I wrote an article about boycotts and why I don't really like them.
http://randomtastic.com/2012/03/yes-i-k ... sucks-but/You can read it here but the basic jist of the article is that I've never seen a boycott that's ever worked. Remember that L4D2 boycott group on Steam? Most people don't, because many of it's members eventually gave in and brought the game anyway. The same happened with games like Mass Effect 3 and Diablo 3.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't post it however, and I highly recommend more people do these sorts of posts and then try and make their voice heard across a larger audience. I'm just very jaded in the way these posts usually work, which is to say they usually get forgotten about weeks later. People need to be consistent and constantly reinforce and update their ideas, so they don't get forgotten.
Successful protests can last months before any change actually happens. Unfortunately, a large portion of the gaming community is very lazy. We live in a world where instant gratification is key. People want things and they want them now, they want to be rewarded without work and they'd rather waste money on a game and then bitch about it rather than simply not buy it/boycott it.
I really like that article, I commented on the final paragraphs but I got a 403 when I submitted it, hopefully will go through if you require approval.
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I think the idea is that gamers are lazy and are far too attached to the games they used to love. They often complain but they always seem to buy the titles. It was great to see how many people bought L4D2/MW2 despite boycotting.
clyzm wrote:But I must stress that video games are hugely a cooperative effort. When making a game, decisions always conflict, resolve, then apply themselves in the game, and this goes for every branch of the creative process in making a game; programming, graphics, etc.
When you cut the process time for those decisions as EA does, the games will have controversial or unfinished aspects to them
I agree with you wholeheartedly that EA is the core of the problem and their practices are very malignant to the video game industry, but the products they release certainly aren't very bad (still, they are pretty shabby) and I wish you talked a lil bit more about the nightmare that Bioware and other devs deal with when presented with EA schedules for production
It's a very delicate thing to make a video game, but yeah, EA's practices need to go
I 100% agree with you, videogame efforts are a result of long period of time and hard work. But you must realise the conditions they're under to make this work. For example, something I learnt yesterday:
Have you seen Dead Space 3?, it is a bro-op shooter and is radically different and much more simple than the previous games. It turns out EA have said they want 5 million copies for DS3 or the IP (company too?) has its plug pulled.
There's been plenty of games I enjoyed from EA, such as Magic Carpet 2, Theme Park: World, Command and Conquer: Generals, The Sims series, Mirror's Edge, Spore, Crysis 2, Alice: Madness Returns and much more but they've all got something in common in that they were rushed out of the door with bugs and an abundance of cut content developers have spoken they had wanted to be included in their videogames. You see, this is the problem for me... these games could and should have been a lot better if EA would let them finish them or not hinder their creativity.
