The Only good games EA makes is the BF series

Good ol EA it used to be so loved by gamers but now it is gradually losing that love. For EA Sports ALL 2008 releases were a massive step backwards. Despite some new feature in some the creativity in design that attracts gamers and makes fall in love has all but disappeared. Will the 2009 releases be an improvement or be a sign of EA's immenant demise in the eyes of all gamers.

theskull251 wrote:
Good ol EA it used to be so loved by gamers but now it is gradually losing that love. For EA Sports ALL 2008 releases were a massive step backwards. Despite some new feature in some the creativity in design that attracts gamers and makes fall in love has all but disappeared. Will the 2009 releases be an improvement or be a sign of EA's immenant demise in the eyes of all gamers.

It would be nice to think the masses will rebel against the half-assed, half-hearted yearly updates to the EA sports games. . .perhaps it will happen. When the game isn't really better from one year to the next, why spend the money? If I were into those games, maybe I'd upgrade every other version. Their irritating sports releases are made all the more maddening by their locking out the competition with exclusive contracts with major league sports. There is no effective competition, so they can release whatever they want, and if you want to play a sports game, that's what you have to buy.

The Battlefield situation is something else, though. They DO manage to make significant changes - even though 2142 strikes me more of a MOD, it's certainly different. The problem with the Battlefield series has to do with execution.

Sloppy programming - bugs are introduced, are difficult to track down and remove. Hitbox detection, and net-code is at least SOMEWHAT suspect. I believe parts of BF2 and 2142 could be significantly improved with some judicious optimization - I have no evidence of this, but I find it suspect that 2142 is virtually unplayable on my 3 ghz p4 with 2 Gig dual-channel Ram and x800XL video card - at the lowest possible settings. It's not a powerhouse machine by any means, but when 2142 came out, it was a solid, respectable computer, as good or better than at least half of the gaming machines out there.

Rush to market - releasing what amounts to a Beta version, then taking forever to fix it due to the programming issues above.

Not having pride in their work - as evidenced by their lack of interest in putting a real 'polish' on their game at any point. Their browser has worked, at least, for about a year . . .but it's a 2 1/2 year-old game! It's still mediocre by most standards - no tick-box to avoid infantry-only servers? Really?

Hacks - still can't stop the hacks. They don't even seem to want to - surely those hack sites are violating some copyrights/terms of usage. They don't have a legit purpose BUT to violate terms of usage, but no legal proceedings have ever occurred.

They have a HELL of a game, and have introduced some GREAT gameplay features. . .but they can't, or won't, seal the deal by fixing, polishing, and optimizing. Nonetheless, it's still the best war-game around.

The new CEO recognizes a lot of these short comings and is doing a lot of things to shake up the establishment. He also stated that EA had sequalitz and it had hurt them.

They continue to buy high quality studios, however, unless they figure out how to bring those studio qualities to EA, rather than squashing the studios with their own culture, things will be status quo.

I see the Bioware/Pandemic purchase as a huge thing because Bioware has been one of the great shining examples of how to do things right. Add to that Bioware's Mass Effect which is a MMORPG (Console based I believe) and they are working on a second MMORPG with Pandemic, aka Bioware Austin, they are poised to be a big deal. If ever there was a studio I associated with the brandname, it was Bioware and Blizzard.

Oh and that second MMORPG is rumored to be based on Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic. If EA will keep their hands out of the pot, it has a potential to be a big deal. That and if they can figure out how to handle the everyone wants to be a Jedi/Sith syndrome. EA made a smart decision purchasing Bioware. Can they let Bioware do what they do best or are they going to repeat mistakes of the past?

I like the things I am seeing from the New CEO. The question is can he really put this Borg vessel on a new course?

The only independent studio left is Valve and with Steam, they have successfuly done the one thing the major publishers have not. Put out a digital delivery system that works. It is for this reason I expect EA to buy Valve for a price larger than 1 Billion.

Atomm wrote:
The only independent studio left is Valve and with Steam, they have successfully done the one thing the major publishers have not. Put out a digital delivery system that works. It is for this reason I expect EA to buy Valve for a price larger than 1 Billion.

I have to second the digital delivery system, even more so now that it is opening up to all the different studios and not just a Valve exclusive. With all the extra content now available I don't have to worry about disk protection systems much if at all. Just wish I could register my purchase outside of steam games properly with steam so I can DL and play them without having to find the disks every time.

Yea, Silent. If you figure out how to register your outside games, post it here. I tried with QW with no luck.

its just lets you add a shortcut in the steam games list.. not much good.

Silent Cold wrote:
I have to second the digital delivery system, even more so now that it is opening up to all the different studios and not just a Valve exclusive. With all the extra content now available I don't have to worry about disk protection systems much if at all. Just wish I could register my purchase outside of steam games properly with steam so I can DL and play them without having to find the disks every time.

only game they've everdone that with was Prey, so they've proved it to ba an option. and that'd be one hell of a nice option.