would have to pick one from Activision, Ubisoft and EA, I would definitely pick EA as the best one.

Is it just hip to dislike EA or it's something more?
Buying out all my favourite companies, Westwood, Bullfrog, Maxis, Bioware etc and destroying all of my favourite franchises over the years. And then slowly destroying those game companies. Bioware looks like the latest victim, probably dying a slow death. What they say is right, it's like a cancer of gaming. That and them shutting down servers, laying off staff etc.

And now turning every game into micro-transactional DLC fuqfests with DRM.
Post edited April 18, 2012 by cw8
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keeveek: If I would have to pick one from Activision, Ubisoft and EA, I would definitely pick EA as the best one.
Are you including Blizzard in "Activison"? Because even if you included Blizzard as a separate entity in that list EA still comes out on top as "nicest", though that may not be saying much.
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Roman5: Stop being so Entitled, Shareholders
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Vomiuts: With digital downloads, Indie developers, and Kickstarter projects, big publishers like EA will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs unless they reinvent themselves.
I don't see any Kickstarter funding something like ME3 and after the first spectacular Kickstarter gaming failure (and there will be one) some of the existing backers are going to be a lot more careful with their money from then on.
Post edited April 18, 2012 by orcishgamer
While I do feel a bit of an urge to jump on the schadenfreude bandwagon over this, I'm not particularly inclined to view stock price as a good measure of company health or performance. Stock prices are so heavily driven by speculation these days that they are often divorced from actual performance. A company can see an increase in profits, but because it wasn't as much of an increase as stockholders and analysts were hoping for the stock price will actually go down.
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keeveek: If I would have to pick one from Activision, Ubisoft and EA, I would definitely pick EA as the best one.
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orcishgamer: Are you including Blizzard in "Activison"? Because even if you included Blizzard as a separate entity in that list EA still comes out on top as "nicest", though that may not be saying much.
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Vomiuts: With digital downloads, Indie developers, and Kickstarter projects, big publishers like EA will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs unless they reinvent themselves.
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orcishgamer: I don't see any Kickstarter funding something like ME3 and after the first spectacular Kickstarter gaming failure (and there will be one) some of the existing backers are going to be a lot more careful with their money from then on.
You don't need that much money to make a good game, you do need a lot of money to make a Hollywood movie disguised as a video game, for morons.

ie, Mass Effect fans
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Crosmando: You don't need that much money to make a good game, you do need a lot of money to make a Hollywood movie disguised as a video game, for morons.

ie, Mass Effect fans
If you're going to tell me that ME was a bad game you're either trolling or need to pull the elitist stick out just a bit. ME is hardly the only great game that needed a big budget to produce. There's a long list of them and you're completely full of malarkey if you think every good game idea can be produced on a 2 million USD budget.
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keeveek: Is it just hip to dislike EA or it's something more?
The nail. You hit it. On.the.head.
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Crosmando: You don't need that much money to make a good game, you do need a lot of money to make a Hollywood movie disguised as a video game, for morons.

ie, Mass Effect fans
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orcishgamer: If you're going to tell me that ME was a bad game you're either trolling or need to pull the elitist stick out just a bit. ME is hardly the only great game that needed a big budget to produce. There's a long list of them and you're completely full of malarkey if you think every good game idea can be produced on a 2 million USD budget.
I couldn't have said it better. I could have said it with more swearwords....
Post edited April 19, 2012 by SimonG
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Vomiuts: With digital downloads, Indie developers, and Kickstarter projects, big publishers like EA will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs unless they reinvent themselves.
So everything is possible?

Regarding the chart in the OP: I wouldn't give a damn on short term fluctuations on the stock market. EA has survived for a long time. They make good games. They have a lot of experience. They are on GOG! Don't see them going down soon.
Post edited April 19, 2012 by Trilarion
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cw8: Buying out all my favourite companies, Westwood, Bullfrog, Maxis, Bioware etc and destroying all of my favourite franchises over the years. And then slowly destroying those game companies. Bioware looks like the latest victim, probably dying a slow death. What they say is right, it's like a cancer of gaming. That and them shutting down servers, laying off staff etc.

And now turning every game into micro-transactional DLC fuqfests with DRM.
If EA hasn't bought Bullfrog, Westwood etc you wouldn't see their games on GOG anytime soon, I believe. It's always somebody buying out dying companies. It's nothing strange, nothing wrong.

Destroying franchises? How? Is Battlefield destroyed franchise? Is NFS , FIFA, The Sims, SimCity, Crysis, Dead Space etc etc etc. really destroyed?
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keeveek: Is it just hip to dislike EA or it's something more?
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SimonG: The nail. You hit it. On.the.head.
You wanna say something productive, or you are just in a mood to troll? But I'm going to say it again, in case you didn't understand:

Because I've said why I don't understand "hate EA" policy. They make great games, sometimes they are not afraid of trying something new (re-imagining MMO games with SWTOR , Mirror's Edge, Reckoning).

Origin is a good service also.

The only bad thing I can see here is that some games require Origin to play.

And nothing more, from Polish customer's perspective can be considered wrong.

Their DLC policy is the same like every other company in the world.
Post edited April 19, 2012 by keeveek
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keeveek: snip
You do know that I agreed with you, right?

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hit-the-nail-on-the-head.html
Oh, sorry :P

My English skills are , hm... not high enough to understand such idioms

If you said something like that in Polish, it would be an insult rather. Also I didn't understand it's the nails head, youre reffering to, not mine :P Well, at least I've learned something new.

My sincere apologies then :)
Post edited April 19, 2012 by keeveek
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keeveek: ...
Oh, but think of all the children they've murdered with the end of ME3!
I will murder more children, if it turns out that every "I hate EA" conversation is about ME3 and DA2.
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keeveek: If EA hasn't bought Bullfrog, Westwood etc you wouldn't see their games on GOG anytime soon, I believe. It's always somebody buying out dying companies. It's nothing strange, nothing wrong.

Destroying franchises? How? Is Battlefield destroyed franchise? Is NFS , FIFA, The Sims, SimCity, Crysis, Dead Space etc etc etc. really destroyed?
Why wouldn't their games not appear on GoG if they still existed as independent companies instead of under EA.

C&C. I've played Westwood's RTSes since Dune 2, C&C4 was horrible beyond words, And so was Red Alert 3. RIP Westwood.
You can't be serious about Simcity (Destroyed with Simcity Societies), Simcity is the main reason why I hate EA so together with Westwood. New Simcity looks to be overpriced, multiplayer focused and day 1 DLC has been announced, I'm not keeping high hopes.
I played The Sims 1 with all the great mod support, never cared about the rest. It's one of EA's biggest milkfest in their catalogues.
Bullfrog games, they're sitting on the IP doing nothing with it. They choose to re-release stuff like Theme Park on the iOS which is nothing like the great original game but a new game filled with sh*tty microtransactions.
They destroyed Pandemic after Saboteur which is a great game, but rushed by EA at the end.
Origin and Ultima, everyone knows about this.
Bioware, with Dragon Age 2, simply one of the crappiest games I've ever played. Thanks to acquistion by EA and people like Mike Laidlaw. Dragon Age Origins one of the last decent games from Bioware was made way before EA acquired Bioware.
I've played BF1942 for 2-3 years daily back then, never really played the rest. EA wouldn't dare to disturb the franchise, it's one of their flagship earners now together with The Sims.
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cw8: ...
You mention all those genres being destroyed by EA. How sure are you that the games would have been better if the original developers still worked at EA?

Maybe the developers are still working on the games, only the studios (as a subsidiary or company) have closed, and it is their fault for the state of the games, and not EA's? Try viewing the situation from that angle.