EA are KILLING Computer Games - Ross's Game Dungeon

I must admit, I don't share Ross's taste in computer games, however, the guy speaks in a way so eloquent and considered that I can't help but agree with almost everything he says, even when I disagree.

In his latest video he's angry, really angry, in the Ross'iest way possible because EA are literally killing a computer game:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2pdvh4uiaM

The game has never been pirated, it's on-line only, and yet all we hear is how pirating is killing computer games, when, here we now see it, EA are the ones who want to kill this game forever, extinct, unavailable anywhere by any means... and it would have been the pirates who saved this game from death... And this isn't the only game either...

Brb because you linked a vid without hint what is it about.
I usually refuse to watch a vid as it takes too much time instead of text, I mean THIRTY minutes?!

But lemme see it...

EA are KILLING computer games - "extinct" - fairly big hint. If by hint you meant full copy paste of the transcript... it's 30 minutes!

No, the hint should have been the game as EA killed Pet Society on Facebook by shutting it down ages ago. So I'll also skip mentioning the game this video is about.

Okay, first there is irrelevant 10+ minutes of a game review. Who needs to watch that? This game sucks - we knew it 5 years ago since it was released! Well… We who played Spore. The video author did not play Spore which is offline game, still works and instead of doing that one first he jumped on some MMO.

And then the author moves ono the fact EA is shutting down the servers, killing the game and being surprised that EA is killing it's own crapware (which he says is above average, baaaaaaah).

But then after 20 mins of dragged rubbish which could have been said in a few sentences, he gets to the point.
MMOs die. You spent your $ on an illusion you'll own a game life, and now it's gone.
And asks the audience to contact EA management?! Wahuahauhahauauaaaa, geeeeez

I'm sorry.
This video follows Michael Moore phylosophy to make all people feel awkward. Spectacular but shallow. For example Moore's excitment in the recent documentary with italian 13th monthly paycheck and collective holidays without reminding the audience that Italy owes billions.

And just like in those documentaries, there are alwas three sides to every story.
EA is not the problem here. Letters, protests or something won't change a thing. Not just EA but others are doing this online gamekills too. And not just EA, but others are selling studios.
Remember Zynga? A cow clicker megacompany? Worth billions? Yea, google what's happening there - they've put up their San Francisco headquarters on sale (apparently on a test just to see how much they can get, but I think where's a smoke, fire must be nearby). That same Zynga killed their own online crap, and not just them. So why would EA do it differently just because of some vid over online crapware?

The actual conclusion should have been totally different. No, there is no reason or need to send letters or contact EA. The management won't change. There is another way to bring the thing to their attention:
STOP PAYING FOR (ALWAYS) ONLINE CRAP.
Buy only singleplayer games. That way, and only that way, EA will not kill their own games - because they can't. And they won't make stupid MMOs - because the audience is not buying.

Sadly, instead of refusing to buy the latest EA's fart, people invested crapload of $ in SW:Battlefront, a game which is probably the biggest disappointment of the year.
The problem is not EA. The problem is IDIOTS.
EA's MMOs simply became taxes for fools. That ingenious business success deserves my hat off.

I just can't believe I'm actually defending EA.

I was wondering what this was about too, EA stand for both Early Access and Electronic Arts and I didn't understand how either could be killing computers games.

Turns out it's about Darkspore, the latest game server EA shutdown because not enough people were playing it. *yawn* Happens every time game hosting cost get too much in the red at any companies that host online games.

joxer said:

No, the hint should have been the game as EA killed Pet Society on Facebook by shutting it down ages ago. So I'll also skip mentioning the game this video is about.

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You must be viewing the thread on a system which doesn't show the title of the video linked - Ross's Game Dungeon - Darkspore.

joxer said:

MMOs die.

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This isn't an MMO. It has multiplayer options but is primarily a single player aRPG.

joxer said:

STOP PAYING FOR (ALWAYS) ONLINE CRAP.

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This is the key to the problem. If someone released a game on disc and then recalled the game from all shops and commanded everyone to hand over their discs, then there'd be outcry. Because companies make their games on-line only, even though there's no reason to beyond production economics and supposedly piracy, suddenly no-one cares if games are made completely extinct…?

lackblogger said:

This isn't an MMO.

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But it is.

A person or two were playing it so it's not really massive. But it was planned to be massive just like every game that depends on a dedicated server and cannot be used in LAN without internet connection.
It didn't succeed, but in it's core - it's MMO.

And just like Darkspore, Diablo3 is also MMO. Pet Society was MMO. Farmville - MMO. Etc.

There are of course hybrids that would fit:

It has multiplayer options but is primarily a single player aRPG.

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That's Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age:Inquisition.
Then there are such AC and FC games, there is overpriced and overhyped driving simulator GTA5 also and recent hybrid title is MGS5.

And you've played all those games, even though your answer to the problem is "stop paying for always on-line crap". I don't play any games which require always on-line. Always on-line is something that exists for 2 reasons:

1. To permit multiplayer
2. To prevent piracy

To which 1 is likely being included in so many single player games in order to justify the fact that 2 is bollox.

If someone wanted to play this game beyond shut-off date, their only recourse would be piracy. Ironically making piracy the good guy...

No, man, I'm not that kind of a person.
I've never played through Farmville, Diablo 3, Pet Society or anything like that.


I did some MMOs over years, usually escaped from the grind soon, but am still only on League of Legends - which, now this is interesting, is free (microtransactions do exist, but you can't pay2win).

As for the reasoning of 1&2 I'll just say that there are pirate servers for WoW.
I was never interested in that junk of a game anyway, but just so you know that always online and being MMO didn't stop people from pirating it.

But that happened because there were people interested in that overhyped garbage. If a game sucks, if it's not advertised daily, if it's not hyped, I don't see why would anyone want to pirate the obvious crap. Or a clone of been there done that.
Imagine a thief who breaks in your apartment, steals everything from your trashcan and leaves while not taking your thousands worth Rolex. Such thief should go check their brains before getting jailed, don't you think?

The other side of the story is cracks that remove DRM. Those are generally bad as are hurting the industry because appear sometimes even before the game is released.
However through the history the only way to play some games (or to improve performance) you legally bought was to remove DRM by these illicit means.

Seems the industry does remove DRM by itself over time when the game just can't be sold at a full AAA release price (by releasing a game on DRMfree platform like GOG), but it's not happening with every case. Also, the question is what happens with games on current DRM platforms if their owner shuts servers down. Not saying it's happening, but what if Valve, for whatever reason, decides to shut down Steam. In such (im)possible scenario, unless publishers rerelease a DRMfree version, cracks will save the day.

Wait… I think I went maybe too much offtopic here.
But I still remain on what I've said up there. It's not EA's fault, it's the audience's fault.
Don't buy stuff that's online only.

joxer said:

Imagine a thief who breaks in your apartment, steals everything from your trashcan and leaves while not taking your thousands worth Rolex. Such thief should go check their brains before getting jailed, don't you think?

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Yes, I was expecting this to be the primary defence - it's crap and no-one will miss it. But I could say the same for heaps of games that get regular praise, just because they are hyped and the in-thing to play. Even if there's just one or two people out there for who this game is their crack, would it 'hurt' EA to let them have a personal not-on-line copy? Where's the drawback? There isn't one, the game's going to be a zero in a few days.

When they decided to pull the plug, how about offering a free disk to anyone who bought it and wanted to keep playing off-line? Or to make it more appealing to a business, how about:

"Unfortunately due to bad sales and a declining player base we've been forced to cancel this game *frown face x 10*. However, the execs at EA have supllied us with enough money to produce 1,000 limited edition off-line complete game discs which you can purchase at our store for just $XX.XX for all of our most loyal fans"

Heck, they could even scrape a few more easy bucks at the death...

It's like the guy says in the video, the people who run these companies are just in some completely irrational loony toons land where nothing logical seems to come out of their minds...

They are killing DARK SPORE. I'm surprised the game is still around after this long. That's what happens when there's an online server that's critical to game play.

The same thing will happen to Dragon's Dogma some day. Game sales will drop off to a point so low that they can't pay for maintenance on the servers. A few months later… CLICK! All the pawns return to the bits from whence they came.

Letting others have the server: There's bound to be proprietary stuff on there. Showing the code like that could clue hackers in on better ways to hack into existing online games. It could have implications for their copyright on the IP, too. Above all, though, why SHOULD they do it? Even if there's a small chance of losing money, there's no chance of making money.

Unfortunately due to bad sales and a declining player base we've been forced to cancel this game *frown face x 10*. However, the execs at EA have supplied us with enough money to produce 1,000 limited edition off-line complete game discs which you can purchase at our store for just $XX.XX for all of our most loyal fans

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They've got to make those disks, test them out, and so on and so forth. Given that the place is shutting down because of continued poor sales, what do you think the chances are of this resulting in a profit?

What do you think the chances are of this resulting in some customer negativity and resultant loss of future sales?

Zloth said:

The same thing will happen to Dragon's Dogma some day. Game sales will drop off to a point so low that they can't pay for maintenance on the servers. A few months later… CLICK! All the pawns return to the bits from whence they came.

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I doubt that. Still didn't start it, but from what I've heard, the game is perfectly playable and finishable without online pawns.

More examples where online "resources" while can be nice boost are not necessary to complete* the game - Mass Effect 3, HoMM6 and Metal Gear Solid 5.

The problematic game would be two last Anno games where your level progression depends on the game server and ingame essential stuff is operational only while connected to server - I believe those two games are not possible neither to finish or to complete without connection to Ubi's server. Once Ubi kills the server, these will become de facto demos.

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* Note that I said complete, not finish. By complete I mean getting everything possible done in the game (both main and side content) without use of the online garbageware.

If I remember right, Darkspore got mixed reviews right from the start. Most people I remember said it was an not very well made Action-RPG clone.

joxer said:

I doubt that. Still didn't start it, but from what I've heard, the game is perfectly playable and finishable without online pawns.

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That's true - but the online pawns will all be gone, as well as the online Ur-Dragons. The game won't be dead but it will be limping noticeably.