EA has never gone after pirates the immoral and downright evil way CDP did, they actually have a very mature view on piracy (summed up by "meh"). That counts in my book. And they started the trend to get free digital copies for retail games. (I know Valve did it also with HL 1, but that was peanuts considered with what can be redeemed on Origin).

The problem is that they are to big to be risky. Let's be honest, just about every great developer has either failed commercially or nearly did. With a company the size of EA, you can't take the risks that Troika or Looking Glass did. And either you blame them for doing the same each year (Fifa) or you blame them for destroying a franchise (Sim City). What is it?

But Fifa is not the same every year, at least the newest versions. I've played Fifa 11 and Fifa 12 recently, and differences are significant, for that kind of game.

Nobody's blaming 2K for making the same basketball game every year, do they?

And they risk more than other companies, imho. Resurrecting Syndicate, SimCity, C&C, new franchises like Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, etc.

Many of them were failures, but some of them were succesful, and they fit in my "risky decisions" catalogue.

Yes, the recent bout of hatred is irrational, but EA still doesn't exactly need your moral support, if you ask me. I doubt if they even notice it, laughing all the way to the bank. :-)

While I doesn't mind seeing EA shat on at all (it's personal thing though. I hate all corporations, no matter the industry, and seeing one being universally reviled makes me very happy), I'm curious what's so wrong about the other two corps, Activision and Ubisoft. Since I don't play their games I only know one loves horrible DRM schemes and another has a CEO who says out loud what every CEO of every corporation thinks. Is that all? Because if so, EA, too, loves it some draconian DRM and its CEO, I'm certain, is of exactly the same mindset.

Well, maybe I just like situations like me vs. everybody :P What's draconian in them? Ea had some crazy ideas like activation limits, etc etc. but they backed out long time ago. Now you just need gaming client, like Steam for example.

I understand why many dislike being forced to use Origin, but it's not nearly as draconian as Ubi Play for instance.

I don't feel oppressed any way by EA's DRM

@SimonG

Hm i would say that the creators that sold their franchise to EA is responsible for destroying it. So Richard Garriot sold his Ultima brand to EA for money. The inventor of sim city sold it to ea. Etc. So greed of the ip holder is responsible for the decline of many or all old franchises. But truth to be told. I would do the same for a better living :).

EA acts only natural. Its a big predator in the games industry, eating all the little creative game designers to blob out mediocre main stream games.

Have a nice day.

What does Ubi Play do? Also, doesn't the newest SImcity have an "always online" requirement?

Maybe I placed the wrong name here, but isn't Uplay one of the reasons that stand under "always online" requirement?

About Simcity - it will have big multiplayer options , like in Spore, but Spore wasn't requiring you to stay online.

Is it confirmed about always online requirement for Simcity?

Well, that would be bad. But again, not as bad as requring always online for single player games, like Ubisoft does :P :P

From what I understand, new SimCity will have many MMO-like features, so it's reasonable to play it online only. But it's bad when a game doesn't have offline mode. (you rather don't need online features for single cities)

True they're predator. Finding way to make money, that's natural. I couldn't believe if BF3's Ultimate Shortcut Bundle is real or parody, i don't play MMO but this sounds like MMO-esque. As much as i dislike EA (no hippy, just don't like their practice), i think in the end it's up to the mass consumer. Sometime you need to stand up and stop buying. For me, i can live without most of EA titles, there are lots of alternative out there.

About that from RPS. Also, while I ain't going to play SimCity, I don't give a toss about "MMO features" in any of my games and no amount of corporate buzzwords is going to convince me it's "for my own good". Granted, it's not EA-exclusive trend.

So it won't have always online requirement. But I hope they will drop "online" requirement totally.

Ps. I also hate corporations. Posted by Blackberry while connected to walmart wifi :P

It won't kick you out if your connection dies, yes. But if you aren't connected, you won't be able to even start playing. Little improvement from "always online".

This thread reminds me a bit about "Life of Brian".

In essence, all those screaming that EA is the devil are the ones claiming "We are all individuals" and Keeveek is the one screaming "No, I'm not!".

Double standards are big in the general gamers perspective and therefore also on the forums here. I don't care, I game!

And that's what I'm unhappy about. CitiesXL tried the MMO route, they failed horribly. They released the full SP version of it the very next year from Focus. Are they living under a rock to not notice CitiesXL? Why's it so hard to wish for a good single-player sequel, without it getting dumbed-down, that is not an MMO or is heavily MP based??

Simcity 4 was all singleplayer and it had regional play involving multiple cities.

Not surprised. Much of the world is in depression mode, EA sucks, and Maxis is not what it used to be.
They don't make the exact same game every year. Sure they have lots of similarities, but 2k puts in new features and/or improve on stuff. Trust me, I have 2k games and my friend has a lot of them.

Wasteland 2 on Kickstarter raised almost $3 million. The question is is that enough to fund a good game and keep the programmers/developers who work on the game "well fed" to want to produce another through Kickstarter.

Now next question, let's say Wasteland 2 was published by EA, how many units would need to be sold to keep EA's manager, executives, and stockholder's happy? $10 million, $20 million, $30 million.

Quite frankly, if I get a good game from Kickstarter. I could care less about EA.

And the thing about small or indie developers if they do screw up, they definitely want to make good with their fans/customers. Most of the time. For instance, look at the monstrosity that Brad Wardell produced through Stardock called War of Elemental Magic.
He knew he screwed up so now he is giving the standalone expanision, the Fallen Enchantress, away for free to those who purchased in the first year. He is also allowing these customers immediate access into the beta.

Small developers/indie developers love making games more than money, and that's why they will succeed.