Shitty games.

Trust me, the aftershock of the NFL license acquisition isn't going away anytime soon. I definitely do give them credit for taking a chance with Rock band, and more recently, sticking up for Mass Effect.

EA's been improving, but the thought that there's pretty much no competition for Captain Obvious Football still kinda gets me miffed.

MrSadistic- every company makes shitty games.

ceark- glad to hear that you're unaffected by the propaganda. Your artwork is awesome, by the way.

SourGr8pes- I understand people who are pissed (particularly those who were into Blitz or the 2K series') about the NFL license, but I personally blame the NFL for allowing it to happen. If you don't fault the NFL for taking free money, you shouldn't fault EA for buying the license to make money, IMO. It's not as if 2K wouldn't have loved to have an exclusive license, or wouldn't love to be the only football game on the block. They just didn't have the money.

Besides, other companies have done this. We haven't seen an EA Sports MLB game for how many years because they lost out on the license?

Yes, every company makes shitty games but EA throws money at developers just so they can make money without giving thought to the quality of the game. I do agree that EA is trying to change its imagine with Rock Band and all that, but it's going to take a long while before they can finally convince gamers that they aren't the money hungry bastards they once were/are.

Microtransactions. "Taking multiple bites of the apple" asshole suitspeak. They can take multiple bites of my cock.

Oh, and the shitty games.

I don't exactly hate EA but I don't love them either. The two most recent "EA burns" I've experienced are the bastardization of one of my favorite racing series: Need for Speed. And the fact that they "needed" to get Hellgate: London out to market on Halloween, which essentially destined the game to be released in beta form which then fragmented the already small community for the game. I still love HGL though.

I'm a HUGE Football fan and them buying out the License pissed me off royaly. They not just knocked off the 2k series but everybody else that had a chance to do something different with the license than they did. Ever since then they have profitted by putting subpar Madden games knowing full well that the majority of the public will eat it up because they have no where elses for their NFL fix.

Let's not get into them buying out everyone that makes the latest hit game and then a year or two later they absorb and get rid of everyone in said companies. EA to me is a parasite that feeds off the creative juices of it's workers and when they fail to deliver a monster hit..they're gone.

OK, some decent points here, allow me to retort.

@ Vegas- Live has always sucked IMO. They've put out some good titles. NHL 08 was awesome, Fight Night Rounds 2 and 3 were very good, NCAA Football 08 was very good, etc. Sports games in general don't get a lot of love around here but I think you'll find that those that do like sports games generally liked those titles. And again, every company would love to put the other guys out of business and/or get all the sales for themselves. I agree that EA does some shady shit, I just don't think it's any shadier than the next publisher.

@ Reaprar- I actually think that's the most compelling argument for EA being evil. When you're part of a huge company like that, the "little guys" definitely get lost in the shuffle.

@ Grimlock- I never said I love EA, I just don't understand them being singled out. As if 2K or some of the others are handing out food to the homeless and taking in refugees and shit. They're all trying to get your money, you know. That's business. And blogs are all about getting on your soapbox. Unless you want to report old-ass news, I guess.

@MrSadistic- Yeah, but that's what publishers do. No one is busting Activision's balls like they are EA's.

@ Shadokat- True, but that's just one of so many shitty licensed games. Licensed games- proof that nearly every company makes a quick buck on ill-informed gamers once in awhile.

@ GoldBond- I hear you, and I would go as far as to call it extremely lame and cheesy on their part. But people are to blame if they actually pay for it. I can attempt to sell you guys my dirty socks if I want, that doesn't mean you have to buy it. I just laugh at people who shell out points to unlock courses in Tiger Woods, personally.

@ Y0j1mb0- This is a matter of opinion, here. I personally think Madden is better than the 2K series is. I don't buy Madden every year and don't play it all that often, but I do prefer their style of football over the 2K version. I know Madden can be cheesy and full of exploitable loopholes, money plays, etc. But I play it as a real football game should be and don't have too many problems. Like I said, the MLB license was bought up and now EA is stuck making college baseball games, but no one is getting the hate but EA. As far as the layoffs and firings go, it sucks and is definitely shitty. But ask the devs who worked on Stuntman whether it's just EA that does it. Bottom line, the game industry is booming and talented folks will land on their feet.

I guess what I'm saying is that EA does some shady ass shit at times, but so does everybody else. I think EA is the victim (ha! imagine that) of having become a symbol for everything that is corporate, corrupted or otherwise soulless. They're the Starbucks to, say...Valve's family-owned coffee shop.

@ Prank-

I'm with you on Road Rash. I thought I heard a rumor recently about Road Rash coming back, but I spend so much time reading gaming crap that it may just be a case of me being totally wrong.

Yeah, I agree. I wasn’t aware that Activision donated food to the starving children in Africa or cured cancer; in fact, it seems like Actiblizzard has become the new EA, what with the bastardization of Guitar Hero that we’ll be seeing from here on out (among other things, like the rumors that they’re having Treyarch develop CoD 5, which is rumored to return to the WWII era). Yeah, they bought the NFL license, but I liked the Madden games over the NFL 2K games, and I’m more pissed off at 2K Sports for buying up the MLB license, because I frickin’ loved MVP Baseball 2005. And you’re right, akathatoneguy: I downloaded the demo of NHL 08 from the PSN, and I absolutely loved it (I kept playing the one-period demo over and over); if I had the money, I would’ve bought it.

I think the Origin/Ultima mess several years ago soured many people on EA and helped shape the perception of the company as soul-less and concerned only for the bottom line.

It's difficult to fault a company for being concerned about its bottom line, but the ways it goes about its business can have a significant impact on the public, and EA has surely made some blunders there.

"Poor little EA, being picked on by consumers who bought their half assed products and didn't like them. After all, they make all those great games for us. Catwoman, Batman Begins, Def Jam Icon, Boogie and on and on. Shame on us all. I particularly enjoy the reasoning of "it's business" and how you understand that. But consumer backlash is a mystery. Classic."

Grimlock-

This is exactly the type of thing I was hoping to see. You apparently have some grasp on logical reasoning, since you can throw "it's business" back at me, whether you've taken it out of context or not. Allow me to restate my entire point, which you don't seem to grasp:

I don't think EA is perfect, nor do I feel pity for them. What I do feel is curiousity and puzzlement at why they are singled out for doing things that many, many other game companies have done or are doing.

Simple enough? I mean you seem to value the idea of building a reasonable argument, yet you back up yours by tossing a handful of shitty game titles at me. Well, you could do that for any other company as well. Is anything really proven by listing 3 or 4 random bad games EA made? You didn't even do that good of a job with that, even. Def Jam Icon got a 69 (critic) and 6.5 (user) on Metacritic, which is mediocre but certainly not terrible enough to be used as your ultimate proof that EA sucks. Never mind the fact that the first two Def Jam games were awesome. And EA is definitely the only company to ever make bad licensed games out of comic or movie properties. What a joke.

Consumer backlash is not a mystery at all. However, selective consumer backlash that is applied to one company for doing things that many other companies do is a mystery.

They are charging me 120 bucks for a replacement Rock Band guitar I never got.