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I was thinking of Global Liberation Army from Command & Conquer: Generals (C&C:G). :P

Well, if they were EA games meant to be played online, many of the servers are already offline.

Failed to keep up with the latest yearly sports release? TS.

But EA just want to be loooovvvvvved! Why won't people love EA?! LOVE THEM!

There's always the multiplayer games, not MMOs.

Here's a long list, from just one company.

Ultimately, EA's problem with SimCity was that they had too many paying customers.

Uh no. Their shares have been at sitting at all time lows since 2008 and John Riccitiello with whom they brought in to fix things has shit the bed. There is more bad news on the revenue front coming soon (as the press release indicates).

Riccitiello destroyed the NFL franchise, killed almost every other big name game (Command and Conquer, Mass Effect), bet the bank on Spore and lost, and oversaw the launch of a bug-plagued online service that is now shutting down more old games that people purchased than launching new ones.

>Preferably in the form of actual drops in sales, plus evidence that these shenanigans are what caused it.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/GeraldBelman/20120410/168299/Electronic_Arts__Why_has_its_financial_performance_been_so_poor.php
http://investor.ea.com/financials.cfm

Doing sooooo good they are bleeding money like a guillotined Marie Antoinette. The problem with EA is I think they are so internally fucked that they will not come out of their death spiral. Really for the health of the rest of the industry they need to die.

Amazon only pulled it temporarily. It's back now, with a note:

Important Note on "SimCity"

Some customers may experience delays when connecting to SimCity servers. EA is actively working to resolve these issues. Please visit https://help.ea.com/en/simcity/simcity for more information. For your trouble, every SimCity player who has logged in and activated their game will receive a free PC download game from the EA portfolio, provided by EA. This offer extends to all digital download and physical disc SimCity customers. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email from EA telling them how to redeem their free game.

Here’s a quick update on the problems we were experiencing with SimCity – and a little something extra for people who bought the game.

The server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as we added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we’re working fast to address.

So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.

OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. In the last 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. It’s working – the number of people who have gotten in and built cities has improved dramatically. The number of disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.

So we’re close to fixed, but not quite there. I’m hoping to post another update this weekend to let everyone know that the launch issues are behind us.

Something Special for Your Trouble (see linked page at bottom of post)

The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets. The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re NOT having a good experience. So we’re not going to rest until we’ve fixed the remaining server issues.

And to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game.

I know that’s a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.

SimCity is a GREAT game and the people who made it are incredibly proud. Hang in there – we’ll be providing more updates throughout the weekend.

http://www.ea.com/news/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble

Although it wasn't available earlier today, I see Amazon lists the game as "Available Now."

There's a disclaimer added:

Important Note on "SimCity"

Many customers are having issues connecting to the "SimCity" servers. EA is actively working to resolve these issues, but at this time we do not know when the issue will be fixed. Please visit https://help.ea.com/en/simcity/simcity for more information.

It also appears to be on EA's site: http://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/Last-Plea-For-Offline-Mode/m-p/418246#M2693

I'm a little confuzzled by the story. Nothing here makes sense. Is it possible EA disabled the wrong user account, and has since re-enabled it?

There was an open beta on the weekend where discussing feedback was allowed and wide open. They even had a public forum for it: http://answers.ea.com/t5/Feedback/bd-p/Feedback

In fact DRM complaints were probably #2 on the complaint list... a mile behind the city sizes being absurdly tiny, which was the #1 complaint.

The weekend beta was open, and the feedback forums are public: http://answers.ea.com/t5/Feedback/bd-p/Feedback

There are a number of companies, often smaller, innovative, independent game companies that release games that don't have the frightened DLC measures. Sure, they aren't the multi million dollar AAA titles, but they are still awesome games nonetheless. However, with a system like this in place, even those companies wont have an option to release on a platform like PS3 without those measures in place.

The question is, is there some right that these big whales like EA have to continue to make profit through their giant content mills? Even Sony? In my experience, the memorable games that I have played recently have been titles from small studios. Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, FTL, The Walking Dead, Hotline Miami, Legend of Grimrock, etc. These are all innovative, or at least genres that haven't been recently explored. On the other hand EA releases yet another FPS, another racing game, another FPS, another sports game, and then another FPS.

Sure indie games are 99 misses per 1 hit. But the thing is, so is EA or else there wouldn't be this struggle. But a company like EA doesn't get ahead by doing new and interesting things, they get ahead by raising the bar in development costs by iterating on existing IP. So sure, the indie games look like trash in comparison, but look at the front page of EA's PS3 catalog: http://www.ea.com/ca/ps3 (Army of Two sequel, Crysis sequel, Deadspace Sequel, Battlefield 3 release, Need for Speed sequel, Medal of Honor Sequel, Fifa Soccer annual release, Battlefield 3 release, NHL annual release, Madden annual release, Battlefield 3 release, FIFA release.

People are getting bored, and the big companies are maybe flailing around. But it's the big companies that are making the boring titles, and but they're making them so pretty that the interesting titles look bush league.

EA

YOU UNDERSTAND THAT BY THIS PROVISION, YOU AND EA ARE FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL.

Newegg preferred account.

THIS AGREEMENT REQUIRES THE USE OF ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES

You know it's legal because they use capitals.

Amazon

Any dispute or claim relating in any way to your use of any Amazon Service, or to any products or services sold or distributed by Amazon or through Amazon.com will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court

EA

YOU UNDERSTAND THAT BY THIS PROVISION, YOU AND EA ARE FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL.

Ebay

...Agreement to Arbitrate, which will, with limited exception, require you to submit claims you have against us to binding and final arbitration, unless you opt-out of the Agreement to Arbitrate (see Legal Disputes, Section B ("Agreement to Arbitrate")). Unless you opt-out: (1) you will only be permitted to pursue claims against eBay on an individual basis....

Newegg preferred account.

THIS AGREEMENT REQUIRES THE USE OF ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES

On top of all this I have found generic arbitration clauses and a plethora of companies that are too numerous to count.

It's not that hard to name them, is it?

http://www.ea.com/executives

hy-po-cr-isy |hipäkris|
noun ( pl. hypocrisies )
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.

For EA to be upset about Zynga copying its games is pure hypocrisy. It wasn't upset when Zynga copied Tiny Tower... in fact, it followed suit with its own clone called Monopoly Hotels. I mistakenly downloaded the game on my iPad thinking it was some new variant of Monopoly... it turned out to be the unholy love child of Farmville and Tiny Tower with a Monopoly facade. Instead of plants growing, money falls from the sky and you have to catch it to build up your hotel... or you could pay them money to build faster to... who knows what... feel better about yourself because you have a bunch of imaginary useless hotels?

On the other hand, we can't give them too much flack for The Sims Social, because EA used it to inject a "dislike" function into facebook (see screenshot on their site of a user b*tch-slapping her real friend's avatar, which I interpret to be the opposite of clicking the "Like" button).

No. More like this.

Sounds like a trip into Dead Space. The good news is those limbs can be used as weapons.

Nothing except the EULA:

http://tos.ea.com/legalapp/WEBTERMS/US/en/PC/#section11

- Unless expressly authorized by EA, you may not sell, buy, trade or otherwise transfer your Account or any personal access to EA Services, Content or Entitlements, including by use of auction websites.

As of end of Q1 FY2012, Crysis 2 sold 3 million copies ( http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=594196 ). Hoping we can infer from the first week sales the general proportions of sales, PC accounts for about 14% ( http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/crysis_2/news/crysis_2_is_eas_biggest_launch_of_the_year_so_far.html ).

So that's 420,000-ish copies on PC. What proportion of those torrents has to be a possible sale lost, for PC to be a viable game platform?

EA press release says 3 mil, dunno about this "vgchartz" "gamrreview" BS...
http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=594196

Nor the Stingray that I am used to.

I'm not renting a room from my mom. And I'm getting the feeling from the "love" letters from the I.R.S. that if i don't pay my taxes, that the Capitol will be boarded up. Hay IRS, where's the love? Am I the only person that's asking, "what are the Tax Breaks?" How about a reference to those tax codes that folks like EA get? Maybe something good could come out of this "openness" stuff. Wait, I think I just considered a task that WATSON could be used for...

Don't forget server shut downs!

http://www.ea.com/1/service-updates

Well, EA's support was the original source for disabling the DRM as a fix. I personally wouldn't mind seeing EA sue itself into oblivion. It'd be the only way they'd learn...

The mighty and terrible Electronic Arts has a whole goddamn page on the intertubes that has links to EULAs of apparently all of their games. You don't even need to go to a game shop to read the license, if you really wanted to. Now did you?

Yes, yes it has. And there is actually a fix from EA that got mine working again. EA literally tells you to turn of the DLC authorization DRM.

Here's the link: http://support.ea.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/218

Mannequins? Have you SEEN the battlefield 3 play videos?

http://www.ea.com/battlefield3/videos/faultline-ep1

Seriously, some parts of that video are *photorealistic* to me.. I can barely tell the different at certain points.

I cannot wait! (to majorly upgrade my hardware... lol)

I agree, they won't ERADICATE piracy with lower prices.

I actually think the sales numbers/experiment from Steam/L4D speak more about charging first adopters a premium, then tapering off your pricing as the new hotness factor rolls off, promoting sales later on for basically free. Using that model alone, you can charge less up front, and still taper the prices off and come away with the same net income, just over a longer period.

no, they won't. Because piracy has been around since the beginning. It is a smoke screen that companies use to pass the blame from their crappy product to people "stealing" it.

If piracy was as bad as they make it, companies like EA would of been out of business decades ago. http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=443622

2010 3rd Quarter Fiscal report. Oh, look, pre xmas season, fall time, they pulled in profits. oh damn, them pirates must be slipping.

I think this was a fine post that gave me something to think about, but I disagree. Generally, people on forums get angry if they DO NOT get any feedback. Then things get ugly because that is frustrating. If developers are relatively active (they should at least answer when they are directly asked something) then a forum will most likely run nicely and be a constructive place. Also, people have to feel that problems are being fixed, or they will get annoyed.

Of course, there are always morons (this is the Internet we are talking about, after all) so there is need for moderators to warn/ban in order to ensure that the community is as pleasant as possible.

I have two examples to back up my views.

The Sports Interactive forum (they make the Football Manager series): http://community.sigames.com/
This is an example of a very good forum that is quite constructive. Sure, sometimes there are rants and so on, but it doesn't seem to scare the developers who post A LOT, and certainly answer all (semi-)important questions. This ensures a constructive atmosphere. Of course, the moderators are very active also in order to close ridiculous threads and so on.

An example of an impossibly bad forum, on the other hand, is the EA Sports FIFA forum: http://forum.ea.com/uk/categories/show/10.page
In here, the developers NEVER answer anything, and a few worthless community managers once in a while (rarely) give the most feeble and useless replies. Also, people are NEVER banned or even warned no matter how amazingly stupid they act. The result is a forum that is a complete mess. A billion threads are created and people are almost constantly angry and abusive (it sure doesn't help either, of course, that almost no problems in FIFA are fixed).

Probably the target audience for FIFA is somewhat less mature than that for FM, but still I think moderation and developer replies are key to having a constructive community.

To provide a counter point: Puzzle Agent is $10 on the PC - originally $20 - and $5 in the app store. Monopoly sells for $40 on the xbox/ps3/wii, $3 as an app. Of course I got both of these for $1 on a Christmas sale, w00t. At least for now it seems the successful formula is to give away a Lite app for free, and charge $1 for the real app. I mean, it's a buck. Nobody really has to think twice about that, at least not anyone carrying an iPhone in the first place. They dominate the top app list like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja etc. and because they're at the top list they get a ton more sales. If you're not in the top 50 it's a damn lot harder to get sales.

Have a look at the big guys' recruitment pages and click through to all the game specific roles. There's EA and Activision to start with, and a bunch of smaller places around - check the listings on the most recent metacritic game reviews to find company names if you're drawing a blank. The job-ads are going to give you a far better idea than most of what we can come up with. I clicked through to a random Bioware position and they were asking for

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field. In the alternative, we will accept a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field, plus five years of progressive post-baccalaureate experience in the job offered, or as Software Develope

as well as a variety of random experience and specific programming knowledge. So it's a little of column A and a little of column B really - portfolio and degree combined.

So, in other words, just like any other field - you need a diverse background, and experience is a big plus.

Have a look at the big guys' recruitment pages and click through to all the game specific roles. There's EA and Activision to start with, and a bunch of smaller places around - check the listings on the most recent metacritic game reviews to find company names if you're drawing a blank. The job-ads are going to give you a far better idea than most of what we can come up with. I clicked through to a random Bioware position and they were asking for

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field. In the alternative, we will accept a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field, plus five years of progressive post-baccalaureate experience in the job offered, or as Software Develope

as well as a variety of random experience and specific programming knowledge. So it's a little of column A and a little of column B really - portfolio and degree combined.

So, in other words, just like any other field - you need a diverse background, and experience is a big plus.

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field. In the alternative, we will accept a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field, plus five years of progressive post-baccalaureate experience in the job offered, or as Software Develope

as well as a variety of random experience and specific programming knowledge.

So it's a little of column A and a little of column B really - portfolio and degree combined.

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field. In the alternative, we will accept a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field, plus five years of progressive post-baccalaureate experience in the job offered, or as Software Develope

as well as a variety of random experience and specific programming knowledge.

So it's a little of column A and a little of column B really - portfolio and degree combined.

Sounds like they need to build some more railway.

Ignorant comment that ignores how extensive China's railway system is and how it already plays a vital role in China's transportation infrastructure? Or a cute, if subtle, SimCity reference?

I think MS made a huge mistake selling Access Software which they bought for its Links Golf game. They sold it to Take Two in '04 and it's basically been laid to rest by them.

Looking at the PC golf scene now is a pitiful exercise in frustration. EA quit making PC versions of Tiger Woods golf after the '08 version. Golf gamers only have console versions for now where if MS had kept the Links franchise alive I suspect it would be dominating right now.

EA does have Tiger Woods Online which runs from a plugin to your web browser but they did what many companies do and released it from beta long before it was a real product. A quick look at the forums for TWO pretty much tells the story: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/forums/show/3732.page

From their blog..

http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/battlefield_bad_company/archive/2009/10/26/dedicated-to-our-pc-players.aspx#%23

Will there be an option to have my own dedicated server? Yes, DICE will have trusted partners with datacenters worldwide that you'll be able to rent a dedicated server from ensuring you always have a quality server in your region.

Problem with this, they're not in my region and I can see the pleads of people who have bought the game here on the forums.

Every other game lets you just download the server software and run it without the game developer demanding an extra cut for doing nothing. Not sure why they've done this with bad company 2 however I don't like it and I'm not paying for a multiplayer game that's going to give me 200+ ms ping.

Ditto. I play a lot of Indie and Flash games these days, and don't have time to play a lot so I through them with one or a few plays like if I was playing arcades. At least some of those are creative. For example, http://www.ea.com/1/rhythm ... That was a creative game. It won in EA contest.

EA already uses "Service Updates" as an excuse to stop supporting online play after a certain period of time for many of its titles. http://www.ea.com/2/service-updates Now, it's going to restrict the ability to even update the game? FTA, "According to EA, the content can include anything from title updates and downloads . . . ." So, to paraphrase, if I want to play my game on another console, or my console croaks and I replace it, I might not be able to download the updates (and there will be updates because the title shipped will be buggy) without paying again?

I am sure though a call to their tech support may net you a free pass. If you can explain and show that your console died and you had to get another one, I would imagine they would let you reuse or reissue you a new pass...Granted I know that means waiting 3 hours on their tech support line or 3 years for an email answer.

EA already uses "Service Updates" as an excuse to stop supporting online play after a certain period of time for many of its titles. http://www.ea.com/2/service-updates Now, it's going to restrict the ability to even update the game? FTA, "According to EA, the content can include anything from title updates and downloads . . . ." So, to paraphrase, if I want to play my game on another console, or my console croaks and I replace it, I might not be able to download the updates (and there will be updates because the title shipped will be buggy) without paying again?

Without trying to ignite the piracy argument, the recent game Battlefield Bad Company 2 PC version outsold both the ps3 and the 360 versions (not combined) and has had, from launch, approximately double the concurrent online players of either console platforms.

http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/battlefield_bad_company/archive/2010/03/18/battlefield-bad-company-2-sets-pace-to-become-the-top-selling-title-for-march-2010.aspx

However, the game was developed primarily for the consoles, which is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand it supports dx9 level hardware for people on winXP / older gfx cards, on the other hand you have memory and other restrictions, especially on the 360.

I personally hope that the sales of BC2 signals a moderate change in the way games are developed.

That said, there's always a little niggle or stupid new drm feature that overclouds any new PC release.

Have you played any EA games this century? While I'm enjoying their current paid beta, they've been at it for a while.

Can it run Crysis 2?

http://www.ea.com/games/crysis-2

I'm pretty sure there's been 3D plugins before. One from Adobe springs to mind - it even had Havok physics engine....

Though Adobe never had decent Hardware 3d support, and Shockwave does not seem to be going anywhere these days.

But Unity has been around and gaining momentum for a while, and offers 3d acceleration, PhysX support, and much more. You can check out the latest installment of EA's Tiger Woods for a decent Unity browser game.

Do a quick Google on "Spore pirated", just for fun. Page after page of links to articles about how Spore's DRM did affect pirating. Now if that hasn't reached EA...

Spoiler: it has, EA has in fact announced they'll use less obtrusive DRM in the future. Plus, they released this tool to reduce DRM obtrusiveness from certain games, including Spore.

Do a quick Google on "Spore pirated", just for fun. Page after page of links to articles about how Spore's DRM did affect pirating. Now if that hasn't reached EA...

Spoiler: it has, EA has in fact announced they'll use less obtrusive DRM in the future. Plus, they released this tool to reduce DRM obtrusiveness from certain games, including Spore.

It will most likely be 10+ years. Most of the 10 year old games, never less the 15+ year old games even work on today's OS. Does that mean that when I bought the games I didn't value my rights as a consumer, because they don't work now?

It's a central activation server for all their games. I think there would be quite nice uproar if all of their games stopped working suddenly.

Nevertheless, if someone still plays them in 10-20 years, I'm sure they can buy a really cheap, current-OS-capable version from the likes of Steam for like $1, probably with improved graphics too. The classic games I play now are either fixed versions from Steam or GOG. Sure you pay that one dollar again, but who cares when they fix it for the new operating systems and hardware too.

10+ years huh? Tell that to EA ( http://www.ea.com/2/service-updates ). Many of those games on that list are on the PS3 and XBox360. Godfather was released on the PS3 in 2007, 3 years ago as one example. Some of the games listed are PC games as well. Hell, Army of 2 was only released just shy of 2 years ago and is being shut down in Asia.

EA uses a store/download app akin to iTunes and Steam.

It is called EA Download Manager, formerly known as EA Link, formerly known as EA Downloader

The activation key included with your BF2142 purchase has most likely been attached to your EA account. I would suggest downloading EA Download Manger and attempting to recover your log in details. Another benefit of this service is that you can also download any purchased games digitally, again, like iTunes and Steam. Good luck.