EA to require gamers to pay to play online games

[Sander]

Not every buisness. It might be a surprise for some. But there are actualy companies that think making money AND beeing fair to consumers is NOT mutualy exclusive. Sadly most if not all game companies tend to forget that slowly.

Yeah yeah, there are always companies that say that and some that actually do. But those are exceptions to the rule, and multi-billion dollar corporations certainly don't bother with decreasing their profits to be nice to people.

From gamers for gamers ? Remember it ?

You mean if I remember a corporate slogan?

It seems amazing to me that you don't know this already, but portraying a consumer-friendly image also increases sales. It's a sales pitch.

I have no doubt that a company wants to make money they HAVE to make money. Every buisness has. But gifts to the community have not been uncommon. And I do believe that sometimes it was done as real "gift" to fans of a franchise/game. Even if it have been most of the time rather small things like maps, the one or other new player skin or something. But that was from a time when modding was still seen as a hobby for the geeks.

Some companies do that shit just for fun. Almost all of them do it because they realise that customer loyalty and a consumer-friendly image are important to increase your profitability.

And hey, it works doesn't it? People praise Bioware for all the free shit they give the community, but then they manage to forget that Bioware is part of EA.

Paying for multiplayer? This is ridiculous. You buy a full-priced game AND have to pay even further for being able to play it online? Or did I understand it wrong?

Yes. You buy a game new and you have nothing extra to pay. This is a multiplayer code bound to your own account.

Also, why would this be ridiculous? If they advertise it on the box and in their advertisements, what's so fundamentally wrong about charging money for a feature? You can just make a normal decision on whether to buy the game as is, and figure out if you want to spend extra money on multiplayer functionality. If you don't think it's worth it, then don't buy the game.

All this rage over these simple business decisions seems to boil down to "but I used to pay less for this stuff, I don't want to pay more!"
Markets change. Shit happens. Shit gets more expensive. Normal business in a market economy.

 

[x'il]

All this rage over these simple business decisions seems to boil down to "but I used to pay less for this stuff, I don't want to pay more!"
Markets change. Shit happens. Shit gets more expensive. Normal business in a market economy.

So normal business 'stuff' is acceptable but normal consumer complaints 'stuff' is... not?

 

[Sander]

So normal business 'stuff' is acceptable but normal consumer complaints 'stuff' is... not?

Normal consumer complaints don't include things like "They hate us, people who buy their products" and "What they're doing is fundamentally wrong and evil".

 

[Dragula]

I'm just amazed that someone is defending the free market on NMA. It is usually mostly communists and pirates here.

 

[TheWesDude]

while yes EA sucks really badly and biowhore is part of EA...

biowhore managed to once be relevant to me, and now they are just another POS like beth.


every time the "great recycler" puts out a game and people think its better than "meh" on the plot/story side i am shocked.

they may have once been good in the past, but they have fallen very far.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

Am I the only one who thinks that every BioWare game except NWN has been an improvement over the previous ones?

 

[Arr0nax]

Normal consumer complaints don't include things like "They hate us, people who buy their products" and "What they're doing is fundamentally wrong and evil".

You make it seem like companies couldn't do anything evil here because they're just profiting of the free market ?
There is a wide range of corporate tactics that are considered evil and/or unlawful and EA could pretty well be taking part in them.

These include profiting from a monopoly / dominant position (like the one EA has on sports game), and making agreements with other companies so the prices remain artificially high. It doesn't matter if the consumer is still buying the shit, judges can still rule that he is being unlawfully hurt.

These are difficult claims to prove (phone operators are doing it in my country for decades and remain untouched), but saying companies can't do anything evil (or assuming that they aren't) just seems naively optimistic to me.

 

[Crni Vuk]

...

Well Sander I am not completely sure what your point is. So either youre defending those kind of buisness ethics or you're just saying "shit happens - stop complaining" ?

As a usual consumer you should always try to think about what and how something gets sold to you. What ever if its the usual buisness or not. Only cause 90% of all (big) companies do it that way doesnt make it better.

The way you seem to defend or explain (no clue) it makes me even more worried cause you make it look like its usual today to think and behave that way. So even if its not alright. Its still ok. Its cause all of them do it that way. Meaning its already "casual" to do it. Just like its no surprise that Bethesda made Fallout 3 how it is. Or that EA is dumping down everything. Or that Ubisoft requires constant internet activity even for singelpayer games. Pfff. Seah its shit. But no room to complain. All do it that way anyway.

At least I already decided a long time ago that I do not support those companies anymore. And it works. Call of what ? Mass Effect ? Didnt played it. There are tons of old games I never tried so far and you can get them very cheap by now. Without any issues or accounts AND they run with almost every kind of hardware. There are also alternatives. Like the Witcher, Stalker, Drakensang and many more that come without the crap Ubisoft or EA force on you. And you know what? They still make profit. And it feels fair.

Yeah yeah, there are always companies that say that and some that actually do. But those are exceptions to the rule, and multi-billion dollar corporations certainly don't bother with decreasing their profits to be nice to people.

Maybe things are still to different in Germany compared to the rest of the world (The USA?). No clue. Sadly the things you say happen here slowly too. And many think its a bad evolution. But thankefully people are not ready to accept everything.

Quite a lot of US companies did not managed to survive in Germany like Walmart for example cause people simply refused them cause of A ) the way they did their buisness and B ) the way they dealt with their consumers and workers.

I remember a time when it was important to companies, many big ones as well mind you like BMW, Mercedes, Stiehl, Dr. Oetker etc. all with long traditions and history that their workers could identify themfself with the company. Cause a proud worker is a good worker and even a simple janitor feelt proud as long he worked for "Mercedes". Today its more a cheap worker is a good worker. And many times profit goes over everything. Sharing it with your workers? Hell no way! Long time investment ? Better fire a good number of your workers to get a short profit.

But hey. Your right Sander. Buisness is Buisness. Humans have no room here. I mean it was such ideas and thinking that lead to such situations like the colapse. Its today not important anymore how you earn your money. Only how much. Its all ok as long its "legal" (mostly). Foul credits? Who cares as long its legal. Who cares about tomorrow as long you can make millions of millions today.

 

[Ravager69]

Yes. You buy a game new and you have nothing extra to pay. This is a multiplayer code bound to your own account.

Also, why would this be ridiculous? If they advertise it on the box and in their advertisements, what's so fundamentally wrong about charging money for a feature? You can just make a normal decision on whether to buy the game as is, and figure out if you want to spend extra money on multiplayer functionality. If you don't think it's worth it, then don't buy the game.

All this rage over these simple business decisions seems to boil down to "but I used to pay less for this stuff, I don't want to pay more!"
Markets change. Shit happens. Shit gets more expensive. Normal business in a market economy.

OK, so I misunderstood. But either way, I can't really agree with you that I *have to* either accept or walk away from this issue.

As you said, shit gets more expensive, but the problem is that it doesn't get better. It doesn't even keep the same level of quality as before and demanding more money for making a product worse from the previous one ain't OK with me.

 

[Sander]

Am I the only one who thinks that every BioWare game except NWN has been an improvement over the previous ones?

No.

Well, I'm not sure about NWN2, never played that game.

OK, so I misunderstood. But either way, I can't really agree with you that I *have to* either accept or walk away from this issue.

Sure. You can post about it on the internet.

As you said, shit gets more expensive, but the problem is that it doesn't get better. It doesn't even keep the same level of quality as before and demanding more money for making a product worse from the previous one ain't OK with me.

Okay. Then don't buy the product. This isn't a moral issue, it's just a product.

Well Sander I am not completely sure what your point is. So either youre defending those kind of buisness ethics or you're just saying "shit happens - stop complaining" ?

This has nothing whatsoever to do with ethics. It's a product - an entertainment product that is pure luxury. What I am raging against is people trying to drag some moral outrage into a topic that has nothing to do with morality.

s a usual consumer you should always try to think about what and how something gets sold to you. What ever if its the usual buisness or not. Only cause 90% of all (big) companies do it that way doesnt make it better.

Yes. And then you decide whether or not you want to spend the money on the product. But people go "EA is so evil" and "Wah wah they're making my games more expensive, what's wrong with these people?"
They're games. Luxury entertainment products. You don't need them. If you think it's too expensive, then don't buy the game. If you don't think it's too expensive, then buy the game. But people try to make it into some sort of ethical problem, when there really is no ethical problem: EA isn't abusing people, they're not using sweatshops, they're not abusing the environment, they're not speculating with people's money, they're notdoing anything remotely unethical I can think of.
All they do is produce a luxury product and sell it for money. That's *all* there is to it. Stop trying to make it more than that.

But hey. Your right Sander. Buisness is Buisness. Humans have no room here. I mean it was such ideas and thinking that lead to such situations like the colapse. Its today not important anymore how you earn your money. Only how much. Its all ok as long its "legal" (mostly). Foul credits? Who cares as long its legal. Who cares about tomorrow as long you can make millions of millions today.

Ah yes, I'm defending EA's decision to try to profit off their non-essential, luxury product so now I must be supporting every financial abuse out there!

I'll repeat this again: these are games. GAMES. They're not people's livelihoods, they're not people's loan payments or savings, they're not food, they're not anything even remotely essential for a person's life.

You make it seem like companies couldn't do anything evil here because they're just profiting of the free market ?

No, I'm saying that charging money for a luxury product isn't in any way evil.

These include profiting from a monopoly / dominant position (like the one EA has on sports game)

They have a dominant position but that's as much the consumer's fault as anything else. There is plenty of competition in that market (2K sports games, PES, only Madden has no real competitor) and there isn't any way in which they can force people to buy these products because the alternatives are just as easily available and have no downsides to them created by that dominant position.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Sander ... you surprise me. I would never guessed you as capitalist

 

[UncannyGarlic]

I didn't think of it until just now but I wonder if it qualifies as an anti-competitive practice as it screws the second hand games market, thus second hand game retailers.

I'm with Sander that people need to suck it up more and actually not buy EA games if they don't like EA's business practices. That said, I'm all for people voicing their complaints but in general, people do a pretty poor job because they have a hard time pin-pointing exactly what about their complaint makes it so bad.

Well, I'm not sure about NWN2, never played that game.

NWN2 is by Obsidian but it's a bit of both from what I've heard (modding for online play is the selling point after all).

 

[Khan FurSainty]

I have to agree with Sanders on this one. Games have taken such part of our lives, that we have started viewing them as a biological need. Games are drugs, if you let them take over your life. (starts imagining Anti-Games PSA's with Mario, Sonic and Link.)