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EA dropping online pass
- Thread starter dukebound85
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EA give with one hand.... but will rape and pillage with the other. Trust me, we will pay... we will pay
rezenclowd3
macrumors 65816
My guess is that the next gen systems may offer new, different technology to accomplish the same thing. So the online pass system may become obsolete anyways, but by publicly dropping it half a year early, EA can get some good press for once.
I hope I am wrong though!
I hope I am wrong though!
Y'know, it still makes me giggle. Blizzard-Activision, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Microsoft, Valve, etc, are just as bad as EA, yet people will trip over each other to bash EA.
I really don't get the bitching. I understood why they did the online pass. Personally, I think they should have renegotiated with places like GameStop to get a cut of used game sales.
And before you bitch about game prices, games are actually cheaper today than they were in previous generations, and in most cases that was even before inflation. I remember being 16 and saving up the $74.95 + tax to get Ocarina of Time when it came out.
I really don't get the bitching. I understood why they did the online pass. Personally, I think they should have renegotiated with places like GameStop to get a cut of used game sales.
And before you bitch about game prices, games are actually cheaper today than they were in previous generations, and in most cases that was even before inflation. I remember being 16 and saving up the $74.95 + tax to get Ocarina of Time when it came out.
-Blizzard, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Valve games don't come with online passes. (maybe some Ubisoft ones do?)
-They buy out small studios, have them work on 1 or 2 games and close them
-They sell the same sports games year in year out when there's a great structure in-place (DLC) to prevent that
-They sell their games
-In-game adverts, but no pricing offset to customers
-They removed content from Steam, and if their games stopped working for you (authentication codes etc), they would send you a new copy on Origin instead
-Origin has spyware and is heavily bloated
-Forcing us to use Origin, even on consoles
-Closing down servers for active games
-Horrible "pay to finish the game" DLC (Mass Effect 3, Dead Space 3)
-They've announced every game of theirs will have microtransactions, but will obviously remain full price
-The whole Sim City disaster
-(and I'm not sure about this one, all I know is South Park brought it up) their college sports stars are screwed over by EA
-And overall a general lack of support or apathy for customers.
Nice article about it here http://www.original-gamer.com/article/5395-Peter-Moores-defense-of-EA-is-an-example-of-why-EA-sucks
Whereas some of those points can be attributed to the studios you mentioned (Activision especially), the others really listen to what people want. Valve are so customer-facing that they don't even tell people who sell games on it what they're planning. No beta invites for new Steam features. It's amazing. EA doesn't do that.
Nintendo are also facing towards smaller developers and customers. EA don't.
Blizzard just do whatever they want.
Ubisoft make mistakes and fix them quickly. EA don't.
This one is down to both Activision and EA. But you're right, however it's a comparative thing. EA and Activision launch games higher than most. Sim City, a digital game launched at £40 here, or 45 for a limited edition version even with in-game advertising (which is used to make games cheaper)! That's a joke of a price! New, physical console games cost less.
(also why with all the "bitching"?)
No, but Blizzard requires 24/7 internet connection for a single player game. A game I might add that was pretty unplayable its first month out because the servers were down.
Activision, Microsoft are both notorious for buying out smaller firms and closing them. Ubisoft is probably the best at keeping their purchases open and healthy.
2K Games releases sports games every year. Activision releases sports licenses as well, including Cabela license, which will at times put out 3-5 Cabela hunting games, a year. Let's be honest tho, it's the buyers' fault that we see so many sports games a year, because they sell. So you're in essence ******** on EA for wanting to make money. I agree, with you though, but the problem is, the core games aren't perfect, so you would then require large patches to add mechanics changes and the like if you did it as a Core Game + DLC model.
Can't argue with the ingame adverts. Tho, I have to say, EA did a great job with it in Burnout Paradise. Seeing real life billboards in the game added to the immersion.
Steam pulled some dick moves with EA on Dragon Age 2, so I don't blame them. Just as a heads up, if you put your Steam version's serial into Origin, you can get the game for free.
So is Steam. There is zero difference between Steam and Origin. Except Origin support actually responds when purchased games disappear. Unlike Steam, where after 3 months of waiting, I got "You'll just have you buy Portal 2, and Skyrim again. We know you have receipts to prove it, we just don't care."
I don't mind a unified system like Origin, especially when it does stuff like "Oh you bought/received DLC/add ons for this console, here, have it for the other consoles, PC and Mac". It's nice to have all the Mass Effect junk I had on the 360 show up in my PC and PS3 versions. Hell, Ubisoft has already done something similar, and I don't hear bitching about that.
Blizzard has the worst record for closing servers, and server failure. Hell, I still can't play my copy of Diablo 3, because they want a copy of my driver's license after the big server hack. Yeah, I'm going to trust them with my identity.
You can finish both ME3 AND DS3 without a single purchase. Hell, the extended version of the ending of ME3 was free. All the other story DLCs just added to the game, none of it was needed to beat the game.
Again, the microtransactions in DS3 were completely optional. I didn't need anything to add to the enjoyment of the game.
Can't argue the SimCity disaster, but all companies have made missteps in the past and today. Case in point the Diablo 3 fiasco.
I find EA to be very helpful in my experience. Blizzard and Valve have to be the worst from my experiences.
Honestly I find Valve to be one of the worst companies out there. Especially when it comes to the higher ups' opinions of women gamers. I've yet to have a good experience with them support wise either, from them telling to to rebuy games I lost from my account, to telling me I'm too stupid for PC gaming because I was having a problem with Skyrim crashing at launch (it was due to one of their Workshop approved mods, and the modder fessed up and fixed the problem, yet support insisted it was my fault).
I like EA, I like the games I play from them. I freely admit they have cock ups, but so has everyone else. As much as I loathe Blizzard, I still love my Starcraft. EA's a company, just like Apple, and they're going to do what every company does, try to make money.
At least EA's not pulling what Microsoft is with the XBox One, yet people will continue to masturbate over how awesome the XBox is.
My guess is that the next gen systems may offer new, different technology to accomplish the same thing. So the online pass system may become obsolete anyways, but by publicly dropping it half a year early, EA can get some good press for once.
I hope I am wrong though!
Looks like I was not wrong.
Still no clear words from Sony, but it likely be similar to MS's system...
Looks like I was not wrong.
Still no clear words from Sony, but it likely be similar to MS's system...
The PS4 doesn't require an internet connection, so it's fine.
http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/01/ps4-wont-require-always-online-connection-and-wont-block-drm-yoshida/
But those statements are anything but clear. The XBone also does not require an "always on" connection. It only checks in once a day. And the XBone also does not block the sale of used games, it is up to the publishers to decide that.
Sony could still have the EXACT same measures in place, and their statements in the past would not be incorrect.
I really hope that is not the case, but I am not going to start singing their praise until we get some definite facts on the matter.
No - Sony flat out said that it will not require ever being connected to the internet as many parts of the world it sells to don't have reliable internet connections.
That's far different from Microsoft's check in approach.
I must have missed that quote...do you have a source? All I saw was them stating it wouldn't have to be "always on" for said reasons.
Michael Denny | Sony said:
Eurogamer interview said:
Now Gamer said:
Yoshida interview said:
Of course they could go back on it all, but we wait and see.
But assuming games can be played without an internet connection at all, then clearly you cant force a DRM checking system into the mix without an internet connection - so the assumption is of course that there will be no DRM on PS4.
Remember in publishers get their way they will be taking a cut of the pot at the 'retailers' side of things. So if those things are in place there actually isn't a need to punish gamers with a DRM system.
The reason Microsoft have had to introduce it is so that games can be installed directly to the HDD and then played without the disc. So clearly they would need some form of DRM in order to make this possible otherwise everyone would simply buy a game, install it to their xbox and then trade it in or sell it.
I likewise assume therefore the PS4 will require the disc to be in the console. Not that it makes a huge difference. I'd rather settle for that than have stronger enforced DRM.
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Sounds promising.
Thanks for digging ip those quotes! Hopefully Sony execs will not have to eat their words tonight.
Thanks for digging ip those quotes! Hopefully Sony execs will not have to eat their words tonight.
Thanks for the info - nice to know - especially for us vintage gamers wanting to play games on the console when it goes obsolete...
Told ye so...
I honestly didn't dare to believe it beforehand - but Sony really came through last night!