Despicable (part 2)

Continued from last week...

If you're reading this and in case you haven't realized it yet, I love video games. I love what they bring to the table today for your entertainment, and I love how they have the ability to unite people from literally around the planet under one interest, some groups being so awesome as to call themselves families. That's unbelievably awesome.

With all the brightness and glory that I talk about on here, I've never really taken a trip to the dark side, and the first thing that comes to mind is Electronic Arts, a.k.a. EA. (mouthful of letters there)

EA is a publisher, and a very powerful one at that. A huge amount of games are distributed by EA, and if not for them, then the industry today probably wouldn't exist as it is. Interpret that statement however you like, but it's [un]fortunately true, if you catch my drift. I can't say I have any particular problem with any games they have published (except one, I'll get to it later), but that's mostly attributed to me not having played any of them. I admit it: I haven't played any Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Dead Space, or any EA published game to my knowledge in the past 10 years, except for maybe Spore. It was mediocre at best, but it was fun while it lasted.

Anyway, the video from Tuesday created by Jim Sterling (thank God for him) sums up everything very nicely. There is a lot of scumbag practice out in the video game business, but for all that has ever been uncovered, EA has at one time or another done the same thing, but less subtle. So much less subtle in fact that it's blatantly obvious that they are merely doing it for the damn money.

It doesn't stop there though. Pretty much all publishers have done something that their fans disagree with at one point or another, but EA milks it and pours it in your face to make sure you know they're terrible. It doesn't make any sense either! Why would you blatantly do something that makes your company look bad?! Are they just simply oblivious or literally stupid?!

Take for example their marketing:

• Let's hire a bunch of people to pretend they're Christians (nothing wrong with that, right? -_-) and protest about our game to make people notice it. 
• Let's make commercials about people's moms hating our game (because all gamers still live with their moms, right? -_-) to make us want to play it more. 
• Let's create some fake anti-gay and charity movements to distract people from the problems they have with our games.

All this marketing cost them upwards of $700 million. Good to know our money is going somewhere nice. Bastards.

They buy up smaller game studios just to keep competition down.

They speak of high prices for games, and they keep continuing to sell at the same damn prices, let alone with DAY ONE DLC that turns a $60, incomplete game into an $80 hey-now-it's-all-good game.

They include multiplayer in games that don't need it. While I've heard that the mode in Mass Effect 3 is pretty fun, I honestly wonder what sort of game it would have been if the resources and time were spent developing the single player campaign instead.

They enforce online passes, they revive old games as generic, mediocre new ones, and they seemingly don't give a damn about some of the policies they stick into their online service Origin. Two year ownership of a game before you have to pay again? Forum ban means you can't play any of your games? Luckily they retracted these statements, but only after hundreds of thousands of gamers called them out for their shit.

THEY STICK A NEW YEAR NUMBER, A NEW COVER ATHLETE, AND UPDATED ROSTERS AND STATS ON A DISC, AND THEY SELL YOU A NEW MADDEN FOOTBALL GAME FOR $60 GOD DAMN DOLLARS. New features or not, that doesn't justify the price.

EA is a bunch of assholes. I'm sure they have very talented developers and I'm sure that not everyone who works there is the scum of the earth, but the business practices that the company is...well, practicing...are just despicable and downright hateful. There is no reason to take any of this shit from them, and that is the reason why I haven't played an EA game in so long. In my opinion, they do not deserve my money, no matter how great their games may be, and honestly, even with that said, correct me if I'm wrong, but their games are even starting to go downhill. I wonder why?

They need to get their shit together or just die, because we gamers, let alone the whole industry, doesn't need the moronic shit that they're currently offering us as a business.

Next week: Mr. Jim Sterling (thank God for him)