EA *facepalm"

[+FujiSkunk]

Just to fan the flames a little (sorry, Chicky)...

 

It is an established fact that EA runs their own online servers. Yes, I know what their FAQ says about XBox Live Gold memberships being required, but that simply isn't true, not even for EA's nonsports games. I own Burnout: Paradise, and while I subscribe to Live Gold, my roommate does not. However, my roommate plays B:P a whole lot more than I do, and he can see his scores online, and participate in online races whenever he wants. So, Live Gold is not necessary, and that means it's EA running their servers, without any money coming in from Live Gold memberships.

 

(Somebody may point out Rock Band, which has EA's name on it, uses Microsoft's servers and therefore requires a Gold membership. EA does not develop or publish the Rock Band series, but simply distributes the games.)

 

Let's say for the sake of argument that EA should be compensated for running their own servers. After all, electricity, computer hardware and network bandwidth ain't free. The question then becomes, how should EA be compensated? Should they build into the cost of the new game the amount of money they can expect someone playing that game online to cost them for the entire time they support the game's online features (usually two or three years, more or less depending on the title)? Or, should they build in only what they expect the first owner of the game to cost them? If the former, they could then make the license transferable. If the latter, it would make better sense, even from an ethical standpoint, to have each new owner pay for online support.

 

All other things being equal, it would appear EA has decided on the latter approach for their future releases. Had they used the former approach up until now? If so, should the cost of new games be adjusted accordingly? Or, is it possible the extra money could be used to further research and develop the series?

 

I'm playing devil's advocate here, because I know EA hasn't exactly been angelic in all their other doings recently. But I think these questions, and a bunch of others I could have thrown in, demonstrate this may not be an unethical money grab, not even for a company like EA.

 

Where it goes from here remains to be seen, of course.

Edited May 18, 2010 by FujiSkunk

[cimerians]

That well may be true in some cases, but they also emply several very good people on these forums and countless others both within the companies and as ,contractors,developers etc, whose families depend on them for income and insurance.

We may not like the big company myself included, but there are still people trying to get by in these difficult economic (hiring/job wise and financial) times who shoudl at least get the compensation they deserve for their hard work.

 

 

EA and Activision are publishers. Different from being a pure developer. They have killed many a series and many a team of devs.

 

They are two of the biggest bastards of gaming.

 

Being pissed at this 10 dollar thing is warranted IMO.

 

I'm also done with this thread.

 

 

Yes, there are good people too.

[Mendon]

I honestly don't know, Mendon. I just know I can turn my system on, pop in the game disc, and launch from the game, and I'm not logged into XBox Live. Maybe someone else who has a EA Sports game can comment on this?

 

It just seems stupid that EA would require a XBox Live Gold account considering they have their own server.

 

Just as a quick follow-up, my son brought over B:BC2 the last night and I made a Silver account on my 360...... I couldn't play the game online because I got a message that said something like "You do not meet XboxLive requirements. Contact XboxLive".

 

I'm just guessing, but perhaps all EA sports games run on EA servers (maybe because EA does extensive stat tracking of some sort that MS doesn't want to do on their servers) but non-sports EA games use MS servers. If I had a copy of Medal of Honor or Godfather or another non-sport EA game, I'd check further to see if my theory might be correct.

 

The whole thing with that "Online Pass FAQ" makes things kind of confusing (at least to me) at this point, but time will reveal how everything works out.

 

 

 

Mendon

Edited May 20, 2010 by Mendon

[cimerians]

http://www.destructoid.com/ubisoft-could-copy-ea-sports-online-pass-scheme-174045.phtml

 

I wish I wrote that.

 

[johnon]

I wrote about it in my blog after Ubisoft joined the party. My opinions can be found there.

[Vic George 2K3]

Perhaps a good thing with DLC is that if you don't like the games, you can just delete them from your system. You won't have to be stuck carrying a piece of plastic that the Game Software Police won't let you resell if they have their way of controlling what you legally bought.

[johnon]

Perhaps a good thing with DLC is that if you don't like the games, you can just delete them from your system. You won't have to be stuck carrying a piece of plastic that the Game Software Police won't let you resell if they have their way of controlling what you legally bought.

Reading this, it brought up a fear in me that, perhaps, GameStop might not take trade-ins for games with the "Ten Dollar" scheme, due to that, or it might kill the used games market, as it would require the cost to be even lower on used games to compete with the "Ten Dollar" scheme.

[johnon]

Electronic Arts: figuring out new ways to alienate gamers while maximizing profits.

If they're alienating gamers, who are the only ones that play these games really, then I don't see how they think this is profit maximization.

[Mord]

Perhaps a good thing with DLC is that if you don't like the games, you can just delete them from your system. You won't have to be stuck carrying a piece of plastic that the Game Software Police won't let you resell if they have their way of controlling what you legally bought.

Reading this, it brought up a fear in me that, perhaps, GameStop might not take trade-ins for games with the "Ten Dollar" scheme, due to that, or it might kill the used games market, as it would require the cost to be even lower on used games to compete with the "Ten Dollar" scheme.

 

According to some articles on kotaku, Gamestop is being enthusiastic about the scheme and doesn't anticipate it to affect their bottom line at all. They did mention that most used games aren't played online (how they can claim to know this, I'll never know) and as they go forward their prices will be adjusted internally to avoid any loss in profit.

 

So in plain english, I suspect that what this means is they won't do anything with the current stuff they have. For future titles that make use of this project 10 dollar and thigns like it, the sale price they offer will probably be dropped to reflect the cost to keep it just a couple dollars of buying it new, they will buy them back used for a similar reduction in $$ and I suspect they will probably exempt these titles from their full-refund policy by the price of the associated code fee. (Since they'll have no way of knowing if you used the code or not.)

 

I feel I'm being optimistic with that prediction. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't drop the used price on their shelves at all. So long as people buy it, they have no reason to drop the price. That's the reason the price is as high as it is in the first place. People are stupid enough to buy used goods for 5 dollars off the new price.

[HammR25]

Gamestop won't care because they'll make money on the $10 thing too since they'll be able to sell the $10 online codes right alongside the used games.

[Vic George 2K3]

For Game Software Police, it should accurately read Game Software Gestapo.