Stop Ea!!!

[19Delta]

Ok, this is in response to the article I just read on the main page about Electronic Arts trying to buy 2K games. There may be a couple of good things about EA possessing 2K games, and possibly Firaxis and Rockstar North, but those things don't benefit us whatsoever. This is the reality of Electronic Arts. They are notorious for buying up other companies that make good games and putting their name on them. Let's take Westwood studios for example. Westwood studios were the original makers of the Command and Conquer series, Dune series, and a few other games. When EA purchased Westwood, there were a few other games made from them for a while, but then they released a game that didn't get good reviews. EA then promptly liquidated all of Westwood's assets. They now retain the rights to Command and Conquer, Dune, and those titles that Westwood had produced. The problem with EA is simply this: They do not care about the fans other than the fact that they will buy their games. Sometimes they will release buggy games. I know that this happens on occasion. The problem with EA, is if they are the only ones that makes that particular game or game type, then they will never release a patch for it. They treat their employees badly, and are constantly rushing them to release an otherwise good game, and that is the reason for all of the glitches and bugs in some of those games. They will release a good game with online multiplayer capacities, and when they get ready to release a newer version of that game, or a new game of the same type, whether it be better or not, they close down the servers of the old game effectively ending that game's online playability as they will not allow anyone elses servers to support that game citing copyright infringements. EA hates modders, because they can't control them, and they help keep good games around for much longer than they were originally intended (Civ III for example). I'm not making any of this up. If you don't believe me, you can look it up on the net. Articles and statements from news agencies and people that work there, or used to work there, are readily available to read.

You might say, "19Delta, what does this have to do with us?" I'm glad you asked that friend. Let's say that EA came to own the rights to civilization, and a few other popular genres that many of us have come to know and love. What do you think will happen to those games? Let's take the previous Civ III titles, what do you think will happen to them? Civ III still has a huge fan base. If you own Civ III it is only a matter of time before you stumble upon these forums with all of it's great features. I mentioned above, EA's attitude toward modders. What do you think will happen if EA owns the rights to Civ III. If they can't stop us from modding this game, they will make it absolute hell for us to continue doing it. The guys at 2K turned down their offer from EA, but an analyst seems to think that EA will just buy up stocks on the market and perform a hostile takeover. I'm hoping that Sid, and the crew and Rockstar North have a change of ownership clause in their contracts, but I don't know what they will do with EA flasing all of that money in front of their faces. This may sound stupid to some of you out there, but I don't care. We can fight EA. I call on all civ fans to go out and buy all stocks in 2K that you possibly can, even if it is only one or two. We can keep the big corporate guys at EA from destroying several popular genres and effectively ending their followings. If you don't think that this will come to pass, look at EA's history. For starters, go to wikipedia and look up Electronic Arts. Remember to fight the man (EA).

Until next time, this is 19Delta, good day.

 

[Simak]

Another economic strategy often overlooked is "boycott." If you don't like EA, stop buying their games. They will go out of business soon enough. Of course, this takes a group effort.

 

[19Delta]

That is true. Boycott works, but takes a large group effort. I don't think that's a viable option because their most popular games are their sports series. I want to say that those games could carry the company alone, but I don't think that is possible even for the Madden games. If they acquire 2K, then they may also acquire all the rights for their games, including Firaxis, and Rockstar North. I'm not saying that I don't like EA at all. I don't like their business practices, but I do own a few EA published games. I just don't see anything good coming out of EA owning 2K and all of the great titles that come from them and their associates.

 

[MAS]

No publisher of any media, be it books, comics, movies, music, (AK the record companies) or games, is any good.
This is because all publishers always have a monopoly on the content they publish.

If it was possible for an end costumer to chose what publisher to do business with separate from the content, then they would be forced to really compete with each other in their publishing trait.

Right now, if you want to buy a good game, because you like the game, you'll be forced to do business with the one publisher that publishes that game.
The way publishers compete right now, is getting the best selling content under their control. If they have good content, then they can be ensured people will buy it, almost no matter ho bad they treat their end costumers.

If you want to boycott a publisher, it means you won't be able to get the content you like from some other publisher.

Unlike, for example, supermarkets. If you don't like a certain supermarket, you can always buy your beans, potato chips, salt and pepper in some other supermarket.

 

[Theov]

19 Delta is right, and I will be VERY concerned if EA buys Firaxis.
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EA Sports games are all notorious for being extremely buggy and just plain bad.
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The company for the rest just plain sucks monkeyballs for all the reasons 19 Delta mentioned.

 

[FLump]

If anyone here's old enough to have played and enjoyed most of the Ultima series (before it turned into Ultima Online), you probably know EA did to Origin exactly what is described in the first post of this thread, which ultimately ruined the final Ultima game.

There's people to this day using various engines (Morrowind, Dungeon Siege, etc) in order to recreate a "real" ending to the Ultima series.

So yes, should EA obtain rights to Civ, I seriously doubt that could be a good thing for any of us.

 

[Quintillus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#Criticism

I read this section and it does seem EA isn't the most savory of game developers, and isn't usually a good thing for acquired studios. But I wouldn't say Take Two is the best either. Note that both EA and Take Two have exclusive contracts with sports organizations, openly discouraging competition, and that Take Two has been involved in a few scandals with it's GTA series.

As to how Take Two has affected Civ, the most important change probably has been including consoles. Warlords may have been a disappointment, but so was PTW, and Beyond the Sword made up for it similarly to Conquests (from what I've read here at least - haven't actually bought either). CivIV was released before Take Two took over Firaxis, so we can't really judge them on that. But if consoles become a trend it could be argued that Take Two has been bad for the Civ franchise already.

 

[19Delta]

That may be true. Regardless how you feel about Take Two, it is still the lesser of two evils. I'm still a fan of a few games that EA publishes. I really like the Need for Speed series, Sim City series, the Medal of Honor series, my wife is a big fan of the Sims, and I have a few of the older games on the Sega Genesis (road rash 3 for example) that EA published. I predict a scenario going something like this: EA buys, or performs a hostile takeover of 2K games, they obtain the rights to some of their most popular titles, they perform some more of their questionable business practices and decide to liquidate Firaxis and Rockstar North, they shut down support for some older but still very popular games, they turn their attention toward the modding community for games like Civ III, they will almost certainly make attempts to shut this site as well as similar sites down citing copy right infringement becuase they own the rights to the Civilization series. Any future civilization games that come out will either be buggy, lack the playability and modability of previous Civ titles, or both. The one thing that I liked the most about the release of Civ IV was the source code was released along with it. I don't think that EA would've allowed that if they were running things. Yes there were some scandals with the GTA series (the hot coffee mod is probably the best example here), but lets compare the two companies track records, and as far as the exclusive sports rights, EA signed the deal with the NFL when 2K sports released their own football games that were more versatile, and had better playability. EA felt threatened, and rather than up the ante and produce better games, they decided to engage in cut throat tactics. Take Two just gave them a taste of their own medicine and they didn't like it. We were discussing this at work today. One of my friends is an almost fanatical Madden fan, but he admitted that NFL 2K5 was a better game than the competing Madden title. I know it's a capitalist society and money is the driving force behind decisions, but at what point do you let the money become so important that you take a crap on your consumers?

 

[Simak]

Unlike food in a supermarket, video games aren't necessary to survival.

 

[Theov]

Unlike food in a supermarket, video games aren't necessary to survival.

Food in a supermarket isn't necessary to survival either...
.
OT: the concern is true.
All we can hope it doesn't happen and if it does, that Sid (or whoever) will make another game called "Fanatics 5".

 

[PaperBeetle]

I don't have a lot of faith in EA, but they do maintain some studios with a high degree of autonomy, such as Criterion, and they are proud to have "auteur" game designers such as Will Wright on their books. If they disbanded Firaxis, I don't suppose Sid Meier would be interested in becoming just another faceless in-house producer, so EA would be inclined to leave Firaxis alone just to keep Sid on side. EA have published Firaxis in the past, and iirc they still hold the rights to Alpha Centauri - AC2 is high on my wish list of game sequels, and EA owning Firaxis might actually make that a possibility.

 

[cubsfan6506]

I for one am thrilled. I'll finally get mvp baseball back. 2K doesn't even put in farm systems. Perhaps we can also get the source code. 2K sure as hell isn't giving it to us.

 

[MAS]

Unlike food in a supermarket, video games aren't necessary to survival.

OK, lets refrase that:

Unlike, for example, retailers. If you don't like the service in your local game shop, you can always drive to the game shop in an other neighborhood and buy your games there...

 

[darski]

We played The Sims 1 almost from the beginning and EA did everything they could to encourage modders to develop stuff for the game and gave out the programs to get it going. It is the Sims community that kept that game alive for all these years. And, you can still get new stuff for Sims 1.

I am not denying all that you say but just mentioning my experience with EA./sims

 

[Civinator]

Are there any restrictions for modding Civ 3 or Civ 2 by an overtake from 2K games by EA ?

If not - what I believe at present - there is no reason for me to reflect any longer about that theme, as for me the Civ series ended with Civ 4 with its very bad and modding-unfriendly 3d graphics. Civ 4 and Civ Revolution are showing to me, that even the cartoonish direction of Firaxis for the development of the Civ series is not the direction I like. And until today we are waiting for the final patch for C3C by Firaxis and 2K games...

 

[19Delta]

Those are all very good points. EA has produced several very good games recently (C&C3, the sims 2, sim city societies, etc.), but their track record suggests that they will screw us in the end. I'm not right about everything, and I didn't think about the modding communities for the sims and sim city, but then again, maxis maintains a certain degree of autonomy. Maybe then, we should just let events play out and see where they take us. As far as Civ IV is concerned, I think that it has great potential for many things, it's just waiting for the right person or group of people to come along and exploit it's potential. I for one look forward to Steph's project becoming reality. From what I've seen, I think that is the way Civ III should have been to begin with.

 

[lucashp]

I for one am thrilled. I'll finally get mvp baseball back. 2K doesn't even put in farm systems. Perhaps we can also get the source code. 2K sure as hell isn't giving it to us.

Source code? Editing/modding?

Well EA doesn't usually give much to the community either. Most wanted Probably doesn't have a lot of extra cars made from gamers, money mods, Etc.

Then again, If it is somewhat like maxis, They'd give us a way to Create worlds, Civilizations, And... Uh.... mods? But we already have all of that.