[TrashMan]

 

Le news at IGN

The apocalypse has come...again..
The big bad mutated warewolf on steroids that is Electronic Arts is out to destroy yet another great developer!

When will this end?
Penny Arcade is sooo right

[Gloriano]

what about this start to worry when it's time? bioware i still planning to make new rpgs that have a great story nothing has changed

[TrashMan]

Mass Effect should come ou pretty untouched by EA's meddling. Dragon Age too (hopefully)...but after that?

EA's track record with killling off great developers is legendary.

[Flipside]

I must admit a degree of trepidation at the idea of EA going rampant in the buying software houses department, especially with their current urge to throw as much advertising into their games as possible. The latest is apparently, they've signed a deal for SimCity Societies that mean all the clean power-stations have a BP logo on them....

[TrashMan]

I had my hopes high..

Bioware and Pandemic were the largest independant developer around ,and had enough $$ to make tiehr own games and dicate terms to the publishers.
Not to mention that Bioware is a kick-ass compay, prolly the best one out there (with [V] ).

Article abut EA policy

A few more interesting snippet from Bioware forums:

Wow i can't believe i wasted my time reading all 4 part of the rants of EA acquiring Bioware and Pandemic with the average of 16 threads per part.

I tell you about my past experiences. I'm not making empty talks. Let see what games that i've bought from EA.

Need for Speed Most Wanted
Battle for Middle Earth
Battle for Middle Earth II Collector's Edition
Command & Conquer 3

I didn't buy Carbon as it seems to me the graphics is even worst than Most Wanted. And it's not all about graphics. The game mechanics are all the same, feature-wise. And guess what?! There's still no wide-screen version and you still need to depend on hacks to fool your eyes

Bought BFME & BFME2. Then they released the BFME2 Expansion pack. For god sakes, they even bother to fix the bugs, unbalances, etc. They are ALWAYS lying for god's sake. You know how long for them to release a PATCH? More than 6 months. It seems to me the COMMUNITY is making the patch which even better than those they released .

Oh that's not the end.. Here comes the Community Manager and make a post like... "Please list down the top 5 most critically unbalance changes you would like see fixed". for god's sake the community releases a patch to fixed the UNBALANCES + BUG FIXES which far EXCEEDS 2-3 pages of patch list changes

They released a patch of 5 fixes that takes more than half a year to release and claim that they will continuosly supporting the product.

This comes from a gamer that bought EA games. So since i knew it, but why still continuing buying EA games? That's because i trusted EA that they have now changed since last time. They will continuosly support the game after it releases, bla bla bla, which is all empty talks

HEre's the link to the forums...the 4 threads are fun to read:
http://forums.bioware.com/viewforum.html?forum=41

[Roanoke]

This reminds me of when Ea bought Criterion and there was talk of RenderWare being cut-off from 3rd party developers.
'Have to admit, I don't know how that little take-over panned out.

[Raven2001]

Hats off for Bioware, I will miss them

[Thor]

I wait for the day EA finally does something stupid, and it just explodes in their face and ends up with them going the way of Interplay.  they run a shoddy shoddy business, but i do like of games they put out, sadly. 

[Scooby_Doo]

Don't be surprised if it comes out with something like Securom hidden amonst it *cough cough* Sims: Bon Voyage

Or the fact that it can boink up a neighborhood with unwanted tour guides, and have them claim it's prefectly ok.

[TrashMan]

I wait for the day EA finally does something stupid, and it just explodes in their face and ends up with them going the way of Interplay.  they run a shoddy shoddy business, but i do like of games they put out, sadly. 

You and a million gamers worldwide.

The funyn thing is - most games that EA puts out that are good had allready been under development before EA bought the developer. Thus it didn't interfere much with it. But later titles start getting progressivly weaker. Till they close the ship in the ned..

This is funny:

A New York Times article on EA (August 8, 2005), "Relying on Video Game Sequels," observes, "Electronic Arts plans to release 26 new games [in 2005], all but one of them a sequel, including the 16th version of NHL Hockey, the 11th of the racing game Need for Speed and the 13th of the PGA Tour golf game." In the article CEO Probst said sequels appeal to Wall Street investors because they have a steady following among consumers. "He added that the company had a goal of putting out at least one entirely new game every year, and had several major original games in its pipeline." Blogger Bill Harris observed, "A 'goal' of one new game a year? Damn, Larry, don't be so crazy ambitious. Remember Icarus."

[Raven2001]

IMO EA is just the most obvious icon of how the gaming industry is progressing: becoming more of a mass business, instead of art for fans...

That is: pump out the same **** every year, and people will buy it nevertheless.

And funny enough, this trend is becoming global on most major devs. Blizzard comes to mind for example.

[Dark RevenantX]

EA can eat ****.  That's all I can (and should) say.