EA Games, or why the soul of gaming has a price

[Agamemnon]

I've never liked EA. Not ever since they bought Maxis and they spun 15 expansion packs for The Sims which virtually ended up becoming a money pit, nor when they bought Westwood and came out with Command & Conquer: Generals and destroyed the Red Alert series. They have a reputation for just putting out utter shit, like the Complete Battlefield 2 Collection.

It's pretty simple. It's just a few DVD discs containing the whole Battlefield 2 collection; expansion and booster packs and all. Not only was the installation murder (it bugged on me three times in which I had to uninstall and reinstall again), but production registration was something that never has and probably never will click. Despite how much of an atrocity the game is (Wow, one whole game mode! :awesome: I think we already have a game like that. It's called Counter-Strike. :awesome:), I don't think it's too much to ask when going through EA's shit tech support that I actually get a sensible answer.

I mean, I've registered the expansion packs God knows how many times and decided today to do it a different way, which involved going through seventeen different steps to go through for "security reasons" in which I find out, in the end, that the fucking security system they have designed can't even recognize a proper CD key that they confirmed was correct at step seven.

This was the third, and last, tech e-mail I sent to them:


I'd just like to explain my EXTREME displeasure in your product for the THIRD time. Hopefully this time I am actually garnered a sensible and intelligible response.

It has now been TWO MONTHS since I have bought the Complete Battlefield 2 Collection and I am STILL met with requirements to register my booster packs when trying to join a server with booster pack maps, despite the fact that I have registered the products nearly five times.

I finally decided to give this game another go today and found another method of registering the game, which involved putting in your Battlefield 2 registration code and then your user name for the game. I did so and I was then taken to a log in page for an EA Customer Account. I entered my same user name that I use for everything under this God-green earth and the correct password and I was met with the account not being listed in the database (I found that out when I requested my password and I was told the user Agamemnon582bc does not exist). I then remembered I was met with the exact same problem when I tried to register my products the first time, so I created the user Agamemnon582bc1 and logged in with that.

I was then brought back and asked to re-enter my CD key for Battlefield 2 and my user name online ONCE AGAIN. When I did so, I was met with being told I had put in an improper CD key.

This language is fully garnered for a situation like this, so what the fuck is wrong with you people. I don't think in today's day and age it's too much to ask to not go through a CIA-security clearance just to play a simpleton game, now is it? I am staring at this worthless game I have on my desk now wondering if maybe it could better be spent on anti-propagandistic material against your company, such as burning on public display in front of your offices, showing you in kind the treatment your product has shown me.

So, again, I wait for a sensible and intelligible answer, preferably not from some techie you outsource to India for.Now that I've told you my shitty experience with EA Games, share yours with us. You know you have one/have an opinion about EA.

[Amit]

That's pretty big there. I've never owned any of the Battlefield 2 series of games but they seem like games that would screw with you. My cousin had the same problem as you and it was never resolved. Money wasted. Other than the Battlefield 2 series I've never had problems with EA.

[Abdurahman]

Actually Battlefield 2 is really cool. Ive never had any problems with it or any expansion packs.

[beele]

Well I've had quite some problems with games from EA. Here's my story:

I've been a great fan of the need for speed series, that is why I have the whole series starting from NFS underground 1. I also have the command and conquers generals and the expansion pack. These are all of them original games, which I bought at my local gameshop.

Well I think it's about a year ago, back in the old XP days (I was beta-testing vista at that time too) when I had just formatted my computer and reinstalled my XP. :)

So I decided to install some of my games again. Well all games work fine except some of EA games. Whenever I tried to open one of their games it gave me the error message that I needed to put the original CD/DVD in the computer and restart their game. :confused2: And a day later it works fine, It where random cases that it said that I needed to put in the CD-ROM.

So I was angry at EA and wanted to know if they had a solution to the problem. So I sent them a very friendly e-mail asking if there was a solution.
After four month's of waiting I received an e-mail stating that my mail had been deleted without being read :(.

So I went to my gameshop, but they said they couldn't do anything about it, which I understand. I even reformatted my computer several times, but still the same problem occurred.

Since we live in the vista era now, I don't seem to have that much troubles anymore with their games, since I only have most wanted installed now, because carbon keeps crashing my system.

The guys at EA really disappoint me in their support

[Xetsuei]

The NFS series didn't start at underground. :eyesroll:

[Atty]

I love EA, I sort of have to, since I could be employed by them in a few months. :eyesroll: regardless of these being broken, I'm only taking the position to take them down from the inside.

[legionaire45]

I had network issues with BF2 that were independent from my hardware/ISP. Also, the game seemed to perform worse and worse and open up more bugs with each patch. This was back around patch 1.3 or something though.

[beele]

Xetsuei™;132605']The NFS series didn't start at underground. :eyesroll:

No I know, but that's when I started to collect them :)

[~ZMT~Trace]

I have yet any problems with my games, But I might contact them soon to see if I can get a new NfS Carbon CD Key. :lost mine when moving ;-;:

[Amit]

I have all the NFS games up to Most Wanted except for the first one, I could never find it. Still, Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit, Need for Speed 4: High Stakes, and Need for Speed 6: Hot Pursuit 2 remain my favourites of the series.

[Zeph]

I love EA, I sort of have to, since I could be employed by them in a few months. :eyesroll: regardless of these being broken, I'm only taking the position to take them down from the inside.

You never love them until being interviewed and recieve a paycheck.


Updating 2142 to a new version is like injecting hell into your fingernails and your blood pumping it all through your body.

[jahrain]

Although they may have published a couple descent games, I never really liked EA. They should spend less money acquiring licenses to publish movie based, celebrity based, etc games, acquiring other game studios, advertising and marketing the hell out of those games, and put more into actually making better quality games. It seems like probably 75% of their game budgets go into acquiring licenses and marketing/advertising their games rather than to human resources for the actual game development. O well, I guess thats is where the industry is headed for... :/

[legionaire45]

I did just remember back when I used to play like Road Rash 2 on my Genesis. *good times =D*. That automatically makes them win in my book even though I had trouble with BF2.

[rossmum]

See Aga, I fucking told you to buy RO instead.

Why is it that whenever I'm actually right about something, it's for something which nobody listened to? :gonk:

[Agamemnon]

See Aga, I fucking told you to buy RO instead.

Why is it that whenever I'm actually right about something, it's for something which nobody listened to? :gonk:
It was something that kept going through my head.

"I should've listened to that hermaphrodite." :gonk:

[ExAm]

The only real beef I have with EA is the fact that they push their companies too hard to get their games done on time. Case in point, Battlefield 2, Modern Combat. The animations are shit, half the textures are souped up placeholders, and the servers it runs on are as unstable as they come. This is why I switched to Battlefield 2 for PC. I was surprised at how they actually had the guts to call Modern Combat "Battlefield 2". It doesn't even have a place in the Battlefield sequel chain, and is absolutely nothing like Battlefield 2, which is an awesome game.

Second, you can't even get real customer support by phone. Only email. Even then, the only response I get is "I understand, I'm a gamer myself. Blah blah blah blah can't do anything blah blah fucking blah". It's maddening,

I never had any problems while installing BF2 (deluxe edition), even if it is on five disks. The only problem I've been having is that I have to let my brother onto my account to play the game, otherwise, if he tries to play from his account, he gets a "CD Key Invalid" message upon pressing the "join" button. That's fucked up. Whatever happened to the days when a CD key was meant for an entire machine, and not just one of the users on that machine? Greed fucks things up for everybody.

[n00b1n8R]

EA is renound for shitting up game series.

you can't even get a valid longin with the ingame menu of 2142 (unless you want a user name like;jfkla;sdlkhfsa (randomly press's keyboard), it says it's in use.)

[Mr Buckshot]

The newest EA game I own is BF2, which I haven't re-installed since selling my older desktop (it used an AIW 9800 Pro which ran the game pretty well). When I played BF2 my only gripes were with the bugs that we've come to expect from every EA game.

But I've read reviews of newer EA games, and this has turned me off from buying any more EA titles. I mean, every new game with the prefix "Sim" has been screwed up after EA bought Maxis. "The Sims" is a good game (well, my sister plays it, not me) but it's got its problems.

Wow, BF2142 seems to be problematic according to you guys.

I'm just glad that EA no longer holds the Bond license. I mean, 007 Everything or Nothing is still one of my favorite games, but the other Bond titles from EA really fell short of expectations.

Sadly, EA is one of the biggest companies in the world so it won't go down anytime soon...

[jahrain]

Its like the bigger the companies get, the more thirsty for money they get, leading to their games turning to shit, money pumping machines. Most of my favorite games have come from small, rising, or independent developers.

[Warsaw]

^ This man speaks the truth.

+Rep.

[Mr Buckshot]

Well said jahrain, but my rep is disabled as of now :( I'll be sure to give it to you when it's re-enabled.

It seems like smaller, not-as-famous companies tend to push out the revolutionary hits every year. For example, Remedy Entertainment was virtually unknown until Max Payne came out, and then the whole gaming community was screaming. Crytek Studios was not well known either, but Far Cry brought it to the light. I just hope that as such companies get more well known and more wealthy, they won't "pull an EA" on future games by spending more effort on marketing and so on.

EA is capable of producing good games from time to time. Personally, I love C&C Generals despite its crashes and bugs, while my sister enjoys The Sims. I just hope that the Sims 3 won't be completely trashed.

[Bodzilla]

i remember laughing when me and dano where talking about game companys back in high school going back a few years.
we where talking about some cool companys and who would be awesome to work for.

i was like "fuck yeah i could totally work for Blizzard. Diablo, starcraft and warcraft series have made me cream my pants from day one." (i'm a fan of Fantasy books, stories games ect.)

and that when dano said " i'd like to work for EA. they've had some cool games and Need for speed underground is cool (need for speed underground had just came out.). i'd love to learn how to do shit like that."

"wouldnt u rather work for Blizzard man? like look at the diablo shit. thats wicked."

"Blizzard dont do shit as well EA. like look, the EA games look better."


(roughly remebered, not word for word)
dam taht was a while ago. dano hadnt even made his first skin :-3

[Agamemnon]

i remember laughing when me and dano where talking about game companys back in high school going back a few years.
we where talking about some cool companys and who would be awesome to work for.

i was like "fuck yeah i could totally work for Blizzard. Diablo, starcraft and warcraft series have made me cream my pants from day one." (i'm a fan of Fantasy books, stories games ect.)

and that when dano said " i'd like to work for EA. they've had some cool games and Need for speed underground is cool (need for speed underground had just came out.). i'd love to learn how to do shit like that."

"wouldnt u rather work for Blizzard man? like look at the diablo shit. thats wicked."

"Blizzard dont do shit as well EA. like look, the EA games look better."


(roughly remebered, not word for word)
dam taht was a while ago. dano hadnt even made his first skin :-3
You were arguing about whether to work at two big-name companies? You do know Blizzard is owned by Vivendi, which is owned by Disney? You also know that Blizzard did not make Diablo; they actually bought a small gaming company by the name of Condor Games when it was in production and then added them to the company. Instead of moving that new company to their HQ, they renamed it Blizzard North and stationed it on the West coast. Doesn't really matter anyways. Back in November the majority of the staff at Blizzard North left because Blizzard wasn't allowing them to work on their own projects.

So because Blizzard is such a corporate gaming company, it is unlikely when you play Diablo 3 (if there ever is a Diablo 3, considering the original developers and most of everyone who had anything to do with it left Blizzard) that it will feel anything like its predecessors. Hell, I have a much worse feeling that they'll turn it into an MMO.

And if you're wondering where the original team members went, they went to form their own companies. At the moment, you should know about Flagship Studios, which is producing HellGate: London, and that will be Diablo's spiritual sequel, as it is being created by ex-Blizzard North employees (and some of the founders as well).

Blizzard is notorious for taking other people's ideas and making them their own. Yes, I am a Starcraft fan, and they do admit the amount of inspiration they draw from the game, but it mirrors that whole W40K argument. And if you really look at it, Blizzard operates exactly like a company; they take so long with their products because they put so much production time into it to make it guaranteed to be highly addictive and fun. Then again, considering where their roots are, they can afford eight years of production on one game, though it's not like that's always a good thing (Starcraft: Ghost anyone?).

[Scott-PL]

i bought madden08 last night and i had to go through 4 pages of T/A and sign up to their website to even play on live.

then once i play a game. there are popup ads for underarmor and shit.

[Agamemnon]

Yeah, I hear BF2142 has various adware installed into your computer when you play it online as well.