Slashdot Mirror
The Simultaneous Rise and Decline of Battlefield
An anonymous reader writes: Ben Kuchera at Polygon recommends against buying the upcoming Battlefield Hardline first-person shooter. Not because it's bad — in fact, he doesn't really offer an opinion on how good the game is — but because it's time to stop incentivizing poor behavior from Electronic Arts and its Digital Illusions CE development studio. After EA acquired DICE, Battlefield game launches accelerated, and launch issues with each game were hand-waved away as unpredictable. The studio's principled stand against paid DLC evaporated in order to feed the ever-hungry beast of shareholder value. Kuchera says, "EA continues this because the Battlefield franchise is profitable; we as players have taught them that we'll buy anyway, and continue to support games that don't work at launch." He suggests avoiding pre-orders, and only buying the game if and when it's in a playable (and fun) state. "Every dollar that's spent on Hardline before the game comes out is a vote for things continuing down an anti-consumer path. If the game is a hit before its launch, that sends a message that we're OK with business as usual, and business as usual has become pretty terrible."
You say EA pumps out crap games and people buy them in droves anyways? Do tell.
I've been pirating their games for years. According to industry numbers, I've done millions of dollars in damage. If we all band together, we can bankrupt the company.
Unless they're wholly full of shit about the piracy issue, and we all know that EA wouldn't lie to us.
The non modern warfare game's you mention did not get a hi score in game informer. You say your a gamer and u have better first person shooter's... proof it
I bet your not playing it on a xbox 360 which is 3 times more powerful then the current pc so you're argument is invalid.
[/eternalseptember00]
Sure, Valve fairly consistently produces value. But what do you do once you complete the first two games in a particular franchise?