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

BF2

[wyldeone]

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

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?

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.

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.

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?