EA's Busy Week

Electronic Arts has had a pretty good week. Gamespot is reporting on a number of things that seem to be going their way. Earlier in the week the software publisher led a games related stock surge, with the company up almost three dollars at the end of yesterday's trading. Capitalizing on their foot in the door as regards next-gen software, the company is planning to develop games in Japan so as to get a better feel for the Japanese marketplace. They already have a Japan-specific title in the works there for a yet-to-be-announced console. Finally, EA and John Madden have come to an agreement ensuring that the 'Madden Football' series will be around for a few more years. The sports magnate has signed away his likeness to the series for another multiyear contract.

Comments

What a sad week for gamers

[ZephyrXero]

It's sad to see EA stocks rising yet again while Majesco's has fallen to half of what it was. I guess no one cares about companies that release innovative titles anymore?

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[8086ed]

If they aren't innovating, and they're trying to get into the Japanese market (the most innovative game market in the industry), only one of two things can happen:

1) They fail miserably and start re-thinking the way they make games or

2) They start re-thinking the way they make games, and they succeed.

Either way, they're going to start having to make high-quality and innovative games sometime soon.

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[KrisW]

I think you're forgetting this is EA... Sure, they may start re-thinking the way they make games and succeed, but I doubt that we're going to get any innovative games out of the situation any time soon.

Hopefully, though, we may see employees starting to be treated a little better when EA realizes that they can't be the Wal-Mart of games (ie. underpaid, overworked employees) in every country.

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[Sylver Dragon]

You forgot:

3)EA buys up several innovative japnaeese companies and use product/brand loyalty to break into the market. While at the same time sapping the life out of the bought-up companies.

Ok, so I don't know who they would buy, but, never discount the ability of large companies to buy their way into a market.

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[daVinci1980]

Not directed to you specifically, but the response to all of the EA bullshit is obvious.

You vote with your dollars. Don't buy their games. Take a stance against the evil empire.

I have yet to play BF2. I won't be purchasing it--and I'm unwilling to pirate games.

Likewise, I will not be purchasing any sports titles from EA for the forseeable future. Although I will make it a point to purchase games from ESPN (who really does make a great hockey game).

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[SillyHatsOnly]

The first priority of a public company is its shareholders who only care about the profit. Their concern is not with innovative gameplay unless it rakes in the money.
EA has pretty much always been a mass market game company. No sense in typing about how they don't "innovate" (unless perhaps you're talking about Spore). It's not their goal. Don't know why people keep expecting this of them.

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[ZephyrXero]

I don't buy EA games :)

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[ZephyrXero]

A. That's why public corporations are a bad thing.
B. EA does tend to buy out some innovative companies now and then, like Maxis or Criterion recently. Obviously these people's games make lots of money or else they wouldn't have bought them, yet now look at the 101 different Sims games they've released. They buy innovation then ruin it. Spore looks exciting, but I'm scared to see what EA will do to it down the road...I don't want to see Sporz in 'da Ci-tay 2 years from now :(

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[SillyHatsOnly]

Well, you and I have similar thoughts on this overall. Couple things about Maxis, I'm pretty sure Maxis was about to go under when EA bought into their Sims game so they somewhat saved the company. Fast forward to today, Maxis is responsible for designing the Sims games. They have a product that millions of consumers enjoy. Given its success, you'd be shooting yourself in the foot and disappointing fans if you radically changed what they love.

For the other companies bought up, they too are responsible for the game designs, art, etc...I find it hard to believe that a public company would say, you have a great product, let's spend millions to destroy it. Perhaps some of the companies would have fizzled on their own, who knows. Look at other entertainment industries and all their one hit wonders.

With such a creative and risky industry, the public corp is probably not the best model for all game companies, but it does work for some. I'd hate to see Sporz in da' Ci-tay 2 (hahaha) as well. But if Will wants it that way, who knows. My 2 cents.

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[abandonment]

i'm disappointed it took this long for someone to point this out.

mohaa was probably the last truly great ea game i've played...

i also bought bf1942 - loved it...the mod's were even great, revolutionary gameplay...

bought bf:vietnam because i hoped it would be as good as 1942...it was a fun game, loved the chopper flying etc...but was hampered by some major bugs and incredible instability in the menu system & server browser...basically stopped playing - not because the game wasn't fun, but GETTING to the game was so freakin annoying (menu system / server browser).

and now dice has completed their fall into EA developer hell by releasing the steaming pile that is BF2...

tried the demo for about 5 minutes, except it took me 2 hours to get my machine configured, get the game installed and finally working to try the game out for those 5 minutes...

and developers wonder why the mystical 'mass market' is so unachieveable...it's not rocket science.

Re:What a sad week for gamers

[Mycroft_VIII]

Actually EA used to be one of my favorite game companies, back about 20years ago.
I used to play a lot of thier titles on the Commodore 64.
Innovate? well IIRC they did do 'Mail Order Monsters' and 'Earth Orbit Stations' to name two, I'm pretty shure they were also behind M.U.L.E. but i'm not as shure I could be.
Them, SSI, and Origin systems made about 90% of the games I liked back then.
Of course now that they've turned into a corporate monster absorbing company after company and rather than focusing on making good games they've lost most of the respect I used to have for them.
I can't think of any EA titles lately that aren't actually from some company they've bought out except sports.

Mycroft

BF2

[wyldeone]

What? No mention of the huge dabacle that is Battlefield 2?

Re:BF2

[ThePlague]

I'm curious, why would you characterize BF2 as a huge debacle? I realize they are having problems with the first patch, even rescinding it, but the problems seem to me to be relatively minor. I'm playing with the "discredited" patch, and haven't run into any major difficulties.

Don't get me wrong, I am not an EA fanboy. Requiring that one logs into their "account servers" to play on the net hints at the eventual adoption of a subscription model, not to mention introduces an artificial choke point on playing. I haven't had any problems yet, but the potential is certainly there.

As for the game itself, I think it's a blast, and a great improvement in the line. Of course, I came to the games late, only starting to play BFV 3 months ago, and never really playing BF1942 much at all.

Re:BF2

[MMaestro]

Of course, I came to the games late, only starting to play BFV 3 months ago, and never really playing BF1942 much at all.

So you basicly skipped the entire Doom series, Quake series, Half-Life 1 and 2, the Deux Ex series and Unreal Tournament series? Thats the kind of statement that causes gamers to scream 'n00b!'.

BF2 is buggy, crashes on some computers, very very laggy, unbalanced and rewards the hardcore with weapons that throw the idea of individuality out the window. (Medics getting rifles? Wth?!) The anti-team killing system is too strict against commanders (if people run into their own artillery its their own damned fault), vehicles are still overpowered (a good helicopter pilot can rip most ground troops to shreds in seconds) and the game feels like a fanmade mod that spent too long in development. (Nice graphics, now how about something beyond an extra 2 classes and a 'commander' system?)

Re:BF2

[kilonad]

The debacle is that there's a ton of bugs in the in-game server browser, and it was released without third-party browser support. Plus, EA had oversold their servers and there was a ton of lag (it's not quite as bad now). In order to have a ranked server, you have to pay EA. The patch broke a lot of installations and caused gigantic memory leaks on servers. Great ideas in BF2 (though many that were promised didn't show up in the release), horrible execution.

Re:BF2

[Sparr0]

BF2 is buggy, crashes on some computers
What game isn't, and doesn't? I've had HL2 and Doom3 crash. If anything BF2 is more stable than half the other games I have bought recently. I've had it drop me to the desktop once in 3 weeks, and I have stopped using the three options on the server list that dont function correctly.

very very laggy
You are mistakenly identifying as lag what is most often attributable to servers without enough CPU power or RAM to handle the number of players. Yourself and other players jerking from place to place, as well as "rubber banding", is a symptom of this. The average game server can NOT handle a 64 player game of BF2 (nor could it for BF1942 in its day) reliably. This is a realization slow in coming to people used to running five CS servers on the same below-average machine.

unbalanced
In what way? I find the game to be extremely well balanced, with every class and vehicle having strengths and weakenesses against others in a rock-paper-scissors style.

rewards the hardcore with weapons that throw the idea of individuality out the window. (Medics getting rifles? Wth?!)
Not giving players in a FPS game a rifle of some sort would defeat the purpose of the game. The unlockable weapons are all slightly more useful than the base weapons in SOME way, but generally also have failings. The medic unlockable offers superb accuracy and repeat rate, with the penalty of doing the least damage of any rifle in the game. The assault unlockable rivals the support weapon in rate of fire and damage output, but has less accuracy and sacrifices the grenade launcher of the default assault rifle.

The anti-team killing system is too strict against commanders (if people run into their own artillery its their own damned fault)
This is both true and not in different cases. The most fair assessment would be to examine how many kills are achieved. 3 team kills for the sake of one enemy kill indicates poor aim on the part of the commander, and he should be punished for it. Vice versa is excellent, and the score from the 3 kills will outweigh the loss from the single punish if the player chooses to punish. Commanders also have the discretion to ignore support requests from players who make poor decisions.

vehicles are still overpowered (a good helicopter pilot can rip most ground troops to shreds in seconds)
Every vehicle has its own severe weaknesses. If you have just started playing the game then I understand why helicopters might seem overly powerful to you. You are obviously not sufficiently utilizing the available weaponry. Any of the rocket or explosion-based weapons can take out the helicopters in 2-3 hits. If they are hovering then the grenade launcher or anti-tank rocket make short work of them, if they are making strafing runs then the vehicular or ground-mounted anti-tank or anti-air rocket emplacements can scare them off or take them down.

the game feels like a fanmade mod that spent too long in development. (Nice graphics, now how about something beyond an extra 2 classes and a 'commander' system?)
Something like the squad system, VOIP, online ranking and statistics tracking, seeking and laser/wire/tv-guided missiles, destroyable bridges, etc?

Re:BF2

[houseofzeus]

Every vehicle has its own severe weaknesses. If you have just started playing the game then I understand why helicopters might seem overly powerful to you. You are obviously not sufficiently utilizing the available weaponry. Any of the rocket or explosion-based weapons can take out the helicopters in 2-3 hits. If they are hovering then the grenade launcher or anti-tank rocket make short work of them, if they are making strafing runs then the vehicular or ground-mounted anti-tank or anti-air rocket emplacements can scare them off or take them down.

All very well until you realise maps like Songhua Stalemate have a) Very low visibility and b) to my knowledge only one stinger emplacement (no AA vehicles). As a result of this the entire game is watching as the two opposing teams transport helicopters jump around the map racking up cheap capture points.

Re:BF2

[ThePlague]

Oh, no, I played Doom and Quake. The latter quite a bit, and until relatively recently. I've played at HL2 and UT, but I got out of gaming for a couple of years and have only recently returned.

Now, I can only speak from my own personal experience, but I have not found the game buggy nor prone to crashes. Of course, I just built a comp specifically for gaming (AMD64-3400, x800xl) so that might explain some of it. It can be laggy at times, but that's more the server load than anything. The weapons upgrades seem like a good idea to me, as it gives something "concrete" to strive for as oppossed to just running up a score. The kits can't be too realistic, or else no one would play them. If Medics didn't have some type of rifle, very few people would play them. As for commanders getting "unfairly punished", they need to learn that they can't just willy-nilly call in artillery, which is the most powerful weapon in the game by far, and not expect repercussions.

Now, I played BFV quite a bit even though it was only for a span of about 3 months, and in my opinion BF2 is vastly superior. If you want a fanmade mod that sucks, try POE some time. That was buggy, laggy, and very unbalanced.

Re:BF2

[MMaestro]

Something like the squad system, VOIP, online ranking and statistics tracking, seeking and laser/wire/tv-guided missiles, destroyable bridges, etc?

Squad system was done in Wolfenstein Enemy Territory.

VOIP has been done for years : Xbox Live, PS2 online games, Dreamcast online games thats not counting PC games or 3rd party add-ons/software either.

Online ranking and stats tracking has been done since (the first) Unreal Tournament. Halo 2 and Xbox Live did it as well.

Heat-seeking/laser/wire/TV-guided missiles have been done one way or another in games long before BF2. (Half-Life ONE had laser guided missiles, Metal Gear Solid a PS1 game had wire/TV-guided missiles, and heat-seeking missiles are nothing more than 'home-onto-vehicles-automatically' missiles.)

Destroyable bridges? Hell I'll give you destroyable TERRAIN, go look at Red Faction 1 or 2. Admittedly it was heavily restricted, but the game engine was capable of supporting it.

BF2 added NOTHING to the FPS genre. I'll admit its a pretty game, but its not much else. Artillery is nice but again Wolfenstein:ET did it. Radar is nice but Savage:Battle for Newerth did it. Supply drops are interesting but detract from the importance of having to ration ammo instead of running in guns blazing to create your own covering fire. The voice command thing is nice but in a fast paced FPS like BF2, it creates more problems than it solves for beginners.

Re:BF2

[Sparr0]

The heavy fog on Songhua Stalemate makes an assault or anti-tank standing in the swamp near a flag a perfect defense against helicopters. You realize it only takes two hits with a rocket or rifle grenade to set any helicopter on fire? There is almost nothing more satisfying than taking down a 6-man BlackHawk with two grenades (one of the few better things is killing a sniper by dropping supplies on his head).

Re:BF2

[Firehawke]

At launch, there was a definite lag problem on the official servers due to some problems with the ranking system. It took them a week or so to fix it and clear the backlog.

As for the anti-teamkill features, it's getting abused heavily right now. Players run into grenades without a care since they can smack whoever threw it. Punishes outnumber forgives on what seems like a 20-1 ratio in my experience, and just TODAY I saw players run right into called artillery strikes despite commander warnings of it coming in. Each and every one punished the commander based on the complaining on the team channel.

Of course, the recent patch and subsequent bugs are a nightmare. The server browser is still a buggy, slow piece of crap, for one thing. I've seen the incorrect targeting indicator bug several times and that really can ruin your day when a teammate shoots you in the back. Then there's the new server memory leak issue-- probably a good thing they backpedaled on the patch, but that puts you right back on the *worse* server browser..

Oh, and then there's the Gamespy Arcade screwup. The game comes with a copy of Gamespy Arcade and claims you can use it to get onto a server. It even advertises it ALL OVER the install and bundled copy of GA. Well, surprise! The launch revision of BF2 doesn't support external server browsers at all.

This game should have been in the cooker for another month or two. It is EXCEEDINGLY obvious the launch was mismanaged and hurried to get the game out on shelves.

Re:BF2

[kafka47]

I complained loudly about how bad BF2's UI and browser execution was. I mean, it was so bad and so obviously rushed, that it affected so much opinion about the game in general.

The saving grace is that it really is a fun game to play. I would have called the game a triumph if not for the horrible pain it takes to actually start playing!

/K

Re:BF2

[KDR_11k]

Still, TK punish should default to "no", at least for explosive weapons. When I die because a SF teammate detonated C4 to stop a tank I don't hold it against him, when I'm too stupid to avoid a mine with a fully manned APC it's my own fault. Many newbies seem to ignore the "forgive TK" prompt and defaulting to "forgive" would at least take care of unintentional punishes.

Re:BF2

[Anonymous Cow herd]

BF2 added NOTHING to the FPS genre I disagree. Commander mode and the chain of command seem pretty new to me. The non-combat point system (healing, revive, supply & repair points, damage/driver assist points) for the first time really reward the different classes for performing their unique class duties. And while there may not be any one big unique feature that people can point to, many different gameplay features are brought together in this title to greatly enhance the cohesiveness of the squad-based shoot experience as a whole.

Re:BF2

[houseofzeus]

A full blackhawk barely has to stop to cap a flag though, and if the team aren't idiots they have engineers in the boot so even if it does get hit by the time you have reloaded it is going to be repairing.

Fuck EA

[superpulpsicle]

Gamespot is reporting on a number of things that seem to be going their way.

After buying everybody out, and releasing shitty products, hogging up player licenses. And marketing the hell out of garbage with the most monopolistic lawyer protections... who wouldn't have a busy week.

Pow!

[Otter]

Adding to the belief that EA (now in cahoots with ESPN) and Madden would part ways was the fact that Madden will be leaving ABC's Monday Night Football to get behind the microphone of NBC's Sunday Night Football in 2006.

I must have missed that development -- is he jumping from the sinking MNF ship or did ESPN kick him out?

I was a fan of the guy back when, but having him explain football as it's played in the 21st century is like having Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Joy on your 1337 new TV show about computers...

Re:Pow!

[danzona]

I must have missed that development -- is he jumping from the sinking MNF ship or did ESPN kick him out?

Starting in 2006, Monday Night Football will be televised by ESPN, not ABC.

Also starting in 2006, NBC will be televising Sunday Night Football, not ESPN.

Since ESPN has a broadcast team with nothing to do (the three morons who did the Sunday night games, I don't know their names) they could do MNF. Which freed up Madden to join the new team at NBC.

And on top of all that

[CounterZer0]

They STILL haven't fixed the numerous problems with their flagship BF2 title.

And why is their stock going up news for nerds? Somebody own evil empire shares?

Re:And on top of all that

[Anonymous Coward]

BF2 is NOT their flagship title.

Re:And on top of all that

[Babbster]

1. Stock price was not the only topic in the article.
2. "Nerds" tend to enjoy video games.
3. EA is the biggest video game publisher on the planet.
4. Just because you don't like a company, or you don't care what happens to a company, doesn't mean it isn't "news."

Re:And on top of all that

[kafka47]

The Sims is their flagship title. And early on, they wanted to kill it. LOL.

with-i-had-speling-skillz dept.

[TeknoHog]

say no more...

BF2 SUCKS

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone ever played Operation Flashpoint? It was superior over Battlefield 1942. It's still better than BF2, which is absolutely engineering disaster and a half. Who is stupid enough to buy this?

Obligatory PA rerun

[Rob T Firefly]

Cut yourself.

Death to EA

[Svenheim]

As far as I'm concerned, EA is the worst thing to ever happen to the games industry. The eat up all the good independent developers and small publishers, and have made the industry less diverse, and less willing to take risks with exciting new IPs.

They are the main force behind the "Hollywoodization" of the games industry, with bigger budgets and less creativity.

In the good old days...

[solomonrex]

A busy week for a games developer meant actually shipping SOME FRICKIN' GAMES!!!