The Escapist: EA is "on a Journey" to Regain PC Gamer Trust

[Friend-Referral]

Courtesy of The Escapist:

EA wants to get back the trust it lost to PC gamers with stuff like Battlefield 4 and SimCity.

 

The relationship between EA games and PC gamers has been turbulent at best, but EA is keen to try and patch things up. Senior marketing director Peter O'Reilly claims that the company is "on a journey to regain the trust of the PC gamer."

 

When EA's Origin first launched for the PC, a lot of gamers saw it as EA simply "taking hostage" titles like Mass Effect and Dragon Age - pulling them from Steam and forcing gamers to download its inferior platform. Then, there were debacles such as Battlefield 4 and SimCity - games that were practically broken on launch and took months to finally be fixed.

 

"Over the last couple of years we have focused on ensuring a great play experience from launch and bringing players a better experience on Origin with programs like the Great Game Guarantee, On the House, and now Origin Access. We're excited about the progress we've made, but are always pushing ourselves to innovate on behalf of players," wrote O'Reilly.

 

In EA's defense, the Great Game Guarantee, which guarantees a "no-questions-asked" refund on any Origin game within 24 hours was a fantastic step in the right direction, and actually forced Steam to adopt a similar policy. The other advancements in Origin have been numerous and consumer-focused.

 

That said, a lot of gamers still understandably harbor ill-will to EA, which was once voted the worst company in America.

 

Source: MCVUK

 

This should be taken with a grain of salt. EA has announced something like this every year, only to end up not living up to their claim in the end. They were also not only once the worst company in America, but TWICE... consecutively.

 

They have lost us because of the sins of buggy, unfinished games and cheap, sleazy money-grabbing tactics, and SWTOR is definitely no exception to how they've royally screwed over customers in those aspects.

 

If anything EA is "on a journey" to regain PC gamer wallets.

 

Edited February 6, 2016 by ColorfulCaiques

[MDChen]

After SimCity, SIms 4 and the most recent Battlefront SW I would be very very surprised that gamers still have faith and hope with EA "sincerity' in working more for the gamers rather than for more credits.

[ebbehhm]

Courtesy of The Escapist:

 

 

This should be taken with a grain of salt. EA has announced something like this every year, only to end up not living up to their claim in the end. They were also not only once the worst company in America, but TWICE... consecutively.

 

They have lost us because of the sins of buggy, unfinished games and cheap, sleazy money-grabbing tactics, and SWTOR is definitely no exception to how they've royally screwed over customers in those aspects.

 

If anything EA is "on a journey" to regain PC gamer wallets.

 

 

I agree completely, and i have more awhile now. But may i not elaborate on it, dont want to get in trouble again today.

[Caelrie]

 

They have lost us because of the sins of buggy, unfinished games and cheap, sleazy money-grabbing tactics, and SWTOR is definitely no exception to how they've royally screwed over customers in those aspects.

If you feel EA is "royally screwing" you out of fifteen whole dollars a month that you're voluntarily giving them, why are you still giving it to them?

 

I'm not suggesting you quit. I'm asking how they can be screwing you when everything you're doing is 100% voluntary.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Caelrie

[ebbehhm]

If you feel EA is "royally screwing" you out of fifteen whole dollars a month that you're voluntarily giving them, why are you still giving it to them?

 

Because he has video game addiction, its like saying to a smoker, why do you spend $15 a day to buy smokes?

 

Its also the same as sports for some people, why pay $15 a month for a sports season membership? because you enjoy doing it, even if you think its expensive.

 

I get sick of people asking "Oh why do you pay then?" just because one complains about it dosnt mean they have to just out right disown it.

[DenariusJay]

Yeah, it sucks EA has its hands on this game. It's like SOE all over again, maybe not on that epic level of fail, but just the whole "corporate" feel that this game oozes really sucks. Much of the soul & magic is gone, but its all we got as far as a star wars MMO (barely). Enjoy it while it last! (i am) Edited February 6, 2016 by DenariusJay

[ebbehhm]

Yeah, it sucks EA has its hands on this game. It's like SOE all over again, maybe not on that epic level of fail, but just the whole "corporate" feel that this game oozes really sucks. Much of the soul & magic is gone, but its all we got as far as a star wars MMO (barely). Enjoy it while it last! (i am)

 

So many times ive tried to express this, people just dont seem to understand... its gone from "On the cruse" to "Business as usual" and its stage 3 evolution is "Corporate".

[Caelrie]

Because he has video game addiction

There are other games that don't cost any money. This one can be free, too.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Caelrie

[ALaggyGrunt]

They want my trust, here's my list:

 

1: Don't annoy the customer with your product. DRM is the glaringly big one here. Move it all server-side. It's a pain in the neck. You aren't going to sell me anything which requires product activation, or for me to log in to play with myself or someone on a LAN, so don't bother telling me how good it's going to be. In a game with of hundreds of thousands of players playing with each other, the publisher has to have the right to kick people off and not let them play any more, but that's about it. And this isn't unique to EA Origin, either: Ubisoft has uPlay it's there to behave almost exactly like Origin.

Having met SecuROM on my boxed copy of The Force Unleashed II, I can say I'm very glad I don't have any boxed versions of EA games from the last decade. You can say "Grr pirates" all you want. As a customer, I'm saying "Grr DRM, pass."

A close second is the sub-or-scrub attitude. Other players are content in any multiplayer game. This attitude keeps the number of other players down.

2: Quality assurance. "It's ready when it's ready" is a very good release schedule for releasing working games. The holiday season is a typical release schedule for shovelware. The latter teaches people you aren't serious about making the former.

3: The microtransaction monster. They may make money, but if you push these at the expense of the rest of the game, there's not going to be a rest of the game. Or a next game, because people learn the game you're playing with the microtransaction market. Some of them, anyway-I guess there's always that next late teens/early 20s group which hasn't.

4: Abandoned software. Don't DMCA takedown notice anything you don't even sell. You stand to gain exactly nothing except more of that "Grr EA" so common in the gaming community. You stand to lose the free advertising from ye olde EA products which actually work as intended, and for which the Electronic Arts splash meant there was a well-made game to follow.

 

With that being said, this game has seen some serious attempts at dealing with lag in this game (3.3.2). There was that big patch where they rethought all the LoDs for people with integrated graphics. It's just... that wasn't the thing which slowed the game to a crawl with 16 characters worth of abilities happening.

Edited February 6, 2016 by ALaggyGrunt

[Isnogut]

If you feel EA is "royally screwing" you out of fifteen whole dollars a month that you're voluntarily giving them, why are you still giving it to them?

 

I'm not suggesting you quit. I'm asking how they can be screwing you when everything you're doing is 100% voluntary.

EA is a Behemoth similar to Walmart or other huge companies who are selling something to the customers. Everybody nags abot the price-performance, still everyone is buying there.

 

As long as so many customers still do buy the products, as long as the provider will not change its course.

 

Personally for me it is quite sad seeing games with real potential beeing trown out on the market by EA well knowing they are not ready yet. Also the low quality standards. It's hard to belive any developer mit a bit of self esteem is happy releasing this half baked work. After all it's the developing teams reputation at stake, especially in MMO's. Beein more precisely, BioWare has actually a quite low reputation by now through SWTOR. They blew it so many times in quality, keeping deadlines, etc. This pressure has to be imense having to deliver despite any quality of work.

[ebbehhm]

There are other games that don't cost any money. This one can be free, too.

 

Not many decent MMO's are free, or proper style MMO's. And you can make a F2P account, but its so limited its virtual just a limited time test for most paid or sub games.

[Caelrie]

Not many decent MMO's are free, or proper style MMO's. And you can make a F2P account, but its so limited its virtual just a limited time test for most paid or sub games.

 

That sounds like an admission that this is a decent MMO

[JeKoCZ]

Ahahahahahahah

 

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/cf/cfe1e187cd5703d9d1513ae24937b4839e3a7f1c97972667f576b79a1b2874a6.jpg

 

AHAHAHAHAHAH

 

EA is the worst videogame company in North America only because Ubisoft is in France.

[Sigvaldson]

So they want to "regain trust", cool, too bad that their latest move in regards to TOR was ripping people off even more than before.

[BrianDavion]

I'm actually inclined to belive EA when they say they're trying to change things. I don't expect everything to change but we have seen some positive signs. take SW Battlefront for example, It's not really my type of thing, not in big quantities, but it woulda been simple to make star cards a random packs thing you eaither had to grind for, or buy, instead they just made em a level progression thing. I was pleasently suprised by that. considering that the previous CEO had publicly adopted a "MICRO TRANSACTIONS! MICROTRANSACTIONS EVERYWHERE!" stance. that DOES represent a reversal

[MaximusRex]

So many times ive tried to express this, people just dont seem to understand... its gone from "On the cruse" to "Business as usual" and its stage 3 evolution is "Corporate".

 

Everyone who is here and paying, yet feel this way, is telling them "This is the right thing to do." You really only have yourself to blame.

[Isnogut]

Everyone who is here and paying, yet feel this way, is telling them "This is the right thing to do." You really only have yourself to blame.

There is no satisfactory sollution. We are here, because we like playing Star Wars MMO in the first place. People who just pay their mothly subscription just for the idea of keeping the game runnig are IMHO "special kids".

 

We have no alternative if we ant to play that kind of game. We either don't have the brand, or there are no game coming near to the features we like here. So, what do do? And EA knows that. So, what to do? Just nag. At least we can express our frustration. But the reality is, EA will do a darn about it.

[Jerba]

There have been reports that EA improved over the last year but I take it with a grain of salt. They just managed to not have any big controversy, unlike some other publishers (this cartoon neatly illustrates it).

 

From my experience, this is just PR and they haven't changed. We see the same money-grabbing in SWTOR and (except for a few exceptions) there is no interaction between devs and the players - the community managers are just repeating what marketing told them. If you look at how EA presents themselves at trade shows, there is no openness about it at all when comparing it to e.g. Blizzard's booth.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Jerba

[squirrelballz]

Headline should read:

EA wants more access to PC gamers wallets, will say anything to look like they care.

 

EA has burned many gamers before and it's not strange at all for people to be skeptical of anything the company says. It's especially not due to a loss of reason, there are many examples of grossly broken products they charged $60 for (BF4, ME3, SimCity, DS3... the list goes on). I don't view EA as a PC gaming friendly publisher due to draconian DRM practices and rubbish CS support, just look at how many CS QQ threads there on Reddit and the forums.

 

EA, like all the big publishers is going to continue to try to nickle and dime us with gated off content, season passes, paid map packs, and micro-transactions. Making sure their games work is just not enough to be seen as "good guys". It’s the bare minimum of an acceptable product. We all know how they run their business, so frankly, even if they do stop releasing under-cooked titles, a purchase from them still comes with all of those considerations.

 

Is Electronic Arts Still in the Growth Game?

http://www.thestreet.com/story/13442408/1/is-electronic-arts-still-in-the-growth-game.html

 

The Corporate Beast?

http://www.destructoid.com/we-re-not-just-a-corporate-beast-says-ea-ceo-335676.phtml

 

10 Terrible Moments That Prove EA Is The Devil:

http://whatculture.com/gaming/10-terrible-moments-prove-ea-devil.php

 

So why do I continue to play SWTOR? Well simply put I love Star Wars and MMO's and currently EA has a monopoly on the title. How do I justify spending money on a Sub? I am a fan of Bioware work and even though there is alot of blunders in SWTOR it's still a game I enjoy and love to play, therefore I am feel alright making a deal with the devil as long as Bioware gets something out of my money as well. However, the moment there is any competition for a star wars MMO which will likely never happen, I will be moving onto the new star wars MMO and tell EA bye Felicia.

Edited February 6, 2016 by squirrelballz

[Sigvaldson]

I'm actually inclined to belive EA when they say they're trying to change things. I don't expect everything to change but we have seen some positive signs. take SW Battlefront for example, It's not really my type of thing, not in big quantities, but it woulda been simple to make star cards a random packs thing you eaither had to grind for, or buy, instead they just made em a level progression thing. I was pleasently suprised by that. considering that the previous CEO had publicly adopted a "MICRO TRANSACTIONS! MICROTRANSACTIONS EVERYWHERE!" stance. that DOES represent a reversal

 

SW:BF effectively is a very cheap cash-grab that was rushed out with little content in order to quickly capture movie fans. It's significantally worse than its previous games that are more than 10 years older - and that isn't quite a good sign for a game's quality.

[ebbehhm]

EA are the oil companies of the gaming industry, take take take, profit profit profit, they dont care what the buyers think, profit, profit, profit.

 

When i wish Blizzard, Oblivion, Arenanet, somebody like that, who has passion to make content and the employs actually actively play their games, not EAWare, wallet emptiers with least effort.

 

I wonder why i still sub sometimes... but the game entertains me still, all that matters. But at its current rate i feel i'll grow distant, developers are developing at a minimum rate, CS is horrible, some players here are appalling,

[Vodolebon]

It's kind of soon for an april's fool, but hey.

 

Anyway. EA can't regain my trust, and the only thing i wish would happen is that Dice and Bioware leave that company

and become their own editor.

 

Since i saw what they did to the Battlefield franchise, i made a point to avoid any EA product i could (some i wanted, like Mass effect or Dragon age). Swtor is the only exception i made to the rule.

[Holocron]

It's the same type of PR fluff piece they have been putting out for the last couple of years. They are trying to show us that they are working on changing their negative image, even though it is really business as usual. Edited February 6, 2016 by Holocron

[AlrikFassbauer]

EA are the oil companies of the gaming industry, take take take, profit profit profit, they dont care what the buyers think, profit, profit, profit.

 

You forget "destroy environment, destroy environment, destroy environment", most likely in countries no-one knows about, and which are too poor to get the damage these companies did repaired.

 

 

That said, a lot of gamers still understandably harbor ill-will to EA, which was once voted the worst company in America.

 

I still can't believe that a bunch of gamers decided this over the far more serious problems people had with the Bank Of America ... Sad times, when a bunch of gamers are able to rule society ...

[ghoul_drool]

I think we can all safely say we play SWTOR despite it being an EA game, certainly not because of it.