EA Apologises!
- Thread starter Nanor
- Start date
Are we that surprised? EA has really cleaned up its act over the past couple years. Recently they offered a free game to folks with Rock Band peripheral issues. They've also went and stood up for the industry as a whole and put some pressure on Fox after the Mass Effect debacle. I like they way they're going.
waterproofbob
Junior Administrator
I must admit I like EA, never really had a problem with any of their games that I've played. A lot of the games I've loved over the years have been EA games and other than the odd patch that has fixed things I've not noticed I've never been bothered by them.
Tetsuo_Shima
In Cryo Sleep
I'm with bob on this one, and I've always a made a point of saying so
I've only really had good experiences with EA games, apart from when they shot down Westwood, but I forgive them for that since they brought out Generals.
Battlefield 2 and Deus Ex 2 plus bad industry practices are my reasonings. Deus Ex 2 because I couldnt play it due to stupid requirements of where you put your home directory and the arrogant "fuck you" attitude I got when I requested a refund. Battlefield 2 because it really was a beta release and was abandoned very early with a lot of the issues still in place. Industry practice because they don't treat employees well and they buy out good companies and shaft them, much like they just admitted to.
Wraith
Active Member
I agree with you on the industry practice element, although I dont find it particularly unique to EA. Not that that makes it right but at the end of the day all companies are out to make money and a lot of them do so at the expense of the people/companies they deal with. In this regard EA are no worse than many large organisations. Also, as stated in the article, EA are aware that they messed up with Westwood etc, so hopefully they will not make the same mistake again.
I have never played Deus EX 2 so I cant comment, but I strongly disagree with your assessment of BF2. It did have some issues in the release version, but so does basically every PC game released these days and I have seen plenty of games that were much worse even after being patched. Additionally, many of the issues were corrected in patches released early on, with later patches mostly just toning down certain weapopns due to latrge numbers of players whining about the "noob-toob/J10/G36e/blackhawk/whatever else has killed me today" being overpowered. Not that this really matters here as EA wer not the ones responsible for the state of the game - DICE were the ones who coded it NOT EA. As for it being abandoned early, again I disagree. They (DICE) were still releasing patches over a year after the game was released, with the last patch also including a free map (and it may even be two years as that patch came out after BF2142 was out). All in all, I have spent more time playing and enjoying BF2 than most other games and am still playing it these days. The only ones I think Ive had more usage out of are X3 Reunion and Oblivion. Certainly no other FPS has even come close to lasting as long as BF2 for me and at the moment I cant see the current THN favourites of COD4 and TF2 lasting that long either.
This was discussed on a previous thread about xbox vs ps3. I do believe that PC developers have given up trying to release PC games issue/bug free for the following reasons:
1) Costs too much to test robustly, much more than consoles due to the massive premutations of different hardware.
2) They know that PC Gamers accept it.
3) Releasing the game to the public, lets face it, is the best way to beta test any software. The fact that they have to pay £30 for it is well...good for the company.
4) The paying public are good at listing every minute aspect of a games disfunctionality and will happily spend a lot of time articulating this on forums provided by the developers - 'thank you very much' say the developers!
What would you do if you were in charge of a game developing company?
With the latest next generation consoles now online, they appear to have jumped on the "release first.....patch later" bandwagon. Pro Evo Soccer for the PS3 has just released it's 2nd patch and was only released last 3.5 months ago. Will console gamers be as accepting as PC gamers?
BF2 is an excellent game and provided THN with many hours of enjoyment. I do think that BF2142 came out too soon though, it was no more than an well put together sci-fi MOD.
COD4 and TF2 are not in the same league.
It is difficult to compare BF2 and COD4 on a level playing ground as they are 27 months apart. COD4 however does have more realistic animation in the avatars with ragdoll movement and the promotion/unlock system is more flexible/widespread.