EA suspending marketing of the game: http://kotaku.com/5989523/report-ea-...aunch-disaster

Maybe they'll revamp the game as SimEA. "You've played the games...now run the company!"

From Joystiq

EA CEO John Riccitiello resigns

by Alexander Sliwinski Writer RSS on Mar 18th 2013 4:08PM

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has submitted his resignation to EA's board of directors. His final day will be March 30, the close of the company's fiscal year.

"The Board will immediately initiate a search and both internal and external candidates will be considered for the CEO position," wrote EA board chairman Larry Probst in a public statement.
"Our business is built on more than a dozen powerful, globally recognized brands," Probst continued. "We are clear leaders in the fastest growing category in games – mobile – and we are positioned to lead on the next generation of consoles. Most importantly we have deep reserves of talent – new faces and industry veterans who form the core of EA's leadership."

Riccitiello's departure letter noted that while the company has made progress in quality and digital products, the company's financial performance is tracking below set expectations.

The company's public image also isn't tracking very well. We're still in the midst of the SimCity debacle, but that's only the latest in a string of high-profile failures that required great spin by the publisher. The very expensive MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic went free-to-play after not catching on, while management issues have caused the company to not produce an NBA title three years running.

Oh, also, if you're a Vegas bookie. Put the Joystiq crew down for $10 on Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore as the heir apparent.


The details are still to emerge, but I suspect it was this thread that lead to his ouster.

Toodles, bro.

This thread was probably the final straw.

EA: Origin won't copy Steam 75% off sales "It cheapens intellectual property."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...cent-off-sales

Origin 70% Off Sale Now Live:
http://store.origin.com/store/ea/en_...e.origin-deals

"Coincidentally, this also reduces the value of EA's apology to SimCity purchasers. For example, the $40 Origin copy of Battlefield 3 is now $12, while the $60 copy of Dead Space 3 is reduced to $30. Simply stated: If you're gonna offer a pound of flesh for your sins, don't make it 8 oz. in the same breath."

Fuckers cannot win

Nickel-and-diming, harping on the need to scrape every last penny from customers, crying about used sales, and boring sequels are what tend to cheapen IPs.

To be fair to EA, 70% ≠ 75%. Maybe that's because I didn't give them that extra nickel.

Interesting. EA is getting rid of online passes. http://kotaku.com/ea-getting-rid-of-...sses-507021364

Maybe I'm jaded, but this just makes me worry that the one-time activation rumors for next generation games may be true.

"What? It's not an online pass, it's just a pass!"

Glad to see them do away with this, I really figured everyone would do this from now on. Hopefully they stop releasing incomplete games that you have to buy the "extras" to make it a complete game. Any word on retroactively dumping this for already released games?

"Moving forward" = new releases only.

haha, love the thread title change

I wanted to say something about the microtransactions. Here's what concerns me about it most: not knowing where the line in the sand exists, WRT the difficulty level. In most games, this is pretty simple - if you don't enter any cheat codes, you're playing a legitimate, fair game. Exploiting bugs is a gray area, but this isn't too common.

If they simply charge for stuff you can unlock through gameplay, that's one thing. What really concerns me is when they offer stuff you can't get without paying. If people get too accustomed to it, it will get to the point where they make games that expect you to buy stuff and would be very difficult otherwise.

But then, what is "normal" difficulty? How do I know how much to buy that will allow the game to be reasonably challenging but not too easy? At what point do I go from getting the difficulty down to normal, to where I might as well be entering a cheat code?

I think that is exactly what EA and other big companies in the industry have in mind. It'll be more than just an issue of difficulty, though.

EA makes some Online Pass content free on Xbox Marketplace
UPDATE: EA confirms it's eliminating Online Pass from all its existing titles.

"As we discontinue Online Pass for our new EA titles, we are also in the process of eliminating it from all our existing EA titles as well," a spokesperson said. "We heard the feedback from players and decided to do away with Online Pass altogether.

"Players will see it first with some EA Sports titles, where a prompt to enter an Online Pass code will no longer appear in-game; with other titles we are simply making Online Passes available free of charge online.

"These are rolling updates that are taking effect over the next several weeks. We hope players continue to enjoy our games and online services for a long time to come."

There's more in a new Online Pass FAQ.

ORIGINAL STORY: EA has cut the price of around a dozen Online Passes and in-the-box DLC on Xbox Marketplace - making the whole lot entirely free to download.

The publisher pledged to end its controversial Online Pass programme earlier this month after "listening to feedback", and said none of its new games would include the feature.


Not that you ever took me out on missions, anyway.
Today's move suggests EA is now retroactively applying this policy to its older titles.

Battlefield Bad Company 2's VIP Pass, Skate 3's Skate Share Pack plus Online Passes for Bulletstorm, Kingdoms of Amalur, Medal of Honor and Shift 2 Unleashed have all been cut from 800 Microsoft Points (£6.80) to nothing, NeoGAF spotted.

In-box DLC content such as Dragon Age: Origins' The Stone Prisoner and Mass Effect 2's Cerberus Network Pass (originally 1200 Points apiece) are also now free.

There's also no charge for Dragon Age 2's Black Emporium DLC, included with the game's Signature Edition, or the Xbox 360 version of American McGee's Alice, included with copies of Alice: Madness Returns (you'll still need that game's disc to play it).

Some of this in-box DLC gave access to a significant amount of extra content (the Cerberus Network Pass for Mass Effect 2 included the extra squad member Zaeed, plus new vehicle-based missions and other goodies).

But not all Online Pass content has been made free. You can still pay 800 Microsoft Points for Online Passes to more recent EA releases, such as Tiger Woods 14 and Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, for example.

We've asked EA if it will continue cutting the price of Online Passes for the rest of its catalogue, and also when these savings will be available on other platforms.

I suspect what you are seeing is EA realizing that doing this type of transaction actually costs them more money than it makes in lower sales of software.

I hope customers continue to resist the moving of content being included in the cost of buying the game to the microtransactions within the game after purchase.

I think if some of this was being done and the initial purchase price was lower they would get much less negative feedback from customers.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/20/e...nloaded-games/

EA's Origin store now allows downloaded games to be returned within a week

It's only a week if you haven't played it. If you launch the game, you only have 24 hours to return it.

Still, being able to return a crap game is a step in the right direction.

Fucking EA wastes and destroys another brilliant developer:

Criterion Games (Burnout, Need for Speed, Black) has been reduced to 16 people.

EA is quickly replacing Activision as my most hated publisher.

Assholes.

That sucks. I loved and miss Burnout.

And it seems that the old adage "Once you go Black, you never go back" turns out to be bullshit.

Like Rare, Burnout died a long time ago anyway. :P

They moved a chunk of people to a new studio to support Need For Speed. No one got fired.

Yeah, no one said they were fired... just decimated the studio by reducing the amount of employees...

And now they are not even doing the NFS series... and I believe they want to do something different as well....