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[alexandertnt]

I am confued as to why people call EA "evil". Evil would be, for example, having children work 20 hours a day at nearly zero pay (sweat shop, for example). They just produce mediocre, overpriced games. This may make them a crappy company, with bad games, but I wouldn't call them "evil".

I think that EA has become the "flagship", or the representitive of crappy game companies. When you ask an "EA-hater" what other companies also suck, they generally will happily list Ubisoft, Activision etc. They just pick EA as the main example. This is my reasoning to why EA is often cited as being crap moreso then Ubisoft/Activision etc. Not necessarily becase they are worse, but because they sort of just became the example of these crappy-publishers. Also Origin.

Now if EA were to collapse, I can't say I would be very unhappy, but there may be a few people out there who might be.

[Megaman]

It's evil for a game company, and they treat professionals with contempt in a country where there are high standards for employee treatment. Most countries with sweat-shops have horrible conditions in most of the other options those children's families have.

[Sensei]

EA knowingly pursues courses of action which result in short-term cash for them, but not for their employees and they ultimately have a hand in preventing good games from being made by way of ruining developers and creating slipshod sequels, as well as squeezing the consumer for every penny they're worth.

Is that assertion true? I think it is, but you could debate otherwise. However, if you agree that ultimately, that is the case, how could you not hate them?

[Microcline]

There's a lot of knee-jerk EA hate in this thread. Hating on EA has been the cool thing to do for years now. While EA is indeed a terrible company, they're a symptom of the larger problem of what is wrong with the games industry as a whole.

Actiblizz

They're not sinless, but they're pretty much the model of what EA should be.  CoD players seem to be okay with yearly releases (much like Madden fans), and they haven't run Blizzard into the ground trying to standardize that model.  While there goal might be "taking the fun out of video games", if they stick to genres where fans are okay with that and don't destroy otherwise good companies they aren't going to be loathed.

Microsoft

At worst they're incompetent.  Certainly not evil.

Nintendo

Why the hell would I hate Nintendo?  Sure, I've got a lot of nits to pick (too many Mario rehashes, a couple weak Zeldas, Other M, friend codes), but note that those are small complaints about otherwise good franchises/hardware they've maintained.

Ubisoft

Yes, they've been paranoid about DRM.  However, they've responded to people's complaints about it by cutting back the worst of it and still continue to produce good games.

Capcom

They're probably the closest to EA in that they openly express bald contempt for their fans, but they don't seem to be fucking up anything they didn't create.

I'm not surprised by this at all, the most surprising thing is that it didn't happen earlier. It sounds like they are getting out of games for good, which is unfortunate, but maybe they will be back some time with a new company and make games like the old bioware did.

I love many of the games they've worked on, and wish them the best in their luxury retirement     But for the life of me I will never understand why they sold Bioware to EA.  I assume, and hope, that they cleaned up, because if they didn't get anything from the sale then no one did!

They didn't sell bioware to EA. EA bought the holding company that owned bioware (and pandemic) - I'm not sure if the doctors had any say in the matter at all.

Fun fact: the holding company (VG Holding Corp) was brokered by (and for a while run by) none other then..... John Riccitiello, who I'm sure you know is the current CEO of EA. Funny how that works out huh?

I thought they had sold out their employees and fans for a quick cash-out.  It's good to know they didn't have a hand in this.

I am confued as to why people call EA "evil". Evil would be, for example, having children work 20 hours a day at nearly zero pay (sweat shop, for example). They just produce mediocre, overpriced games. This may make them a crappy company, with bad games, but I wouldn't call them "evil".

I think that EA has become the "flagship", or the representitive of crappy game companies. When you ask an "EA-hater" what other companies also suck, they generally will happily list Ubisoft, Activision etc. They just pick EA as the main example. This is my reasoning to why EA is often cited as being crap moreso then Ubisoft/Activision etc. Not necessarily becase they are worse, but because they sort of just became the example of these crappy-publishers. Also Origin.

Now if EA were to collapse, I can't say I would be very unhappy, but there may be a few people out there who might be.

No one is criticizing them for making boatloads of money on yearly Madden games.  The problem is that they decided the best use of this money was to buy out otherwise good companies that they had no idea how to run and crash them into the ground.  This isn't about profit.  This is about a company so badly mismanaged that it has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars charging a scorched path through the game development industry.  If they used their profit to reinvest in their existing IPs, or enter new markets with fresh IPs, or buy John Riccitello another yacht made of cocaine, or even give their overworked, underpayed employees a bonus no one would complain.  Instead they used it to shit in your cornflakes.

In other words, imagine if a rich man bought the Mona Lisa for the sole purpose of setting fire to it.

[alexandertnt]

Microsoft

At worst they're incompetent.  Certainly not evil.

They are more than incompetent, they are the sort of company that chases monopolies and holds onto them with dear life. When a companies policy is Embrace Extend and Extinguish sounds like a step above mere imcompetence. They are, in my book, somewhat closer to evil then EA is (especially considering most EA game's run on Microsoft technology) (Also, Apple. Pretty much the same).

I am confued as to why people call EA "evil". Evil would be, for example, having children work 20 hours a day at nearly zero pay (sweat shop, for example). They just produce mediocre, overpriced games. This may make them a crappy company, with bad games, but I wouldn't call them "evil".

I think that EA has become the "flagship", or the representitive of crappy game companies. When you ask an "EA-hater" what other companies also suck, they generally will happily list Ubisoft, Activision etc. They just pick EA as the main example. This is my reasoning to why EA is often cited as being crap moreso then Ubisoft/Activision etc. Not necessarily becase they are worse, but because they sort of just became the example of these crappy-publishers. Also Origin.

Now if EA were to collapse, I can't say I would be very unhappy, but there may be a few people out there who might be.

No one is criticizing them for making boatloads of money on yearly Madden games.  The problem is that they decided the best use of this money was to buy out otherwise good companies that they had no idea how to run and crash them into the ground.  This isn't about profit.  This is about a company so badly mismanaged that it has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars charging a scorched path through the game development industry.  If they used their profit to reinvest in their existing IPs, or enter new markets with fresh IPs, or buy John Riccitello another yacht made of cocaine, or even give their overworked, underpayed employees a bonus no one would complain.  Instead they used it to shit in your cornflakes.

In other words, imagine if a rich man bought the Mona Lisa for the sole purpose of setting fire to it.

I was never defending EA, just saying that for me, calling EA "evil" is a bit difficult to swallow when you actually poke your head outside of the gaming industry. Buying game companies like that is a dick move, but it happens in other industries all the time (unfortunetely). Sometimes with much more serious ramifications then "my favourite game IP was ruined".

Setting fire to the Mona Lisa is an awfully dickish thing to do, but I can't see how it could compare to what some other companies have done in the past. (and its not a particularly evil thing to do if your view of the Mona Lisa is of a faceless generic portrait, that is you were not particularly interested in these "Mona Lisa" games before EA got to them).

[pilgrimboy]

I'm not surprised by this at all, the most surprising thing is that it didn't happen earlier. It sounds like they are getting out of games for good, which is unfortunate, but maybe they will be back some time with a new company and make games like the old bioware did.

They probably have a non-compete clause. They have to get out of games for a few years.

[Leatra]

Copies sold equals the quality of the game for the corporations. Money talks. If the consumers are a bunch of brainless walking money bags waiting to be consumed by big evil corporations it isn't the fault of big evil corporations.

That was a little sarcastic. I wasn't talking about EA when I said "big evil corpotations". It applies in pretty much every industry. Look at McDonald's. Most people call them evil but they still eat their shit. If people are buying, they will keep heading in the money-making direction.

I heard this saying about democracy somewhere, it says that every nation is ruled according to what their people deserve. People in my country are ignorant and uneducated. They listen to everything what the government says and accept them without thinking. So-called big evil corporations, same thing. You can call a company evil and still buy their products. But you can't expect that your criticism of that company is going to change things. We should voice our opinions but also vote with our wallets as gamers. That's what I'm saying.

Most people here on Bay12 know this, but try telling them to fanboy forums.

[hermes]

I'm not surprised by this at all, the most surprising thing is that it didn't happen earlier. It sounds like they are getting out of games for good, which is unfortunate, but maybe they will be back some time with a new company and make games like the old bioware did.

Agreed!

I love many of the games they've worked on, and wish them the best in their luxury retirement     But for the life of me I will never understand why they sold Bioware to EA.  I assume, and hope, that they cleaned up, because if they didn't get anything from the sale then no one did!

They didn't sell bioware to EA. EA bought the holding company that owned bioware (and pandemic) - I'm not sure if the doctors had any say in the matter at all.

Fun fact: the holding company (VG Holding Corp) was brokered by (and for a while run by) none other then..... John Riccitiello, who I'm sure you know is the current CEO of EA. Funny how that works out huh?

The way I, fuzzily, recall that is that Riccitiello left EA, set up that company, talked Bioware and Pandemic into becoming part of his gig (selling him their companies), whence he magically engineered the EA takeover with himself returning as CEO.  To me the subtext was that he was always working for EA.  Greg and Ray were either fully aware of this or duped, and that doesn't seem likely.

[Sensei]

Oh yeah speaking of Pandemic? Where's my Star Wars Battlefront 3, you assholes. They were working on that until EA decided it would be a better idea for them to make a LOTR game, which in traditional EA fashion was clearly rushed out the door in far too little time and almost no playtesting whatsoever but with spotless (if uncreative) art resources.

-Bad cash-in game was made? Check.
-Good, relatively unique game was red-lighted mid development? Check.
-Beloved developer was dissolved? Check.

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   I think that EA gets so much hate not because they are evil so much as the fact that they take things that are not theirs then ruin them. Sure maybe Bioware might have ended up making junk games after a while but what happened was EA acquired them and then they made junk games and so anyone that loved past Bioware games points at EA as ruining something they love. Its the same story for a lot of things that EA gets hated on for. Of course its their own fault mind you. They thought they could buy something and then throw money at it while demanding it follow current market trends. Of course this doesn't work when such things get popular because of how they where different from the current trend in games.

[justinlee999]

I'd actually like to chime in here for once. I think the reason people hate on EA MORE than other secondary companies is justified. There is definitely the forced DRM factor, then there is the fact that they have a history of releasing rehashes of last years games "call of dutyfare 5/ sim hockey 2014 (Iceland league)", and the DLC. They've jumped on the DLC bandwagon so hard, so much, and to such an extent that it's now common to see all of their large titles LAUNCH with DLC available. That and it's utter lack of f***ks to give regarding POSITIVE PR and customer relations lead to this seething hatred from the masses of "unwashed" original title lovers such as ourselves. They cater to the masses, as any large company does, and put out what they KNOW they will get paid for, rehashes and dlc. It's not a lost cause though, working on and with independant games at Gamersgate has given me a broader spectrum than most regarding the intricities of the gaming world, and I can honestly say that there is a definite positive trend towards smaller gaming groups.

People are simply more drawn to lesser known companies because they don't charge as much, are more original, and do NOT pander to the masses.

While I can't give numbers out I CAN say that indie gaming HAS become a thing. Circa 2008 you'd have the occasional player talking about it but with the minecraft craze and the sudden availability of indie games there is a much larger, MUCH more vocal crowd of people clamoring to get their hands on original projects left right and center.

Don't keep quiet about it guys, it's working, and it's all thanks to the continued support of people such as yourselves.

EA didn't make Call of Doody, Activision did.

[ChairmanPoo]

TBH I've never understood why would anyone go through medical school only to abandon the whole deal forever at the last minute....

[fenrif]

Because at the time there was no video game school, video games were their passion and they didn't realise untill after medical school that it was worth giving it a go as a career, and because while they were extremely successfull (i assume) at Bioware, had it failed in the first year they still would've had medical degrees to fall back on?

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   Maybe after years of having to slog through medical school they just couldn't stand the thought of doing it for a job?

[TripJack]

lol @ the old blame ea game

i'm sure that most all of you disagree, but imo bioware's games have been pretty much shit from the beginning

hopefully they will go under soon