The pathetic state of EA

So I used to be a fairly avid Sims player (You can read my thoughts on where the series has gone here) But I think the picture below is a new low for the series, and the publisher, EA.

Each of the boxes highlighted in red shows something that the game wants me to buy. If I want to search into the "mystery bag" and get one random digital item I need to buy $50(!) worth of "SimPoints". All of this advertising and shameless DLC promotion, and yet i've already spent roughly $400 on the Game and It's expansions. This seems to me like desperation and greed at it's finest. The worst part about this whole thing is that you have to see this screen just to launch the game, and within the game there are more ads to purchase DLC.

Oh and just for a kicker the "Sunlit Tides" world costs between $24.50(!) and $43.50(!!!!!) depending on which version you buy.

A little too late to complain about DLC at this point dude. It's too late to fight it back. It'll be here for a while and you can't do anything about it really.

@Phatmac said:

A little too late to complain about DLC at this point dude. It's too late to fight it back. It'll be here for a while and you can't do anything about it really.

I'm not really complaining about DLC in general, I'm more complaining about the way it's displayed to players, and the sheer quantity and cost of it. Sure I don't have to buy any of it, but it's the fact that it's so in your face that's depressing.

Dude, that's the launcher. Of course they're going to try and get you to buy shit. What a stupid complaint.

Oh look it's another EA sucks thread.

What's more pathetic, the state of EA or spending $400 on the Sims?

@AgnosticJesus said:

What's more pathetic, the state of EA or spending $400 on the Sims?

I felt that burn

I pride myself on never have spent a single dime on the Sims, ever.

ORIGINAL THREAD IS ORIGINAL

are you complaing about micro transactions, come on man.

also its the launcher of course they wil sell you stuff

EA is responsible for every baby that dies in its sleep.

I love how I make an honest topic and yet instead of getting a discussion of DLC and advertising, all I get are personal attacks. Great discussion guys.

No the low point is when they let you pay $50 to unlock everything in Battlefield 3 and then another $50 for the DLC on top of charging $60 for the game. Used to be $50 bought me a whole game. Now all it gets me is a couple map packs that would have been free on PC 15 years ago. Simple reason why I don't play MP EA games. Some of their single player DLC is okay, if a bit overpriced. But I'll never pay that type of price for maps. Especially because early this generation they charged $5 for the exact same thing.

@skyline7284: What? This is optional. It allows them to make new content that some might want, and no shit it isn't going to be free. THe mystery bag is a BONUS rewarding those who use the marketplace, and this is in no way new. For the franchise, EA, or anywhere, anything, or anyone.

@SlightConfuse said:

are you complaing about micro transactions, come on man.

also its the launcher of course they wil sell you stuff

Right but it's not like the game is Free-to-play. Sure a lot of PC games have DLC, I understand that, but do you really think a full retail PC game should have thousands of dollars worth of DLC? Also I don't know of many of other PC game launchers that sell you DLC right there and then, and as blatantly. Most launchers just allow the user to configure settings and the like before launching the executable. Example?

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@skyline7284: What? This is optional. It allows them to make new content that some might want, and no shit it isn't going to be free. THe mystery bag is a BONUS rewarding those who use the marketplace, and this is in no way new. For the franchise, EA, or anywhere, anything, or anyone.

You're telling me that when I boot up say, Bad Company 2, or Dead Space 2, or Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, or Batman Arkham City that i'm going to be barraged with ads for DLC? There might be some DLC for those games, sure. But are ads for it slapped all over the place? Not really.

The hundreds of dollars of day one DLC for The Sims 3 really disgusted me (for a game devoid of content on release). There's no excuse for it except for abject greed. It's at a sub-facebook level of nonsense.

I really wish people got more mad about it at release.

It's hard not to repeat the EA sucks thread.

Why?

Because EA sucks.

@sprode said:

It's hard not to repeat the EA sucks thread.

Why?

Because EA sucks.

Sure? Funny how people keep buying their products isn't it?

I think singling out EA may be a little unfair since pretty much every company has adopted this way of business at this point. Not defending EA or anything though let's be clear here.

ive seen many worse money grubbing games than this one

@JasonR86: Not really. People keeping supporting politicians, watching Michael Bay movies, fueling Twilight, watching Honey Boo Boo - and they all still suck. Like EA.

I guess we're a culture of masochists.

FIFA is pretty damn fun you guys, and that new Need for Speed game looks good so I wouldn't say they completely suck, but shit like this is completely disgusting. Why the hell are they trying to take advantage of their most loyal players? It reminds me a lot of the new DLC they just rolled out for Uncharted 3. Why can't I buy a bundle that comes with all the costume add-ons? Why do they need to fuck players in the ass and charged .99 cents to buy jak goggles, or .99 cents to have a crown, and not have any way of unlocking all that in game. The most loyal of fans (like me) bought the collecters addition as well as the season pass. Why the hell are they still trying to nickel and dime people? And then there is that tournament system they added where every week you get ten tickets and you can buy more in the store. I really wish the out cry for shit like this was louder, but is seems like most people don't care. Just look at the comments on the joystiq article or the assholes in this thread. :(

Unless it is a free to play game there should not be micro-transactions.

@sprode said:

@JasonR86: Not really. People keeping supporting politicians, watching Michael Bay movies, fueling Twilight, watching Honey Boo Boo - and they all still suck. Like EA.

I guess we're a culture of masochists.

Uh-huh.

I'll never understand people complaining about a company advertising a good or service it has.

@JasonR86 said:

@sprode said:

@JasonR86: Not really. People keeping supporting politicians, watching Michael Bay movies, fueling Twilight, watching Honey Boo Boo - and they all still suck. Like EA.

I guess we're a culture of masochists.

Uh-huh.

Great 5000th post.

The OP's complaints certainly aren't exclusive to EA. The whole business of video games is going this way.

My God, Giantbomb. What have we become?

@BlatantNinja23 said:

I'll never understand people complaining about a company selling a good or service it has.

Sweet Sue deserves to burn in hell.

@skyline7284: Wow, yeah that's a pretty awful thing to shove in a paying customer's face just to start the game. I didn't know EA games had gotten this bad on the PC.

And all you people saying that everyone is doing this - No, they are not. Looking at my game shelf the only really bad ones are EA. I can't speak for Activision because I don't own any of their games. There are literally 1000s of games out there that don't do this bullshit. You don't have to put up with it and you don't have to be silent about it. Don't accept it.

There is a good reason to call out EA and other companies on this type of behavior. Do it as much as possible.

It's all optional... You don't have to buy these stuff to play the game.

If the game would throw up a window in-game saying "Buy the Fabulous Pack now!", I would agree with you. But that is the launcher, its purpose is to let you know "Hey, we got some dope shit, wanna buy it?", so I don't see the problem here.

@DarthOrange said:

FIFA is pretty damn fun you guys, and that new Need for Speed game looks good so I wouldn't say they completely suck, but shit like this is completely disgusting. Why the hell are they trying to take advantage of their most loyal players? It reminds me a lot of the new DLC they just rolled out for Uncharted 3. Why can't I buy a bundle that comes with all the costume add-ons? Why do they need to fuck players in the ass and charged .99 cents to buy jak goggles, or .99 cents to have a crown, and not have any way of unlocking all that in game. The most loyal of fans (like me) bought the collecters addition as well as the season pass. Why the hell are they still trying to nickel and dime people? And then there is that tournament system they added where every week you get ten tickets and you can buy more in the store. I really wish the out cry for shit like this was louder, but is seems like most people don't care. Just look at the comments on the joystiq article or the assholes in this thread. :(

Unless it is a free to play game there should not be micro-transactions.

Even if we take all opinion out of it, your view on this is horribly out dated. The price of games has actually gone down over the years, where as the cost of making games has gone up exponentially. DLC is the only reasonable way for developers and publishers to recoup their initial expenses and keep the team together after the game has shipped. Many companies fuck up this system in practice, but to argue against this system in theory is both antiquated and naive.

As a yearly premium member since the beginning, i would like to remind you that GB/Whiskey media threatened to put the bombcast behind a pay wall and then said if they get so many memberships then it would remain free forever all companies will do whatever they feel is best to earn profit.

And like its been said every video game company has policies in place to try and sell more content to consumers and to my knowledge there has been no dlc that you have to buy to play the base game whether its a free to play or $60 dollar title. And you have every right to buy it or not, its your choice and comparing how things were 15 years ago is not a valid argument because things change.

I'll never understand people complaining about a company selling a good or service it has.

I view EA like a stack of boxes right now. They keep stacking the pile higher and higher with it becoming more and more unstable the further it goes. Sooner or later their shitty business practices are going to cause them a major crash and we'll all see it coming way before they do.

It's not just EA... everytime I load up Steam someone tries to sell me shit! Fuck you, Valve!

To be fair homie, all of that content is optional and as others have pointed out this DLC practice is going to become an even more prevalent trend next generation when games are even more expensive. Companies will look for every possible manner in which to reap profit, this certainly isn't only relative to EA either it's just the nature of the industry landscape.

@BlatantNinja23 said:

I'll never understand people complaining about a company selling a good or service it has.

I can see the issue with getting upset about this in Sims 3. Because Sims 3 launched with fuck-all, and the rest was in the real-money store. There were no good hairstyles, no good clothes, and everything that the Sims 2 added in expansions was taken and and re-sold for nearly the same price as a full game, with one-twentieth of the content, if that. Sims 2 was a fun game on its own. Sims 3 was not, and the expansions didn't add nearly enough for their cost (and in a lot of cases, the Sims 2 counterpart had more content, and cost less).

I don't know, this doesn't really bother me because I don't immediately feel like I need to have the DLC to get the most out of the games that I buy. Especially the ones from EA. Their games tend to stand pretty well on their own without extras in most cases. Now the real injustice comes into play when companies leave out parts of a game's ending and then sell it later as a DLC like Capcom did with Asura's Wrath. I hate to dredge that back up again, but stuff like the Sims extras are really inconsequential when it comes to dirty tactics like that.

Sometimes it's just better to sit back and enjoy our games, and just pretend that we don't live in a world of instant gratification via the internet. Now please excuse me while I go download a bunch of $5 games on Steam, and order some meaningless accessories for my PC from Amazon.

@Muttinus_Rump said:

@JasonR86 said:

@sprode said:

@JasonR86: Not really. People keeping supporting politicians, watching Michael Bay movies, fueling Twilight, watching Honey Boo Boo - and they all still suck. Like EA.

I guess we're a culture of masochists.

Uh-huh.

Great 5000th post.

Yep, being dismissive for my 5000th post perfectly fits who I am.

@JasonR86 said:

@Muttinus_Rump said:

@JasonR86 said:

@sprode said:

@JasonR86: Not really. People keeping supporting politicians, watching Michael Bay movies, fueling Twilight, watching Honey Boo Boo - and they all still suck. Like EA.

I guess we're a culture of masochists.

Uh-huh.

Great 5000th post.

Yep, being dismissive for my 5000th post perfectly fits who I am.

Sometimes, the best arbitrary milestone posts are the ones completely lacking in substance.

If you've already spent $400 on the game, I don't really think you're in a position to complain about DLC, even if all of the stuff you bought was meaningful content. And if it was, then don't complain, because you got your money's worth, and it isn't forcing you to buy any of this other stuff.

It’s only going to get worst; they are building the next gen consoles and their online systems with micro-transaction in mind.

@skyline7284 said:

I love how I make an honest topic and yet instead of getting a discussion of DLC and advertising, all I get are personal attacks. Great discussion guys.

You're complaining because a company is showing you that there is DLC available for the game you are currently playing, in the game launcher?

Where else would they advertise this shit? Do you also get mad when you walk into a grocery store and see them giving out coupons for items in the store?

@Brodehouse said:

@The_Nubster The solution isn't to get mad, the solution was to read reviews, see that the game is lacking content, and then not purchase it. And I can understand buying a game and being unhappy about the content, but there's a limit to that. I bought Dungeon Siege 3 for 60 dollars on launch day, turns out maybe I should've waited. But being angry that they sold that game for 60 dollars? I don't know about that.

I didn't but it, my girlfriend did. It was marketed to casual gamers, people who don't read reviews, people who were already invested in the Sims franchise. She bought the main game, was disappointed. When the ads for the expansions ran, she took them at face value and bought a few when the released, and would have kept buying them unless I told her to stop and read reviews, and pointed her to sites where those reviews ran. It isn't her fault, because she normally doesn't buy games, so she doesn't know where to go to read about them, or how to tell a truthful ad from a misleading ad when it comes to games. It's EA releasing less content for more money and targeting people who don't know any better.

I've been playing games since I was four, so I've learned how to go about buying games, but she's not a gamer, so she hasn't had that experience.

So EA is doing the same thing that almost all other companies are doing now?  Yeah, I'm upset about it.
 
I hate it when companies make more content for games I love, and then actually expect me to pay to access that content.