The Electronic Arts thread

[Kendo 2]

Looks like community backlash has made EA change tactics.

Cyber-gingers with cricket bats and samurai swords will still be in the game...just at a later date.

[bjornk]

To be fair, when you turn real historical wars into games in which people laugh and have fun by killing each other, complaining about authenticity sounds a bit hypocritical to me. I mean, war, killing or dying is never fun, but clearly people who develop or play these games don't see it that way. If they did, they would have realized that it was very disrespectful to the millions who died in these wars and also they would never want "their daughters" to play them. In other words, it's all very fucked up in my opinion, whether or not there's a female soldier with blue hair in the game doesn't really change anything. DICE should have left historical wars alone and continued with the 2142. It was pretty good and had potential, besides no one would complain about authenticity.

Edited September 13, 2018 by bjornk

[Kendo 2]

The female combat roles in ww2 were; Russian pilots and snipers, Nationalist Chinese partisans, resistance fighters in Poland, Greece and France.  That's it outside a few INDIVIDUAL women who did exceptional things.  Anything outside of that fantasy-land wishful thinking.  I'm just glad EA has lost money and they've taken yet another PR hit.

[bjornk]

The mind of a SJW is very puzzling... Instead of complaining about violence in video games, they seem to worry about their daughters' so called inability to express themselves in a violent video game... I wonder what their reaction would be if their daughters got drafted into the army for an actual war.

[Kendo 2]

And the noose tightens...

 

[endgameaddiction]

Throw the faggots from ESRB who were bought out in the pit of flames as well when that time comes.

[Kendo 2]

*insert game show fail sound FX here*

 

[Kendo 2]

Bend over EA...

 

[Kendo 2]

How did we miss this?

 

[Kendo 2]

 

[Doublezero]

Hopefully EA will double down and continue pushing microtransactions and loot boxes.

[bjornk]

We know what EA is, but Ubisoft making fun of EA is kinda like the pot calling the kettle black...

 

Edited October 11, 2018 by bjornk

[Kendo 2]

 

[endgameaddiction]

EA doesn't deserve no sympathy. I hope that they continue to deteriorate into nothing and serves as a valuable lesson to greedy companies out there. Somehow fanboys will spin this and pin it on those who were against loot boxes.

[bjornk]

Don't get me wrong, I have no intention to start a political discussion or somehow derail the topic, and I'm aware that what I'm going to write has the potential to do both, but let me just be the devil's advocate for a moment... as this might be something to consider...

So, why are people even against "greedy companies" like EA, and their "exploitative" schemes such as loot boxes, micro-transactions and so on? They are simply trying to maximize their profits in any way a company can and they are under no obligation to be pro-consumer, right? Is it just because what they do can be considered as "gambling" and gambling is deemed to be illegal? Why would it be illegal? Because it's "exploitative"? But isn't that the very thing what marketing/advertisement is based on, or at least relies on? After all, isn't this how capitalism works? Isn't it a free market economy? "Don't like it? Then don't buy it!"... sounds perfectly reasonable to me...

Edited October 21, 2018 by bjornk

[endgameaddiction]

In a capitol market sure. But the issue is that EA's loot boxes was created in a form of gambling and underage had access to participate in that gambling. There have been far too many cases of adult's lives being ruined through the addiction of gambling. This will have a more impact on the underage. They aren't capable of making responsible decisions with money and they are much more vulnerable to becoming addicted. That's why we are very strict with gambling and where I live you are required to be the age of 21+ to gamble.

I believe like with loot boxes the same with paid mods, eventually development will slow down a lot, allowing these companies to continue to milk and milk consumers and released half arsed DLCs or expansions to keep beating on the dead horse. And the next thing you know, a huge open world game developed in 7 years will now take 10+ because as long as people keep playing and buying they barely have to lift a finger only releasing even more mediocre content.

If this was contained within a few developers and not cause other developers to want in on some of that action, I wouldn't care. I hated DRM. Still do. I had to narrow down games I liked because of it. I'll have to do the same with loot boxes and eventually paid mods as it will become a standard eventually.

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by endgameaddiction

[bjornk]

I honestly can't imagine how an underage kid could ruin his life by gambling, they don't own anything of value yet and still use their parent's money or credit card. For those kids, addiction to video games is potentially more concerning. As for adults, gambling is a freedom, a choice, much like smoking and drinking alcohol, try banning or restricting those and see how they'll defend their freedom to death.

 

 

[bjornk]

What exactly are those companies hiding or lying about? You don't see anyone complaining about Bethesda's Fallout Shelter, for instance, which is game that has loot-boxes (they call them Lunchboxes) with random content in it, which you can purchase with real money. As far as I can see, "ESRB Teen" is the only rating that game has. Why shouldn't other companies get away with that?

Edited October 22, 2018 by bjornk

[bjornk]

5 hours ago, ritualclarity said:

Well there is too much detail and too many sources for you to see what they were "hiding" for me to go into detail. Many of those issues are on this very thread.  Many articles where they created a game that required you to play the loot boxes just to play the game in any reasonable way.  Pick a country and read their articles about the issue. Any country.. USA, Germany, etc etc.

I've read/watched most of them and I don't recall any case where the game wouldn't work at all unless you've bought a loot-box, which would then be easily categorized as scam, which never happened. Other than that, "reasonable" isn't really an objective definition. Articles/videos I've read/watched so far mostly focus on whether or not having loot-boxes in video games can be categorized as gambling, which is why some European countries took action.

By the way, the reason why I'm (kind of) arguing about the issue is not because I like or approve loot-boxes or anything what these companies have been doing. I'm only implying that it's kind of hypocritical to defend capitalism and free market while complaining about anti-consumer practices.

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by bjornk

[Kendo 2]

17 minutes ago, bjornk said:

By the way, the reason why I'm (kind of) arguing about the issue is not because I like or approve loot-boxes or anything what these companies have been doing. I'm only implying that it's kind of hypocritical to defend capitalism and free market while complaining about anti-consumer practices.

Corporations are bad...but HEY all of my Patreon donors get exclusive content not included with the free version of the mod! 

[bjornk]

2 minutes ago, Kendo 2 said:

Corporations are bad...

Well, they create jobs... in China... and in the future they will create jobs... for robots...

[Kendo 2]

They have to do something.  All of those uber-hawt Chinese Twicth thots are a thing of the past.

[bjornk]

Battle of Anchorage... Unemployed Chinese Twitch thots invade Alaska...

Edited October 22, 2018 by bjornk

[bjornk]

4 hours ago, ritualclarity said:

Didn't see this or others mentinoing the same content?

If you call having to spend 4500 hours to unlock everything or spending 2000 dollars to short cut your way to get the most desirable "Heros" then the issues and debate is a moot one for you. Add the fact you can't just "BUY" points to the hero of your choice... you have to play a "game" where you have a "chance" (gambling) to win what you need to build your game up and hopefully get toward the hero or equipment you want.

The issue isn't against Capitalism.. it is against their failure to properly disclose the fact they were introducing gambling, Creating a system that would take you 4500 hours to accomplish and complete or get what you want.. (grind on the extreme) and then when confronted .. make the worlds worst most down voted Redit post in history.

You said gambling wasn't the real issue in your previous message, yet the article you've linked clearly states otherwise in its very first paragraph...

Quote

The most prominent controversy in gaming lately has been the inclusion of loot boxes and microtransactions in games. Several countries have looked into categorizing the purchasable crates that contain random items as gambling. In the US, the ESRB recently ruled that they are not gambling because the player still receives something of value from the purchase even if the item is a duplicate of little value to them.

Some European countries have demanded removal of certain features from certain games as they consider loot-boxes as gambling and this is the only "legal" issue here. As the paragraph above also states that loot-boxes and micro-transactions are not considered as gambling by ESRB in the US, they are under no obligation to explicitly state anything else other than the game's ESRB rating. No matter what you think of the issue, they clearly have no reason to lie about the nature of their games or hide anything about them. These may be infuriatingly greedy business practices, but there's absolutely nothing illegal about them, not yet anyway, at least not in the US and in many other countries.

And honestly, people may complain about a game being extremely grindy, but all they have to do is not to buy the game if they don't like it.

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by bjornk

[Kendo 2]

8 hours ago, ritualclarity said:

FUCK YOU ELECTRONICS ARTS!!!!!!!

I would like to remind everyone that RC is the only one of us who paid for and played Battlefront 2.