EA has surprisingly called time on its controversial Online Pass program. Andrew Testerman wonders what the publisher will turn to next
There are no thoughtful ads in Video Games, EA. Leave them be.
I think the only type of games that can gets away with it would be sport games, having those sponsors ads on the side like on real life.
But don't put freaking Doritos ads in Star Wars or something, it breaks the immersion. If it is a pop-up ads, then big no.
EA coming back for the crown of being perceived as the worst company in gaming.
One of my favorite series is the THPS franchise, and it was packed with ads, but it didn't bother me. Posters for skateboard companies, JEEP, and Nokia phones. It did sort of fit in with the game world, but that was the past, these days ad would be intentionally intrusive or unskippable loading screen type of imagery. Ugh, I know EA would do it in a horrible fashion. Screw them.
EA senior staff has been investigated for sexual misconduct involving female coworkers, and these said people have been named publicly.
Aye just call Phil, i mean he somehow made Bobby Kotick's scandal disappear and gave him a few million dollar high five on the way out.
Microsoft did, Phil Spencer played a minor part. He instigated the buyout that led to Kotick escaping all his controversies while getting a golden handshake.
Someone on Twitter calculated that the people hired in Tango and Arkane Austin could get a decent salary for roughly 17 years for the money Kotick was paid.
Yeah some thing tells me Kotics $ was already guaranteed before MS made the deal. As for the studios... Let's be honest here... none of those studios made system sellers.
EA about to go down like Activision and then Phil saves the day saying.this is good for the industry and consolidation will help create competition. /s.
Then they shutdown Codemasters and studio behind Jedi Survivor.
Atleast they could hardly do much damage that EA hadn't allready done. EA has shut down most of their studios by now.
What's up with all these horny creeps. You gon be horny, fine. Just not at work take care of that shit before you go in. Rub one out if you have to. Don't be a creep at all. ESPECIALLY at work. But don't be one AT ALL.
You think deviants care where they are? Work sometimes makes it an even better situation for them because they can abuse their power.
"it seems that according to EA, given the events transpired outside of work between two adults, and the fact that once investigation has started that the alleged perpetrators didn’t do it again, the investigation is considered closed. [...] The victim still has to work with the people that harassed her."
Yep, EA is disgusting.
I mean the fact stuff happened outside of work puts EA in quite a difficult position legally. These women don't seem to have reported the matter to the police which kinda ties EA's hands on what they can do. If they don't file reports of the crimes then yeah from EA's perspective it is stuff that happened outside of work. The only exception is the guy that apparently referenced things in the slack channel for work, spending on what he said proving it may be very hard and he may well be able to get away with plausible deniability. I don't like EA and I think these people need to be dismissed but without any legal action being taken, EA can't really do much without risk of being sued themselves for unfair dismissal etc.
EA has announced it will engage in a shareholder-pleasing share buyback program just a couple of months after mass layoffs at the studio.
I think the that EA is definitely going to increase it's microtransaction model, however I don't think this is the death of Online Pass, merely the killing and rebirth. It would not surprise me in the least to see some "version" of Online Pass with a different name and no actual code will reappear, similar to how they do always on for products like Sim City. Sure, that launch was a disaster, but from a business point of view, it didn't hurt sales and they still got their DRM. Look for Online Pass as a non-publicized but super annoying feature in all EA games to come.
About time I say, if CD Project Red never complained about used games or piracy and the Witcher II got pirated like hell (4.5 million copies to be exact). But they worked within their means instead of going "triple A" then made enough to live and create a sequel.
More developers need to re-manage their money especially when it comes to advertisement.
DO NOT pay any credence to this....Quite simply, the next gen consoles have this all sewn up.
EA abandoning Online Passes is only making way for a similar system that's built-in & a very 'important' part of the next gen infrastructure.
Even Sony & MS will play this down as to not affect sales, but they will both still penalize pre-owned purchasers in some way.
Don't be fooled people....this is EA we're discussing here!
*EDIT*
Piracy is one thing, but why should I have to pay to play online when I already pay my IP and purchased the game? If I purchased a Blu Ray movie, watched it, and then sold it for $5, why should the movie studio get any of that? They made their money the first time around.