SimCity 5

[Vibe]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/18/ea-ceo-john-riccitiello-resigns/

Not that it will change how EA operates their games.

[Molly]

Now imagine those same games without EA influencing their development. Would they have been worse ? Better ?

It depends, I think. I am not a huge fan of EA but I think that really expensive projects - blockbusters - need a huge financial support from publishers for the developement.
So, lemme ask you in return: Would those games even exist w/o EA backing the studios with all the money?

I wish a lot of games wouldn't be rushed to market like they now often are but I can understand the reasoning behind it.

I guess it's a tradeoff at some point between quality and financial interests.

[Kafein]

It depends, I think. I am not a huge fan of EA but I think that really expensive projects - blockbusters - need a huge financial support from publishers for the developement.
So, lemme ask you in return: Would those games even exist w/o EA backing the studios with all the money?

I wish a lot of games wouldn't be rushed to market like they now often are but I can understand the reasoning behind it.

I guess it's a tradeoff at some point between quality and financial interests.

Fair point, but nobody needs that much money to make a good game. I doubt a comparison of their development and marketing budgets would contradict me on this. Moreover, excessive marketing funding is mostly there to compensate the weaknesses of a game. Good videogames don't need ads in metro stations to perform well. At least not to perform well amongst an informed consumer base, which is admittedly not what EA is targeting. No doubt many EA titles would be good without the marketing campaigns, though. The sports games ? I doubt that. The budget to make a successful videogame highly depends on who is supposed to buy it. Hence why you also have one man micro budget success stories.

[Casimir]

really dunno what to get. already got bf3 on console, dunno about buying me3 as ive never played the game before, got sim city 4, nfs games are all the same, bejewled is not a real game, warfighter is terribad, havent plyed dead space 2 yet and plants v zombies looks crap.

[Molly]

Considering that a AAA-title needs... what? At least 3 years to be gold?

That is a long time you have to pay a 120 men strong company coding/designing the game.

And I am not sure games being successful w/o lots of money. Minecraft is a huge exception. And I hardly can think of any other game that actually went viral w/o being advertised or developed with a low budget. At least as far as I can know... nobody is really giving out numbers on sales anyway.
The informed player base or core-players as they/we are related to lately is a dwindling number as far as I can tell. And I even recognize this on myself already. I like to play something relaxing, slow and just nice to look at even more over the last months, hence why I like SimCity quite a lot

I decided lately for myself that I am not going into this publisher business anymore when it comes to buying a game. I refused to use Origin for a long time and then I got ME2 for free for some reason I can't remeber right now and installed it...
If I see a game that promises fun and a good time for myself, I gonna get it w/o giving any thought about the publisher. But then again, I am not really buying any CoD/Battlefield/Dead Space-games anyway cuz those are not my type of game (I do own Far Cry 3 though). Guess that makes me not a priority target of major publishers anyway.

really dunno what to get. already got bf3 on console, dunno about buying me3 as ive never played the game before, got sim city 4, nfs games are all the same, bejewled is not a real game, warfighter is terribad, havent plyed dead space 2 yet and plants v zombies looks crap.

I am kinda torn between BF3 which probably won't enjoy all by myself and NFS MW which is, afaik and read, the worst part ever of the series. Dead Space is not my cup of tea anway, Bejeweled is indeed not a game and Warfighter is probably really really bad. So yea, kinda hard to decide.

[[ptx]]

Multi-million budgets for games are BS, imo, since most of that goes into marketing anyway.

Minecraft an exception? What? Seriously? Try M&B/Warband ever? Or, well, any number of games that appear on steam under Indie label? Or actually most games not made under E(xtreme)A(ssholes) or Activision?

[Havoco]

Hmmm. I was hoping crysis 3 would be on there. Whatever, guess its between mass effect and NFS then. Also, are u able to play mass effect In 1st person? I hate 3rd person side views.

[Tibe]

Seriuslly. There are bunch of low budget, hardly heard of games that hit it bigtime. Minecraft is just one of those that people can hardly belive that hit it as big as it did.

I think people just hate EA, Activison and Ubisoft just cause of the fact that they published games that basically raped their predecessors older version which gave birth to a broken down newer versions that hardly pleases anyone. But due to the fact it still has the older more awesome and harder worked on versions name on it, they just advertise the shit out of it to attract fans who will give them money for their garbage. Like C&C 4 and NFS:MW(the newer version). Where in return some acctual proper ideas dont get financed and get left in the shadows.

Cause its really not the publishers fault that the game sux. Its still the devs fault mainly. Its the publishers fault when the game aint finished and rushed into stalls with a pretty huge cost. To EAs and Ubisofts credit, atleast their games are always somewhat partially finished, althou the DRM fucks their games hard. Recently its acctually been "Paradox Interactive" thats  been personally bugging me. They basically rushed games like "Sword of the Stars 2" and "Elemental:War of Magic" so fast that these games were hardly even in beta when they were thrown into the stalls fullpriced and advertised as full games. Which was basically throwing the entire devteams infront of a bus. Paradox has really been rushing its games pretty damn fast lately. But to Paradox credit atleast they offered the new elemental(which was improved alot and was playable) for free to those who bought the halfass finished prequel.

[Havoco]

Meh, got NFS just because I haven't played a racing game since need for speed:hot pursuit 2.

[Christo]

Like C&C 4

C&C 4

C&C 4

Oh god please no.

I.. I played through the NOD campaign of that.. game. I.. have no words for how bad it is.
For a C&C fan like myself it was.. Heartbreaking.

Let's pretend it doesn't exist at all.

This track is the only good thing that came out of that abomination:

(click to show/hide)

edit: there is another track like this, called end of all Things which is actually good:

(click to show/hide)

But compare this to ANY of Klepacki's work and they aren't even close.

[Leesin]

EA are greedy without a doubt, there are some good games that come out with the EA label on, but there are also a shit ton of games that were meant to be awesome, especially where sequels are concerned, but instead they had their souls ripped out and were just a shinier dumbed down version of their ancient predecessor, leaving the fans of the old game massively dissapointed and the clueless buyers thinking "this game is 'alright' but not that good, I don't understand the hype."

I also enjoy how they have now got into the habit of closing some of their console multiplayer game servers down within 1-2 years of their release, claiming that not enough people play them to warrant the server costs, which is fucking laughable when we're talking about a giant like EA. Though we all know it's because they just want to FORCE people to buy the newer version of that game, even if it is complete dogshit and for some reason never actually took the good bits from the last game and fixed the broken parts, but instead has been re-done all again and ends up with a new mish-mash of good and bad that just looks shinier than the last packaged piece of dogshit.

I seriously try to avoid buying anything with EA's name on it nowadays, they are whats wrong with gaming, especially PC gaming, these fucks point the finger at "pirating" whilst they shit all over the game industry and charge extortionate prices for a game that gets boring after a few hours. Most of the PC games I buy nowadays are all indie games.

[Tibe]

Ubisoft is the twin brotha of EA nowadays.

Lots of DRM. Blaming their own fails on pirating. Later cant cope with their own fucking DRM servers. Ubisoft is a especially big crybaby when it comes to the matter of piracy. Heard they once said that they would "stop making games completely due to pirating". Also they are especially loud cryiers in the Skidrow site. 

BTW. What will happen to these DRM games in later years when inevitably they will close even their single player servers down? Im left with a completely worthless game by the end, that does not have single nor multi?

[Christo]

BTW. What will happen to these DRM games in later years when inevitably they will close even their single player servers down? Im left with a completely worthless game by the end, that does not have single nor multi?

You are forced to buy the next game in the series if you want to keep playing that type of game, and you must stomach the usually bad changes.

It's genius and effective, in a disgustingly greedy economical way.

[Kafein]

You are forced to buy the next game in the series if you want to keep playing that type of game, and you must stomach the usually bad changes.

It's genius and effective, in a disgustingly greedy economical way.

It is as genius and effective as the OPEC increasing petroleum prices one dollar per hour. It may be tough at start, but after a while other countries will have developped alternatives because they were forced to. Always online games that do not specifically require interactions are getting cracked just like all the others. Closing the servers just means buyers will have to pirate the game they bought.

[Vibe]

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