class action investor lawsuit against EA for BF4 quality LOL

[John_Abraham]

To be fair, the only game on that list I'd call "good" is Borderlands (the first one).

Wow dude. All three of those games are excellent.

 

[hellrazor]

Skyrim is most definitely not excellent, and the Mass Effect series was crap after the first one.

 

[H82LUZ73]

So you wanted me to foretell the future and wait for a Black Friday deal for the game to be discounted?

It doesn't even matter how much it costs. EA keeps doing the same thing. They have an open "beta" for their games, they fix nothing because it's too close to launch, effectively making this "beta" a demo to build hype. Then they release the "final" product in a broke ass state. Really what they've done is trick everyone into buying a game at full price so they can perform their beta test on OUR money instead of THEIRS.

They did it with BF3, MOH: Warfighter, Sim City, and now BF4.

And you guys wonder why after the Alpha and closed beta i did, I NEVER BOUGHT BF4 and i got my cash back from the $149 pre order.Maybe i seen something in both test 4 months apart that i did not like at all .........Its good that EA is being Sued maybe now that the investors are the one behind it ,They might actually let developer like DICE and few more actually work out bugs and test longer then what they did for Bf4.

 

[Frick]

I'm happy to see you agree with me, but to call Mass Effect, Skyrim, and Borderlands "[not] that good"? Are you kidding me right now?

Naah. Skyrim has a nice world, and while it has lots of content plenty of it is meaningless, not to mention it's just another high fantasy adventure game with "awesumh" features (dragons! shouts!) and it has "immershun", which means .... I don't know what that means. Mass Effect tries to be too many things and becomes just an avarage game, and I didn't care for the story. I played the first game for like 10 hours, quit of boredom and now i can't remember anything about it other than it being a bland action rpg, plus I can't stand the over-the-shoulder perspective, and it has a cover system. Borderlands too was boring. They are like the big blockbuster movies, not bad as such, just ... pretty boring and mass produced. It's the same with most games, they are there to bring profit to someone. Slap on big tits, some forced sex scenes and bad language and call it "mature"; boom, instant money and endless fan fiction about blowjobs. Slap on some new guns and textures and call it n+1; boom, instant money. Give it guns and tits and dragons and stacked dragons with guns and it becomes this, basicly. Take a respected series, dumb it down, add more nukes and GOTY achieved.

If a feature can be described as awesome, it should probably be cut. Kill your darlings and all that.

There are exceptions obviously. The biggest one is probably Valve, because Portal and HL(2 at least) has some of the best character development and dialouge in the bussiness, despite them being what they are.

 

[John_Abraham]

If a feature can be described as awesome, it should probably be cut.

Have you guys even played these games?

 

[WhiteNoise]

Have you guys even played these games?

I actually agree with you as in two of those games were plenty fun and I really enjoyed them (Skyrim & ME) but Borderlands was lame. Though for some reason I did like Borderlands 2.

 

[KainXS]

Naah. Skyrim has a nice world, and while it has lots of content plenty of it is meaningless, not to mention it's just another high fantasy adventure game with "awesumh" features (dragons! shouts!) and it has "immershun", which means .... I don't know what that means. Mass Effect tries to be too many things and becomes just an avarage game, and I didn't care for the story. I played the first game for like 10 hours, quit of boredom and now i can't remember anything about it other than it being a bland action rpg, plus I can't stand the over-the-shoulder perspective, and it has a cover system. Borderlands too was boring. They are like the big blockbuster movies, not bad as such, just ... pretty boring and mass produced. It's the same with most games, they are there to bring profit to someone. Slap on big tits, some forced sex scenes and bad language and call it "mature"; boom, instant money and endless fan fiction about blowjobs. Slap on some new guns and textures and call it n+1; boom, instant money. Give it guns and tits and dragons and stacked dragons with guns and it becomes this, basicly. Take a respected series, dumb it down, add more nukes and GOTY achieved.

If a feature can be described as awesome, it should probably be cut. Kill your darlings and all that.

There are exceptions obviously. The biggest one is probably Valve, because Portal and HL(2 at least) has some of the best character development and dialouge in the bussiness, despite them being what they are.

Thats true but skyrim while I won't say its a good game its not a bad game either and Mass Effect, I liked it because it was different and it kinda felt right, I loved the planet scanning for resources and the rare times when you could land on one the story was not that bad either, If ME2 was improved on storywise and expanded upon the series could really been something. I actually did finish borderlands but I could not finish borderlands 2, it was alot of the same things as 1 just on a different planet with a kinda boring comic storyline unlike say Portal/2 which does it right.

 

[John_Abraham]

Thats true but skyrim while I won't say its a good game its not a bad game either and Mass Effect 1, I liked it because it was different and it kinda felt right, I loved the planet scanning for resources and the rare times when you could land on one the story was not that bad either, If ME1 was improved on storywise and expanded upon the series could really been something. I actually did finish borderlands but I could not finish borderlands 2, it was alot of the same things as 1 just on a different planet with a kinda boring comic storyline unlike say Portal/2 which does it right.

Borderlands 2 is on the same planet.

This is why I doubt your guys' opinions. Most of you probably haven't finished the games.

 

[KainXS]

yea i just remembered it was pandora lol, felt different lol just forgot thats all

 

[John_Abraham]

yea i just remembered it was pandora lol, felt different lol just forgot thats all

That's fine, and no offence to you personally, but when people voice an opinion about something when they've only played a small portion of a game, that's just not right.

 

[KainXS]

well I don't know how far I got into borderlands 2 because I never finished it but but I got to the part its revealed that angel was jacks daughter or something if I remember right is that still not that far into the game, I remember playing for a good while to get there.

 

[John_Abraham]

Well they mention the fact that they are Pandora many times. It's weird that you would get the impression it was on a different planet.

 

[KainXS]

I know it is, after I thought about it and realized lilith and the guys from 1 were on 2 thats when I remembered actually.

 

[hellrazor]

Have you guys even played these games?

Yes, I have. Mass Effect, like Frick said, was a bland action RPG; but unlike Frick, I actually enjoyed the writing and played it like a JRPG (which made it better). Mass Effect 2 was basically the same thing with a crappier inventory/equipment system and crappier writing where you play as the Six Million Dollar Man without the bionics running around doing crappy quests so that your team mates don't suck rancid donkey balls while doing various retarded things about the reapers until you fight some fucked up Earthbound-ending style baby reaper. Skyrim, on the other hand, is larger, blander, and has no decent writing at all to back it up, comes with a crappy crafting system where you forge 9001 iron daggers in the space of a few hours, go down 9001 dungeons and fight draugr/bandits/vampires looking for a MacGuffin because the quests all are crap, all while fighting dragons and doing the main story quests that pretty much boil down to fighting dragons that have names.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Excuse the tangent here, but EA didn't release Skyrim. If you don't like it, that's just fine. EA did release Mass Effects 1 and 2.

Foregoing the debate about whether people thought games were good, the only two relevant games to this discussion are the Mass Effects. They are relevant because EA was the publisher.


Turning a multi-page debate about non-objective game quality back on course, let's talk about EAs plan to make all games franchises. I'm not sure the Mass Effect series needed to have a multi-player component added to it (see ME3), but isn't that basically a modification of BF4 with Mass Effect skins? It was Mass Effect 3 that started this whole ball of customer hate rolling down-hill, was it not? ME3 had an ending controversy, EA was voted crappiest company two years in a row, then SimCity launched like a brick to the love-chunks.

While EA seems to be in a tail-spin, it seems like we could offer them some suggestions on how to improve their fortunes. Given the context, EA might actually listen. So, what advice should we offer EA (other than the spiteful "Burn motherf#####s, burn!")?

 

[Frick]

Borderlands 2 is on the same planet.

This is why I doubt your guys' opinions. Most of you probably haven't finished the games.

If a game that calls itself an RPG with a supposedly great story fails to make anything interesting within 10 hours I think I can safely say I will not enjoy the rest of the game. Skyrim I probably put at least 30 hours in, because as a hiking simulator it was great. I really enjoyed just walking around looking at things, climbing hilltops and looking at the views and so on. Bethsoft make great worlds, but they are not good at writing. I played the betademothing of Borderlands for a few hours, it bored me to tears. Post apocalyptic gunplay with vehicles and cellshading and something they call "an attitude", that is innovation right there.

This is the reason I put in "the examples work for me" btw (opinions), but I still think it's somewhat true. The AAA titles are rarely great achievements in anything but graphics, they are just refinements of old stories, because they are safe bets. And if someone does come up with a good idea they milk it until it's dry. New IP is risky. It's exactly the same reason why Hollywood only makes remakes these days. AAA gaming is Hollywood, there is no way around that.

Excuse the tangent here, but EA didn't release Skyrim. If you don't like it, that's just fine. EA did release Mass Effects 1 and 2.

Foregoing the debate about whether people thought games were good, the only two relevant games to this discussion are the Mass Effects. They are relevant because EA was the publisher.


Turning a multi-page debate about non-objective game quality back on course, let's talk about EAs plan to make all games franchises. I'm not sure the Mass Effect series needed to have a multi-player component added to it (see ME3), but isn't that basically a modification of BF4 with Mass Effect skins? It was Mass Effect 3 that started this whole ball of customer hate rolling down-hill, was it not? ME3 had an ending controversy, EA was voted crappiest company two years in a row, then SimCity launched like a brick to the love-chunks.

While EA seems to be in a tail-spin, it seems like we could offer them some suggestions on how to improve their fortunes. Given the context, EA might actually listen. So, what advice should we offer EA (other than the spiteful "Burn motherf#####s, burn!")?

Hey I'm objective AS TITS.

What we can advice them is this, IMO.


(also very much IMO, kill off Bioware)

 

[KainXS]

Turning a multi-page debate about non-objective game quality back on course, let's talk about EAs plan to make all games franchises. I'm not sure the Mass Effect series needed to have a multi-player component added to it (see ME3), but isn't that basically a modification of BF4 with Mass Effect skins? It was Mass Effect 3 that started this whole ball of customer hate rolling down-hill, was it not? ME3 had an ending controversy, EA was voted crappiest company two years in a row, then SimCity launched like a brick to the love-chunks.

While EA seems to be in a tail-spin, it seems like we could offer them some suggestions on how to improve their fortunes. Given the context, EA might actually listen. So, what advice should we offer EA (other than the spiteful "Burn motherf#####s, burn!")?

this is a really good look on this, I don't think the die hard battlefield and ME players will care though.

all I could think of is to say, they need to spend more time and fine tune these games before releasing them for example, on BF4(it was a gift) multiplayer sometimes I would get stuck reviving and I would have to leave the match and more then once I have had my campaign data lost which is frustrating and many many other bugs ontop of those. I also think they should treat their subsidiaries better, when you force DICE or Bioware to rush a game or your mixing and merging them into crazy forms thats not right(the studios not the games) and its bad pr, they also need to get away from the rep of them ruining game franchises like C&C which is not entirely true but people still blame them for it. But since John Riccitiello was kicked out EA has been getting better, for example getting rid of online passes among other things and that gave them good pr for a change, and they have built up alot of bad over the years.(for example, their anti-competitive practices with various sports games) they need to do things like this more, treat there customers better and stop being so greedy.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Hey I'm objective AS TITS.

My point was not to criticize your opinion, but to pull out the measuring stick.

Objective measures of quality are mechanical functionality, story coherence, and lack of bugs. These things can be functionally measured, and thus indicate if a game has been thoroughly tested and can function. The point being made about ME 1, ME2, and Skyrim does not relate to an objective quantity.

From previous posts, you believe the story in ME was not told well, the mechanics were not uniquely realized, and the RPG mechanics were crappy. Skyrim suffers from much the same, a profound dumbing down of the core mechanics, with a poor story. These things cannot be objectively measured, and thus are subject to people's interpretation. I think they are good, you think they are bad, both of us are correct. John_Abraham came forward without the understanding that personal taste does not make a game objectively good or bad, but you haven't exactly tried to point that out. BF4 isn't being snubbed because people who don't like shooters are saying it is bad, it is suffering from a lack of mechanical functionality and from experience crippling bugs.


Bringing this back around, EA is burning. We the consumers can either offer a hand to EA, and abstain from purchasing their more heinous games to show them what not to do; or we can keep buying their crap until everyone has the epiphany that they've been spoon-fed crap for the last three games, and suddenly stops buying their games all together. What exactly is you choice?

I, for one, am sticking with my ban on anything that requires Origin. After Crysis 2 I determined that any game that required Origin was not worth purchasing. I missed out on some decent games, but the enormous amount of crap that I missed has made it worth while. I've tried to take the high ground, and let EA have the benefit of doubt with Simcity. I tried to stand behind them when they finally started doing DRM in a less aggressive manner (look back on the original ME DRM, and Spore if your memory is fuzzy), after consumer backlash. The cynic in me stepped forward during the EA Humble Bundle, and for the new return policy. I'm not sure if the amazing games in EAs library can outweigh the crap they've done recently. If they can't, EA deserves to burn far more than THQ did....


Edit:
You know, I have to question whether I owe an apology here. This comment would have been better raised based upon Hellrazor's original post.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Wishful thinking but I hope this signals a turn from day-one patching to well debugged launches. Sure, they can't account for all the bugs but so many games these days are launched with significant known bugs. The only way they're going to stop that is if lawsuits like this become common place for botched launches.

 

[John_Abraham]

My point was not to criticize your opinion, but to pull out the measuring stick.

Objective measures of quality are mechanical functionality, story coherence, and lack of bugs. These things can be functionally measured, and thus indicate if a game has been thoroughly tested and can function. The point being made about ME 1, ME2, and Skyrim does not relate to an objective quantity.

From previous posts, you believe the story in ME was not told well, the mechanics were not uniquely realized, and the RPG mechanics were crappy. Skyrim suffers from much the same, a profound dumbing down of the core mechanics, with a poor story. These things cannot be objectively measured, and thus are subject to people's interpretation. I think they are good, you think they are bad, both of us are correct. John_Abraham came forward without the understanding that personal taste does not make a game objectively good or bad, but you haven't exactly tried to point that out. BF4 isn't being snubbed because people who don't like shooters are saying it is bad, it is suffering from a lack of mechanical functionality and from experience crippling bugs.


Bringing this back around, EA is burning. We the consumers can either offer a hand to EA, and abstain from purchasing their more heinous games to show them what not to do; or we can keep buying their crap until everyone has the epiphany that they've been spoon-fed crap for the last three games, and suddenly stops buying their games all together. What exactly is you choice?

I, for one, am sticking with my ban on anything that requires Origin. After Crysis 2 I determined that any game that required Origin was not worth purchasing. I missed out on some decent games, but the enormous amount of crap that I missed has made it worth while. I've tried to take the high ground, and let EA have the benefit of doubt with Simcity. I tried to stand behind them when they finally started doing DRM in a less aggressive manner (look back on the original ME DRM, and Spore if your memory is fuzzy), after consumer backlash. The cynic in me stepped forward during the EA Humble Bundle, and for the new return policy. I'm not sure if the amazing games in EAs library can outweigh the crap they've done recently. If they can't, EA deserves to burn far more than THQ did....

I didn't try to back up my statements because those three games (ME, Skyrim, and Borderlands) are universally known as good games. They have some of the highest average critic and users scores on Metacritic, which says a lot. I can understand you personally disliking aspects of the games, but to dislike or even hate them is just naive. And the claim that AAA games are now always bad because they are "safe bets" is also ridiculous. Borderlands started out with with typical graphics more in line with Fallout. It could have bombed because of that since the whole point of the game is that comic book feel with the ridiculous characters and enemies.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Bare in mind that all three named games are available on consoles and that a bulk of reviews come from console users. Due to the nature of consoles versus PCs, consoles tend to have fewer bugs because the hardware is more or less constant as well as Sony/Microsoft require validation before the game can be published. PCs don't have those benefits so it is up to the publishers' individual discretion when to publish. EA obviously pushed BF4 out the door before it was sufficiently triaged. I suspect the launch of Call of Duty: Ghosts had a lot to do with that. EA made a bad call and they're going to pay for it; the only reason why it stands out is because EA has been full of bad news after bad news lately.


Facts:
Mass Effect had two patches: 1.01a, 1.02
Skyrim had many patches.
Borderlands had eight patches: 1.01, 1.10, 1.20, 1.21, 1.30, 1.31, 1.40, 1.41

Bioware is exceptionally good at fixing bugs before launch so they have little need to patch after launch.

 

[John_Abraham]

I'm pretty sure the console version of BF4 have been having a lot more bugs and issues than the PC version since the console servers are all hosted by EA while the PC servers are almost all community hosted.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/11/06/b...claims-to-fix-two-of-the-most-common-crashes/

Most of the major bugs were server (runs on Windows or Linux presumably) and PC. Bugs on consoles can't be fixed very fast because of the validation process so they moved as much as they could to the servers. That may have had the unintended affect of causing wide-spread bugs.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

...
Facts:
Mass Effect had two patches: 1.01a, 1.02
Skyrim had many patches.
Borderlands had eight patches: 1.01, 1.10, 1.20, 1.21, 1.30, 1.31, 1.40, 1.41

Bioware is exceptionally good at fixing bugs before launch so they have little need to patch after launch.

Thank you FordGT90Concept, that is what I'm talking about. Objectively, Skyrim was terrible when it launched. It had a decently coherent story, but was crippled by bugs and the mechanics did not function as intended. Having played two of the ME games and Skyrim through to completion, they satisfy my personal desires. Given this, I believe they are good games, despite Skyrim being a hot mess (and thus objectively terrible) on launch (and for several months after). The catch is, my opinion only means sales dollars.

I can say that the Fifa, Madden, and Grand Tourismo games are all objectively good games. This does not change the fact that I thoroughly hate them. My opinion, and that of the online community, doesn't make a game objectively good. I don't agree with Frick and Hellrazor, but they have points that need to be made and valid criticism. If we were to deny that any flaws existed in these games then we are denying any potential progress. This has been EAs stance for the last few years, and why we are discussing their failings right now.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

ME 1.01 patch came out with Bring Down the Sky DLC. ME 1.02 patch I believe came out with Pinnacle Station which launched just a few months before ME2. There was a two year gap between the two patches I believe. ME really didn't need any patches at all. Mass Effect 2 only has two patches as well (1.01 and 1.02). Even with Mass Effect 3's ending uproar and the addition of multiplayer which the first two lack, it has only had four patches.

Perhaps what I'm trying to get at is that all of EA needs to adapt Bioware's triage routine. It clearly works even if it means games are sometimes delayed (like ME3).


But this is all peripheral. The lawsuit is happening because EA hyped the game, causing stocks to surge 11%, EA "officers" sold stocks just before the BF4 launch, and after the launch, EA's stocks plummeted 7%. The lawsuit likely wouldn't have happened if the EA "officers" hadn't dumped stock. To other investors, that looks like insider knowledge that wasn't publically admitted which is fraudulent. I think the case will likely be dismissed.