Gamer Question: Why does everybody hate EA

Cafe Society
61

Whether it’s superior or not in your opinion is irrelevant - it was gaining market share. You may be right about the exploit - I try to play football games in reasonable, realistic ways and try to play with people with the same mindset (I never played online) and so even if there is something exploitable, we won’t exploit it.

But the point was that it hurt Madden fans too. They took Madden game funding and used it to buy out the market rather than improve their product. They eliminated competition and hence the pressure for them to improve the game. Every fan of football games is worse off because of EA’s tactics.

62

I agree with you up until last week. Madden '08 is vastly improved.

Note that my main point wasn’t that 2k5 had a blatant exploit. My point was that 2k5 had a blatant exploit because the developers didn’t understand how the game of football actually works.

Whatever complaints people have about Madden, “they don’t understand how football works” is never one of them.

63

Video Game News & Reviews | Engadget Joystiq article about how EA was caught editing the wikipedia article on them to remove negative commentary about them. Another example of the image they present.

Gamers hate EA because they are hands-down the most visible intrusion of stereotypical greedy corporate bullshit into the game industry. Most other companies are content competing with one another to make a better product to outsell each other. EA would rather do an end run around that concept and just eliminate the competition with exclusivity deals, corporate takeovers, etc. Rather than try to manage their public image and earn good faith from the community, they’ll lie and distort the truth, try to hide unflattering information, etc.
Rather than use the Xbox Live marketplace to sell new content developed for games after release, they pioneered the idea of replacing cheat codes (that allow unskilled/unlucky players to unlock in-game content) on other system’s versions of Tiger Woods with a pay-to-download key. They are charging people for content they already bought.

64

See, I feel like the Madden I’m playing this year is the Madden I should have been playing last year. I don’t know about “vastly” improved. The graphics are a little slicker, the hot routes are simplified (and complicated), the playmaker controls are also simplified (and complicated). The quarterback snaps the ball a little too fast, especially with the new playmaker controls. Larry Johnson and LaDanian Tomlinson are god (no surprise there), if you have tall receivers, you can hit up and throw a bullet pass and the corner won’t jump, jumping the snap count crushes any hope you might have about stopping a pass, and from what I hear, on PlayStation 3, there’s about a second pause every time the quarterback snaps the ball.
Honestly, I’m a little underwhelmed at this year’s offering. I’ll be buying All-Pro Football next year (I downloaded and played the demo on Xbox Live…it’s not bad at all, but could use a little more time) and probably Madden as well.

Every year Madden has some exploits. Those exploits become as plain as day when you play online.

65

Tiger Woods was great last year, but had a crappy course selection. Hopefully they’ve made it harder. Playing kids online was crazy. It’s hard to beat a string of 51s.

66

As for the pause, I wonder if that’s related to the new motion routes.

How does jumping the snap count crush any hope of stopping the pass?

As a Giants fan, I’ll have to try that trick about pushing up and bullet passing to Plaxico. I’ve been enjoying the “jump ball to Plaxico.” It looks and feels exactly like the actual Giants. No doubt some would claim that to be an exploit, despite it being true to life.

I consider the new play-calling interface combined with a return to the sleeker method of assigning hot-routes to be a vast improvement. I don’t care one bit about graphics; I only care about gameplay.

As a franchise player, I’m happy to see Owner Mode finally make it to the 360. Now if we could only get the formation-specific audibles going, I’d be a happy guy.

You know what they really need? A custom playbook assembler that you can play in any game mode, including online. Not a play editor. Just the ability to pick stock plays from any stock playbook to put in your custom playbook. Since they’d all be stock plays there wouldn’t be the cheese factor of trying to exploit the AI. That would so rock. I miss my favorite plays from other playbooks; I was spoiled by the 3-4 years of custom playbooks to the point that it is painful going with the stock ones. (Though Green Bay’s is pretty good if, like me, you mostly call option routes.)

Agreed, but I can’t seem to find where you blasted 2k5 for this same failing. Every football game ever made is loaded with exploits. It would seem that your criticism is confined only to Madden.

67

I’m not sure. From what I hear, the PS3’s pause at snap is VERY noticable.

Last year, before the ball was snapped, if you hit (if memory serves me right) Y, you’ll jump the snap count. This year, it’s changed to the right thumbstick and EVERYONE jumps the snap count. If you don’t sack the quarterback close to immediately, he’s got his choice of open receivers to throw to.

I haven’t tried with Plaxico but if Eli can keep the ball on this planet (sorry, shameless dig), rifling the ball over his noggin will get you some catches. It’s good to play as the Lions.

I’m a hundred percent with you on all the Playmaker refinements. There’s a lot of them, but it’s what I’ve wanted for years now. It just takes repetition to know what button does what after you select that person/group of people.

A problem I’ve always had with Madden, though…well, two. One is that they’ve never really perfected the fade route. If you’ve got 30 feet of space between you and the sideline, pulling the thumbstick to that open space should let the quarterback drop the bal somewhere in that area so it’s either complete or incomplete and taking the interception out of the play (ideally). The second gripe, and this is probably my biggest gripe about the Madden franchise now, is the grade inflation. It’s worse this year, with Devin Hester as a 100 speed and Reggie Bush as a 100 acceleration guy. Really? These guys are the first people in all of Madden that could get these ratings? The problem is compounded when you introduce historical players into the fray. Devin Hester is faster than Deion Sanders? Reggie Bush is quicker than Barry Sanders? The answer in either case is no, and the game doesn’t reflect that. NBA Live does a better job with the ratings, where your average NBA guy will be rated somewhere around a 50 or 60.

I don’t know if it’s EA’s failing to make the AI better or if it’s just that AI isn’t good enough to pick up on custom-made plays. I remember making some custom plays just to destroy the AI in previous years. I wouldn’t mind being able to compile your own playbook, but online, that’d get abused greatly.

Also, I wasn’t blasting 2K5 for anything. I don’t even believe I’ve played 2K5.

I do like the inclusion of the “green routes” where your (usually) running back will be in motion when the ball is snapped.

68

I’m going to pretend that you didn’t list this as a criticism, since it is trivially easy to reconfigure what buttons do what.

No, I’m not talking about custom plays. I’m talking about pure stock plays; there would be nothing to exploit that you couldn’t also do with a stock playbook. The idea would be that you could go through all the stock plays from all the stock playbooks and pick only the ones you like to be part of your playbook. That would be the greatest feature ever.

(Sorry abut the 2k5 snipe; that was SenorBeef, not you.)

69

I just said that I liked and prefered the 2k series over Madden. You act like I took a dump on your mom. The rabid Madden fanboyism (not just you) is annoying. People seem to personally identify with the product and flip out if anyone doesn’t think it’s the greatest thing ever.

It’s good, you see, to have an open, healthy market where competing products can do something a bit differently and appeal to different people. And that was my biggest gripe with EA. They stifle that to the benefit of themselves and the NFL, to the detriment of all gamers, including the ones who prefer EA products.

70

Exactly my feelings about the 2k5 fanboys like you. At least we can agree on something.

71

My gripe about the snap count isn’t about the button, its about your entire team jumping the snap, instead of your line, or your linebackers, or a particular lineman.

Also, I wasn’t talking about completely custom plays either. As soon as the AI flaws are found, picking every play in the playbook would end up bad.

72

Are you kidding? I’ve said nothing from which you can draw this conclusion, and you’re being very hostile with absolutely no justification.

I’ve stated an opinion, a preference. And I’ve also commented on how EA’s tactics benefit no one from themselves and the NFL, and how they screw over all football gaming fans, including their own customers.

I could make the same observation if it were about a genre of games I didn’t care about. Or I would’ve made the same observation if I were a big Madden fan. This thread is about someone asking why everyone hates EA, and this is a prime example.

But in the process of stating this opinion, I happened to indicate that I had a personal preference for a different video game than you, and so you responded with condescension and hostility. For you, in this post, to imply that we’re equivelant is absurd - I brought no hostility towards anyone in this thread, but only EA, the entity that the OP was asking about. You’re out of line.

73

No, YOU’RE out of line!

…I take that back. Let’s never fight again.

74

You know you don’t really want that. You’re hooked on the make up sex.

75

To recap, you repeatedly claimed that 2k5 was superior to Madden, and then after I pointed out an example of how the 2k5 development team didn’t understand the game of football, you called me an annoying Madden fanboy.

76

Maybe a bit. Do you always have to take it from behind though?

77

I stated a preference for the game. I even used the words “in my opinion” leading up to it. I never tried to claim that it was objectively better, nor did I ever say Madden was a bad game. That it was gaining market share was relevant to the points I made about EA’s motivation to do what they did.

You responded to my statement of preference with what essentially was “oh yeah? here’s why your game is stupid” and then later demanded that I (when you mixed me up with someone else) give equal criticism to 2k5 as I gave to Madden - when I hadn’t even used any specific criticisms of Madden. Your tone was clearly hostile and argumentative when all I did was state a preference for another game. You made it personal, for no reason, when I hadn’t even criticized your beloved game. It was completely uncalled for.

So yes, I called you a fan boy, because that’s what you were acting like. You reacted as if you felt insulted because I had merely stated a preference for another game. So you felt like you had to insult me, even though I hadn’t insulted you at all in the first place. It was irrational and a pretty stereotypical case of strong fanboyism.

78

Really?

79

Yes.

Would it make you feel better if I lead every single sentence of my original post with “in my opinion”? Because I thought when I specifically said “in my opinion” adn then rattled off a post full of opinions, that would be implicit.

And obviously EA thought that some people thought it was a better product - that’s why they used anti-competitive practices to squash it.

80

No, because I view “it’s just my opinion” as a weaselly cop-out.

You were far more defensive than I was offensive. The main target of my rant was Visual Concepts, whereas your main target has been me.

That you personalized it is not my problem.