How, then, do I express a preference without trying to say that my opinion is objective fact?
You replied to me. You addressed my opinion directly and then said “It is to laugh” - you implied that my preference was stupid and laughable. You felt the need to prove how superior Madden was despite the fact that I specifically stated that I was stating a preference, and that I hadn’t actually criticized Madden in any way.
You then, a few posts later, mistakenly “sniped” (your words) another poster in something that was intended for me.
It’s like the stupid aspects of the politics threads on this board. Someone will say “Party A’s guy is wrong because ____” and someone who belongs to party A will say “oh yeah? Well your party’s guy ___” - if they identify with one side, then they feel personally attacked if that side is attacked. And they respond by attacking the opposite side, because they assume that the other person will feel personally attacked in return.
Only, in this case, I didn’t actually attack “your guy” in this fight. But you felt so offended that I didn’t like your guy the best that you felt like you needed to attack “my guy” to respond in kind.
I wasn’t defensive until you were clearly, and misguidedly, offensive.
As a SimCity fan since the original, I have to say I am somewhat appalled by the latest version - SimCity Societies. Most of the fun of SimCity is setting up the zoning and transportation networks and watching the buildings pop up and adjust their appearance to reflect the demographics and economics of the neighborhood. This new version may be full 3D but the’ve oversimplified the transportation networks (enough with the right angle grids) and replaced the zoning with hand plopped gingerbread houses and mime schools. I’m going to hold out for Spore and Cities Unlimited for my society building needs.
And Battlefield 2 with it’s 5 maps, interminable loading time and buggy play is just annoying.
Almost all those companies that are gone after all the buyouts, were on the brink of closing. To many were all making the same type of game, and people were not going to buy 8 games all first person shooters at $60 a crack. The adventure games were going down in sales too. They never met their release dates either, some being years behind. A couple low sale releases and they folded.
No offense, but that’s a pretty serious mischaracterization of the situation. First off, computer games (and the vast majority of EA’s buyouts have been computer game companies, not console game companies) did not and for the most part still do not cost $60, but $40. Hell, even most console games cost $40-$50 back in the time period EA was doing most of their buyouts.
Secondly, by and large, each company EA’s bought out (Westwood, Maxis, etc) did different kinds of games than the others. Most of the FPS companies out there are still relatively independent (Id, Valve, Epic, 3DRealms, Ubisoft, and the guy’s behind Rare’s good FPS games (N64’s GoldenEye and Perfect Dark) went out on their own as Free Radical and developed Time Splitters and are now making Haze for PS3), and EA didn’t acquire a whole bunch of adventure game companies (Most of them were a part of Sierra, or became one, and are now owned by Vivendi).
Third, just buying out most of the market wouldn’t be that big of a deal if EA’s ownership didn’t seem to invariably mean one of three things for a developer: Lobotomizing the company by laying off large parts of the staff (especially the more creative jobs), watering down the product for more rapid release rates and attempt to push big brand ambition, or a radical increase in bugs and lack of quality control prior to release (which has always been a problem with PC games, but is considerably exaggerated with many EA titles).
Their end-run around serious competition in sports games by acquiring exclusive licensing deals, their exploitative pricing “choices” for Xbox versions of their games (charging for access to content already in the game as opposed to having a freely available cheat code, for example), their on-going refusal to use Microsoft’s proven turn-key Xbox live suport in favor of their own (often highly buggy) online interfaces are just icing on the cake for reasons why gamers generally dislike EA so much.
Not that it matters, since people keep buying their games in such numbers, it’s not going to change anytime soon (although, EA’s primary role as a publisher who simply owns developers makes the possible threat of digital distribution a concern, unless they set up their own channel for delivering games that way).
What’s to stop people from buying football games that aren’t endorsed by the NFL? I certainly understand the appeal of licensed products, but from my NES days my favorite baseball, wrestling, and basketball games weren’t licensed by the WWF, NBA, or the MLB.
I agree with you in principle, and were I into sports games, I’d be the same way. But the history of the industry since the 32-bit generation of consoles has consistently shown a dramatic bias towards licensed games, with real teams and players, especially with the ever-increasing popularity of league & season play modes. Plus, you have to realize that realistic sports games appeal to a much broader audience than gamers, and they often aren’t interested in the game for the sake of the mechanics, but the glitz of it (getting to play as this or that team, or famous athlete, the mind-boggling graphics, etc). Logically, you’re correct, but simply looking at how quickly EA’s competition dried up in the wake of their deal with the NFL shows that reality isn’t logical.
It’s an option, and if I played consoles more I’d probably try 2K’s new game, but I’d imagine almost all football fans have a strong tie to their particular team, and it’s nice to virtually play with the players you’re most familiar with. Playing a made up football team is sort of like watching an NFL game where you don’t particularly like either team - I could do both, but it’s not nearly as satisfying as watching/playing the team you feel a connection with.
I’m also pretty familiar with the real NFL - I know the general strengths and weaknesses of most players, and it gives you a certain level of familiarity in your play calling, play style, etc - rather than having to read a list of attributes frequently because you’re playing with fictional players.
I don’t know the definitive answer to the OP’s question, but for the first three hours of playing **Medal of Honor: Airborne ** yesterday, I was hating EA, but then I got the hang of it.
Not to defend EA or anything (since, in addition to the already mentioned gripes, they’ve made made a hash of their licensed rugby game for more consecutive years now than I care to remember), Madden 07 for the Wii is actually quite entertaining. Tackling, passing and jinking are all enacted via moving the Wii controller in various ways, and it works very well. In fact, outside of a handful of Wii games (including Zelda and the various “party” games) it’s one of a few that actually puts the controllers to good use.