7 ms·

I found the recent EA Battlefront 2 controversy hugely interesting. Gamers rebelling against micro-transactions, then being attacked for being greedy or selfish

I found the recent EA Battlefront 2 controversy hugely interesting. Gamers rebelling against micro-transactions, then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media. It really brought into picture that various interests of major players in that community are not inline creating a huge amount of tension. The journalists are basically a PR arm of the bigger corporations or a specific political agenda. This article seems to ignore the fact that often groups or tribes often form to protect their own interests by creating various forms of economic and/or social moats. The various groups are all trying to reduce competition by creating monopolies or gatekeepers, which in turn increases the tension or hostility between gamers and the mainstream journalists. It's pretty interesting seeing this occur in real-time. I'm still not sure how the "gamers" are organizing or whether its just an emergent reaction.

pvg 9y ago
What 'specific political agenda' are people who write about games part of?
- dawnbreez 9y ago
  One might cite news sources which oppose Gamergate as having a political agenda, since Gamergate quickly stopped being about the "five guys" allegations and became about the party lines that both sides drew.
- supercanuck 9y ago
  Increasing the $ per entertainment hour games provide.
  - pvg 9y ago
    That's not a political agenda.
    - MsMowz 9y ago
      Politics is, broadly, anything to do with interacting with other people. It's a recent phenomenon that only electoral politics is considered politics.
    - supercanuck 9y ago
      >Politics (from Greek: Politiká: Politika, definition "affairs of the cities") is the process of making decisions that apply to members of a group. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, particularly a state Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics
      - pvg 9y ago
        It's not a political agenda in the context used by the poster I'm replying to and the original article. Your use of the term would be equally silly (and 'supported' by the same helpful wikipedia article) if you'd said a review of SimCity has a political agenda because it talks about 'the affairs of cities'.
        pjc50 9y ago
        SimCity is hardly apolitical; it takes influence from the work of Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander.
        pvg 9y ago
        That would be a trenchant point if the opposite of 'apolitical' was 'political' or 'review of a thing' was the same as the thing. Neither are the case.
        tptacek 9y ago
        Christopher Alexander the architect? He's not a political theorist.
microcolonel 9y ago
When gamers organize, usually the press will mysteriously start making up a barrel of salacious lies about them. Some subset of the public then gets a nasty impression of them, and life goes on. This time, something of an organized boycott (by way of large numbers of people realizing that to purchase the game or its DLC is to be complicit in EA's merchandising choices) it really hit EA's bottom line, so they'll say whatever they can to discredit and play down the consumer's opinion of their product and practices.
- umanwizard 9y ago
  How do you know if it hit their bottom line or not, until their earnings report comes out?
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    They received so many returns that they removed the return page from their website, to force their customers to request returns over their rather poor telephone call centre. They then went on damage control, disabled (until this cools down) some of the features which were upsetting customers, and made sure everyone knew about it.
    - umanwizard 9y ago
      None of which actually proves that it meaningfully affected their revenue.
- deadlocked 9y ago
  This is nonsensical. In the first instance, all of the coverage at sites like Waypoint, Polygon, RPS and so on has been critical of EA's choices vis-á-vis Battlefront II. In the second, how can the press make up "salacious lies" about a demographic as varied and numerous as gamers?
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  You're assuming that the games media is actually defending EA, which isn't actually true as far as I can tell.
morsch 9y ago
Gamers rebelling against micro-transactions, then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media. Do you have an example of these attacks? Are they representative of the games media? Everything I've read was critical of the approach chosen by the dev/publisher. And there was no shortage of these articles, because I'm sure, like all controversies, this one generated a generous amount of clicks.
katastic 9y ago
So in otherwords, everything "Gamergate" said was true years ago while the MSM painted them as all virgin basement trolls. It's almost like the MSM will smear people and groups to protect their cash streams... Applicable image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPJ_4f7V4AEmnZt.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPJ_4f7V4AEmnZt.jpg:large There have literally been "journalists" who guested as voice actors in games they reviewed. Yeah. Or the time Microsoft gave everyone in the audience an Xbox One. People who would then go on to "review" their games. No bias there. And this one is pretty hilarious: http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/347103-cuphead-reignites-game-journalists-good-games-debate http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/347103-cuphead-reigni... "Cuphead Reignites the “Game Journalists Should Be Good at Games” Debate" How was this ever a debate? Would you buy a car from the review of someone who can't drive? Would you buy a gun from a review by someone who can't shoot? Would you fly on an airline from the review of someone who is afraid of flying? Would you use a product/programming language/service in your business on the recommendation from someone who doesn't even use the service? Let's all switch to VB .NET guys, this rep with a high school degree and no technical background recommends it. I sincerely miss Computer Gaming World. You can read any of their issues online in PDF format. Check them out and dare to compare their objectivity to today's sellouts. Back then people reviewed games because they loved the art form. Nowadays, you have to go to truly independent people on YouTube et al. Which is, surprise surprise, the very reason everyone has given up on traditional media. [edit] Mmmm, butthurt engage. I must have hit the nail on the head. =D You know you've made a sound argument when all they can do is downvote you instead of make a rebuttle.
- deadlocked 9y ago
  >There have literally been "journalists" who guested as voice actors in games they reviewed. Yeah. Citation needed. >Nowadays, you have to go to truly independent people on YouTube et al. Truly independent people who may or may not have a direct relationship with the publisher or developer whose games they're playing?
- pjc50 9y ago
  Gamergate used the consumer issues as a smokescreen for the hate campaign; one of their first campaigns was getting advertisers including Intel to exert pressure on the press to pull advertising from Gamasutra because they didn't like an article by Leigh Alexander.
chiaro 9y ago
The sticker price for games has stayed rock steady for decades now while budgets have only exploded (not to mention inflation). AAA budgets, $60 titles, and no microtransactions or subscriptions is absolutely a 'pick two' scenario, and will continue to be.
- izacus 9y ago
  That completely ignores the fact that audience and number of sold copies had grown as well. Games that have once sold 1 million copoies now sell in 5-10x as much. If anything the profits are now higher than ever.
  - chiaro 9y ago
    And budgets have exploded 200x from the 1-3M N64 game days. It's utterly disproportionate. If you look at the most profitable games (Blizzard, Valve, Riot) they're moving away from sticker prices altogether.
    - izacus 9y ago
      I'm not talking N64 days, e.g. typical EA example is Dead Space - the first one sold 1 million copies and was considered a huge success. Such a success that they bootstrapped a whole franchise. And that's not a N64 type game. It's third installment, Dead Space 3, was slated to sell minimum of 5 million copies. With less than 5 million, EA decided that it's not going to be profitable enough. It also had microtransactions and DLCs on top of those required 5 million copies sold. Who's greedy here?
- maxsilver 9y ago
  > while budgets have only exploded This is not really true. This is easy for us to check since many of these companies are publicly traded and are required to report their financials. As one example, EA claims in their public filings that EA's cost for AAA game development has decreased over the last ten years (roughly $300 million less dev costs per year today, inflation adjusted, than they spent in 2009). > AAA budgets, $60 titles, and no microtransactions or subscriptions is absolutely a 'pick two' scenario. It's not -- and again, we can know this for a fact from their public financials. EA claims their traditional AAA games (sales only, explicitly excluding any microtransactions or lootboxes) carry roughly 60% profit margin all on their own. They definitely don't need the extra gambling revenue, but it's obvious why they want it.
larsiusprime 9y ago
> then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media This is called the "Hostile Media Effect" [1] All I saw was the press uniformly calling EA out for their monumentally stupid mistakes and disregard for customers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect
egypturnash 9y ago
I don't think I saw a single article about EA that painted them in a favorable light over this one. "You paid like $60 for this game and would have to spend like $90 on average to unlock Darth Vader, or grind for [some large number of hours]" is not a good look. This isn't the first thing EA's fucked up by being greedy for microtransactions, and it won't be the last time they roll it back after their customers reacting loudly enough that someone who doesn't give a damn about whatever franchise they're running into the ground by doing this hears about it - I mean, I don't give a shit about SW, much less SW:BF2, and I'm aware of this, and my entire mental picture of the story is "EA is a bunch of greedheads as usual".
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
> then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media. By who? I saw plenty of games media joining the EA-bashing, and none opposing it. EA deserves the pummeling they're getting. I'm just annoyed because I wish we could get people to devote half the energy to serious issues that they'll spend on getting angry about video games.

pvg 9y ago

What 'specific political agenda' are people who write about games part of?

dawnbreez 9y ago
One might cite news sources which oppose Gamergate as having a political agenda, since Gamergate quickly stopped being about the "five guys" allegations and became about the party lines that both sides drew.
supercanuck 9y ago
Increasing the $ per entertainment hour games provide.
- pvg 9y ago
  That's not a political agenda.
  - MsMowz 9y ago
    Politics is, broadly, anything to do with interacting with other people. It's a recent phenomenon that only electoral politics is considered politics.
  - supercanuck 9y ago
    >Politics (from Greek: Politiká: Politika, definition "affairs of the cities") is the process of making decisions that apply to members of a group. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, particularly a state Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics
    - pvg 9y ago
      It's not a political agenda in the context used by the poster I'm replying to and the original article. Your use of the term would be equally silly (and 'supported' by the same helpful wikipedia article) if you'd said a review of SimCity has a political agenda because it talks about 'the affairs of cities'.
      - pjc50 9y ago
        SimCity is hardly apolitical; it takes influence from the work of Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander.
        pvg 9y ago
        That would be a trenchant point if the opposite of 'apolitical' was 'political' or 'review of a thing' was the same as the thing. Neither are the case.
        tptacek 9y ago
        Christopher Alexander the architect? He's not a political theorist.

microcolonel 9y ago

When gamers organize, usually the press will mysteriously start making up a barrel of salacious lies about them. Some subset of the public then gets a nasty impression of them, and life goes on. This time, something of an organized boycott (by way of large numbers of people realizing that to purchase the game or its DLC is to be complicit in EA's merchandising choices) it really hit EA's bottom line, so they'll say whatever they can to discredit and play down the consumer's opinion of their product and practices.

umanwizard 9y ago
How do you know if it hit their bottom line or not, until their earnings report comes out?
- microcolonel 9y ago
  They received so many returns that they removed the return page from their website, to force their customers to request returns over their rather poor telephone call centre. They then went on damage control, disabled (until this cools down) some of the features which were upsetting customers, and made sure everyone knew about it.
  - umanwizard 9y ago
    None of which actually proves that it meaningfully affected their revenue.
deadlocked 9y ago
This is nonsensical. In the first instance, all of the coverage at sites like Waypoint, Polygon, RPS and so on has been critical of EA's choices vis-á-vis Battlefront II. In the second, how can the press make up "salacious lies" about a demographic as varied and numerous as gamers?
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
You're assuming that the games media is actually defending EA, which isn't actually true as far as I can tell.

morsch 9y ago

Gamers rebelling against micro-transactions, then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media. Do you have an example of these attacks? Are they representative of the games media? Everything I've read was critical of the approach chosen by the dev/publisher. And there was no shortage of these articles, because I'm sure, like all controversies, this one generated a generous amount of clicks.

katastic 9y ago

So in otherwords, everything "Gamergate" said was true years ago while the MSM painted them as all virgin basement trolls. It's almost like the MSM will smear people and groups to protect their cash streams... Applicable image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPJ_4f7V4AEmnZt.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPJ_4f7V4AEmnZt.jpg:large There have literally been "journalists" who guested as voice actors in games they reviewed. Yeah. Or the time Microsoft gave everyone in the audience an Xbox One. People who would then go on to "review" their games. No bias there. And this one is pretty hilarious: http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/347103-cuphead-reignites-game-journalists-good-games-debate http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/347103-cuphead-reigni... "Cuphead Reignites the “Game Journalists Should Be Good at Games” Debate" How was this ever a debate? Would you buy a car from the review of someone who can't drive? Would you buy a gun from a review by someone who can't shoot? Would you fly on an airline from the review of someone who is afraid of flying? Would you use a product/programming language/service in your business on the recommendation from someone who doesn't even use the service? Let's all switch to VB .NET guys, this rep with a high school degree and no technical background recommends it. I sincerely miss Computer Gaming World. You can read any of their issues online in PDF format. Check them out and dare to compare their objectivity to today's sellouts. Back then people reviewed games because they loved the art form. Nowadays, you have to go to truly independent people on YouTube et al. Which is, surprise surprise, the very reason everyone has given up on traditional media. [edit] Mmmm, butthurt engage. I must have hit the nail on the head. =D You know you've made a sound argument when all they can do is downvote you instead of make a rebuttle.

deadlocked 9y ago
>There have literally been "journalists" who guested as voice actors in games they reviewed. Yeah. Citation needed. >Nowadays, you have to go to truly independent people on YouTube et al. Truly independent people who may or may not have a direct relationship with the publisher or developer whose games they're playing?
pjc50 9y ago
Gamergate used the consumer issues as a smokescreen for the hate campaign; one of their first campaigns was getting advertisers including Intel to exert pressure on the press to pull advertising from Gamasutra because they didn't like an article by Leigh Alexander.

chiaro 9y ago

The sticker price for games has stayed rock steady for decades now while budgets have only exploded (not to mention inflation). AAA budgets, $60 titles, and no microtransactions or subscriptions is absolutely a 'pick two' scenario, and will continue to be.

izacus 9y ago
That completely ignores the fact that audience and number of sold copies had grown as well. Games that have once sold 1 million copoies now sell in 5-10x as much. If anything the profits are now higher than ever.
- chiaro 9y ago
  And budgets have exploded 200x from the 1-3M N64 game days. It's utterly disproportionate. If you look at the most profitable games (Blizzard, Valve, Riot) they're moving away from sticker prices altogether.
  - izacus 9y ago
    I'm not talking N64 days, e.g. typical EA example is Dead Space - the first one sold 1 million copies and was considered a huge success. Such a success that they bootstrapped a whole franchise. And that's not a N64 type game. It's third installment, Dead Space 3, was slated to sell minimum of 5 million copies. With less than 5 million, EA decided that it's not going to be profitable enough. It also had microtransactions and DLCs on top of those required 5 million copies sold. Who's greedy here?
maxsilver 9y ago
> while budgets have only exploded This is not really true. This is easy for us to check since many of these companies are publicly traded and are required to report their financials. As one example, EA claims in their public filings that EA's cost for AAA game development has decreased over the last ten years (roughly $300 million less dev costs per year today, inflation adjusted, than they spent in 2009). > AAA budgets, $60 titles, and no microtransactions or subscriptions is absolutely a 'pick two' scenario. It's not -- and again, we can know this for a fact from their public financials. EA claims their traditional AAA games (sales only, explicitly excluding any microtransactions or lootboxes) carry roughly 60% profit margin all on their own. They definitely don't need the extra gambling revenue, but it's obvious why they want it.

larsiusprime 9y ago

> then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media This is called the "Hostile Media Effect" [1] All I saw was the press uniformly calling EA out for their monumentally stupid mistakes and disregard for customers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect

egypturnash 9y ago

I don't think I saw a single article about EA that painted them in a favorable light over this one. "You paid like $60 for this game and would have to spend like $90 on average to unlock Darth Vader, or grind for [some large number of hours]" is not a good look. This isn't the first thing EA's fucked up by being greedy for microtransactions, and it won't be the last time they roll it back after their customers reacting loudly enough that someone who doesn't give a damn about whatever franchise they're running into the ground by doing this hears about it - I mean, I don't give a shit about SW, much less SW:BF2, and I'm aware of this, and my entire mental picture of the story is "EA is a bunch of greedheads as usual".

PhasmaFelis 9y ago

> then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media. By who? I saw plenty of games media joining the EA-bashing, and none opposing it. EA deserves the pummeling they're getting. I'm just annoyed because I wish we could get people to devote half the energy to serious issues that they'll spend on getting angry about video games.