Why Do People Hate EA?
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As companies go, EA is not as cuddly and nice as, say Valve. But then, Valve isn't publicly traded. Valve isn't owned by banks. EA isn't exactly Dogtanian or Lady or Lassie. But nor is it Kujo. And the world is full of Kujos. You are probably touching something right now that was conceived, manufactured, funded, or distributed by Kujo.So what do you think? Does EA deserve the reputation that it has earned? Has their handling of the BioWare/Pandemic acquisition (Pandemic Studios is now shuttered, coincidentally) been adequate enough for you?
So the question is valid. Why EA? Probably because EA makes games and people care about games in ways that they don't about gasoline or shopping bags or laptop accessories. Games are products, but they are also special.
Moore says, (There is this underlying belief in a lot of gamers that games shouldn't be profitable enterprises. I try and sit down with people as much as I can and explain what it takes to make a video game and how much capital investment it takes. We employ over 9,000 people. We invest over a billion dollars a year in R&D, most of which doesn't see revenue until the following year, or in some instances, the year after that. And so you've constantly got to be making money to reinvest money to make great games.)
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The $60 game is dying. The mid-range game is no longer profitable. EA has to focus its energies elsewhere in order to meet those quarterly targets. Otherwise its share price will be in an even crappier place than it currently is, and it'll get eaten up by Kujo. You think the system is flawed? Me too. But I'm not about to move to Cuba.
Moore says, (We have to try things, because we are facing the spectre of the stuff that we've enjoyed selling at a decent gross revenue line, that in the future we'll have to go and give away for free. It's no different from you and I having to go to work and not get paid, but then at the end of the day, we've found a way to make a hundred bucks through five dollars here and ten dollars there. That is the future of what we as a company have to figure out. Otherwise we're gone.)
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I know that I place myself in the firing line by daring to suggest that EA is flawed, imperfect, sometimes idiotic, but not hateful. I know it's uncool to side with a corporation and say '˜well, they have good reason to behave in this way'. And I also know that EA's phalanx of PRs will not thank me for bringing this whole subject up again.
But EA makes many of the biggest and best games that we play. And it employs some of the smartest people in gaming. So although EA deserves to be analyzed and scrutinized and criticized, it's weird and it's unjust that -- so often -- we see this company portrayed as something that's purely malevolent.
