Why all the EA hate?

Since coming late to the gaming party a few years ago, I have come across an ever-widening tide of vitriol that washes up on the shore of a corporation called Electronic Arts. Seriously, I never have to go far to find the hate.

Here's my experience with EA. I purchased Madden 07 about a year after it came out. I'd never played a sports game before, and it was fun and worked well for me. A friend purchased Tiger Woods' Pro Golf 2008. Then I played another game released by them called Dragon Age: Origins (haven't played Dragon Age II yet, though despite the reviews, I expect it to be far from sucky. Origins was hardly a perfect game). Then an entire trilogy under the Mass Effect banner. Then Battlefield 3. And The Saboteur. And the Need For Speed franchise. And Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. All great games in their own genres. Not perfect games (though Mass Effect 2 comes close IMO), but what game doesn't have its faults? On the horizon is the Medal of Honor series, the Dead Space franchise, and some cool-looking game called Syndicate (I have both the old and the new versions).

So why all the hate?

The EA hate seems to boil down to a few categories:

1.   Avaricious DLC policies. I agree with this one. I am still angry about the Mass Effect 3 DLC situation, but the game is great. (I have heard similar stories about Dead Space 3, but I have not played it yet). So if the game is good, I'll grumble and pay anyway. Which of course is what EA is counting on, and is hardly an endearing trait.

2.   Not patching a game after release. I have heard that many users are still waiting for a bug-fix patch for Dragon Age Inquisition. The original Mass Effect still has the black-pixelation problem in a few areas if you are playing on a computer with an AMD Steamroller-based CPU (which I am). It's just stunning that an issue that blatant was just ignored.

3.   Games which used to work are broken in their current form. To be fair, this plagues a number of older games on Steam as well - only a small proportion of them are EA properties. But the game I am thinking of is the original Crysis. It is for sale on Steam, but try installing and running it, and, well, you can't. The version on Origin actually does run - but you have to enter the game files and use the 64-bit executable (which is not included in the Steam version. There are number of work-arounds on Steam, but I don't think the average consumer should have to do that).

4.   Origin. So many people hate it. I'm not sure why. At least I can register my Steam keys on it for free copies of EA games that I already own (most of them, anyway). Then if I want to I can download and install through Origin. This is superior to Ubisoft's Uplay, which HAS to be open and running in order to launch an Ubisoft game that was purchased and installed in Steam. Origin works well enough. Origin has a simple interface, and reliable servers (more reliable than Valve's these days). Is it annoying that Steam can't be the "one-stop shop" for all video games? Sure. But it's time to accept that Origin is competent software. Because competition (for Steam) is a healthy thing.

5.   EA is a corporate juggernaut. Small studios disappear into the bowels of the corporation, sometimes never heard from or seen again. There has been a rash of this hate since EA shut down Maxis about two weeks ago. Never mind that Maxis had not produced much of note for almost ten years, and the last few games they DID create were duds (Sims 4, anyone?). Bioware seems to be safe for now (non-forthcoming patches notwithstanding, Dragon Age Inquisition was a hit), but if Mass Effect 4 crashes and burns, what do you think is going to happen? (Probably not full-scale closure, but some figurative heads will certainly roll). Bitter nostalgia seems to be at play here.

I came across this video on some forums today. It inspired me to write this post. It's a fun satire - I totally get it. My problem is in the description under the video. Here is a quote:

"Q) How is this [EA's] behaviour bad? Companies exist to make money, they're just doing what they're supposed to.
"(A) No, no, no, and A MILLION TIMES NO. Companies exist to trade a valuable product to a consumer in exchange for fair payment. They should only make a profit in order to improve their service efficiency, quality of product, and in order to comfortably support themselves..." [post goes on about what exactly is wrong with EA and why the uploader dislikes them].

No, sir. Companies exist to make money. Non-Profits exist to trade a valuable product to a consumer in exchange for fair payment (or they are supposed to, anyway). Corporations' sole reason for existence is to make a profit to keep the stock value up, so more people will invest in the corporation, so they can pay their executives more money, so working at the corporation is seen as prestigious. It is all about money, not about some kind of idealistic "we live to serve the customer" bullshit. Several companies that tried that approach don't exist any more (remember General Motors' Saturn division?). And even then, in a company that was supposedly all about the customer, Saturn's existence was problematic because their product was crap. And you can only dress up crap in so many ways before people start to notice a smell.

And if a game is actually good? Well, EA can charge as much as they want for DLC; people will buy it anyway (raises hand). Because unfortunately, making money is what any company or corporation is all about.

How about less fanboyism and more realistic comparisons? How about bitching for a damn patch for Mass Effect, instead of clogging EA's inbox about not being able to get the Pinnacle Station DLC on the Steam version? And EA, how about fixing Crysis on Steam, and bug-fixing Dragon Age Inquisition? Oh, and maybe actually making a new Madden game (and bringing it back to PC), instead of re-dressing the same stuff every year with a new roster? Sheesh.

EA's out for the money - as any for-profit corporation should be. Their bottom line could be padded even more if they turned on some PR charm by making Origin and the games on it as rock-solid as Steam used to be. But that would actually cost money. People are "getting by" with the way things are, so why bother?