ROSS'S GAME DUNGEON: DARKSPORE

[Schwarzwald]

Ross at the risk of sounding naive and candid, what do you think about the feasibility and impact of a boycott of EA ?

 

The major problem I think is not getting supporters here, but rather spreading awareness of the online game extinction. I don't mean to brag but you have a very sizable fanbase and I would be willing to bet a good deal if not most of us would be willing to follow through on a boycott. It could just be a seasonal boycott during summer or Christmas or even a yearlong blackout. Even with a fraction of us boycotting, it may be enough to get their attention especially when paired with the petition.

 

But maybe I'm being overly optimistic . I just admire your commitment. Don't be afraid to speak out in what you believe.

[Forgot_My_Account]

Ross at the risk of sounding naive and candid, what do you think about the feasibility and impact of a boycott of EA ?

In the video, Ross said that a boycott doesn't hold much water due to some gamers being inherently loyal to a franchise, such as Madden, and a variety of other reason that will lead to them buying EA products even if they agreed to participate in the boycott. Hurting EA's wallet isn't really feasible on a massive scale.

 

I think that becoming a nuisance to EA will at least make them comment on the matter, thus attracting more attention to it, and therefore is the best approach. Because this isn't just an EA problem, this is an industry-wide problem and a bad business practice that needs to be discussed in a wider forum with much more input from both developers and players, and that will undoubtedly create the circumstances needed for a change.

 

 

 

On another note, I don't live in America, and postage is expensive. If anyone can think of anything else I can do to help, please post it.

[Selfsurprise]

I found this one really inspiring. I think for the Battleforge episode the conclusion was rather pessimistic and your tell Ross felt a little helpless. But this is something everyone can get involved, more involved than a half-baked or some hollow call for a boycott, but still feasible for the majority of us. I'm commited to writing some passionate but otherwise civil letters to the heads of EA. Thanks Ross, for articulating the frustrations of gamers better than most It might be worth adding the address of Samantha Ryan, who is also in charge of EA's Mobile and Maxis wings, the latter being especially pertinent to the video.

 

Attn: Samantha Ryan, Senior Vice President

209 Redwood Shores Pkwy.,

Redwood City, CA 94065

USA

 

On another note, I don't live in America, and postage is expensive. If anyone can think of anything else I can do to help, please post it.

 

If you write up your intended message/s and post them here (or better still PM it to me), I wouldn't be opposed to printing out and mailing your letters alongside my own. I intend to send letters to the all four individuals in the videos description as well as the vice president Ken Barker if I can get a hold of his corporate address. Once I'm done i'll send them out as a batch. They are pretty much going to the same place.

[krinkleneck]

I finished a conversation with LGR, and he's prepping to do a video on this in the near future. He isn't sure what tone he wants to send with the video, but the reason this video is being made is because "Dark Spore" is being shut down (He thought it was a great coincidence). Let's hope it's a good one. Maybe Ross could get in contact with him.

[Seattleite]

Ross, I am 1,000,000% on board with this. I also suggest people adopt my "Fuck EA" policy of just pirating any EA game that they want, because fuck EA, and fuck giving EA our money. It's not a real boycott, but it'll hit them just as hard, and we don't even have to give up playing their games.

[RandomGuy]

Ross, I am 1,000,000% on board with this. I also suggest people adopt my "Fuck EA" policy of just pirating any EA game that they want, because fuck EA, and fuck giving EA our money. It's not a real boycott, but it'll hit them just as hard, and we don't even have to give up playing their games.

Spoiled brats like you are the reason the single-player gaming industry is dead in China right now. You are also the reason that people think microtransactions, multiplayer only games, and always]-online games are a good idea. Because they're much much harder to pirate.

 

When Spore finally came out, it was a flop. This was often blamed on the game's terrible DRM, and though the DRM was indeed terrible and a harbinger of things to come, I actually think it's just a scapegoat here.

It always amuses me when people think Spore's failure is not at all related to it being the most pirated game of all time (as of 2008).

[Heliocentrical]

Ross, I am 1,000,000% on board with this. I also suggest people adopt my "Fuck EA" policy of just pirating any EA game that they want, because fuck EA, and fuck giving EA our money. It's not a real boycott, but it'll hit them just as hard, and we don't even have to give up playing their games.

Right and we should totally screw over the games company out any chance of pay and increase the likelihood of them shut down. Fuck employees who actually take the time to put effort into their games because they feel that they owe it to themselves to have some integrity. They don't deserve any chance making a livelihood from their own work. People like you make me sick. Do you have any sense of common decency? Malicious activity will get us nowhere and pure malevolence isn't what we're here to accomplish. We want to calmly illicit a reasonable response from EA and see if it will snowball from there. That it, nothing more and if nothing happens then no harm done. Atleast I hope so.

[Seattleite]

If you think piracy stands any chance of harming a juggernaut like EA, you're wrong. This is just an easy way to get around how much gamers suck at boycotts. No amount of piracy has ever hurt a company, ever, and EA is never going to shut down no matter what we do.

 

You know what's actually bad for the employees of EA? WORKING FOR EA. It's one of the most abusive companies in America, it's not "Walmart" bad, but it's pretty damned close. It barely pays anything, it's got shit job security, it hires and fires like nobody's business, and has no respect for its creators, even at the highest levels, being totally willing to throw all the high-level devs out the door and replace them with entirely new ones on a whim, and they've done that to several franchises.

 

Anybody working at EA is there short-term, even the executives, because EA is fucking evil. It grabs people, squeezes everything it can out of them, and throws them away. There's no art and no integrity in making an EA game, either. You get dropped into place, told what shovelware to make, and then when it's over they fire you. The shit job will not be in any way different if sales dropped 2% because a bunch of pissed off people stopped buying their games, and as far as they or anybody at EA is concerned, piracy is no different than if we boycotted them instead. They won't get paid any less, they won't be there for less time, nothing will happen other than EA will have slightly less up-trend than usual.

 

Meanwhile, on our end, we don't give any money to EA. And not giving money to EA, no matter how you go about it, is a noble effort. And maybe they'll even notice that their fancy DRM is counter-productive because the more they do it, the more their games get pirated (which is the actual trend, for the record), and they'll stop with pointless DRM that doesn't work and annoys the shit out of their customers. Probably not, though.

 

This is not a bad idea. There also isn't anything morally wrong with it because EA is not going to be hurt by it, and even if it did they CAN'T treat their employees any shittier than they already do and EA itself is not a person. I have always been for using piracy as a form of punishment. There's very few times I've found it appropriate, and the only game company that has ever warranted it is EA.

[Forgot_My_Account]

This is not a bad idea. There also isn't anything morally wrong with it because EA is not going to be hurt by it, and even if it did they CAN'T treat their employees any shittier than they already do and EA itself is not a person. I have always been for using piracy as a form of punishment. There's very few times I've found it appropriate, and the only game company that has ever warranted it is EA.

 

OK, you're right, it doesn't hurt EA. Neither boycott nor piracy will leave a dent in their fiscal reports. But you're only looking at only one very small side of it: us being consumers of EA games. What about us being activists? What about us bringing an industry-wide change?

 

What can we do that DOES leave its mark?

 

I don't know. There are smarter, more knowledgeable people than me. Starting with letters is fine, at least it warrants some sort of response if done on a wide scale.

 

What I do know is: Associating ourselves and inciting others to commit illegal activities de-legitimizes our claims. Please edit your posts, as even a small trace of it can, and probably will, be used to dismiss us. We represent a voice that needs to be heard and acknowledged, not heard and immediately categorized as criminal.

[Heliocentrical]

@Seattleite no, you're completely in the wrong and have already given up by saying you'll pirate. Piracy will only entrench publishers further into DRM, not less. I care about the games industry as a whole and will simply not buy the games released under that a publisher that is killing games. I will not give into to the ultimately self damning and malicious action that is piracy You have given no principles to abide to in order to give games industry the chance it needs. I will gladly give the games industry that chance every opportunity I can. We may be small and we might possibly not do anything impactful in the end. But atleast we'll put some effort and thought into how we conduct ourselves.

 

If we don't conduct ourselves properly Publishers will effectively wage DRM warfare against us the consumers because actions of Pirates. Pirates have effectively invalidated the actions of digital distributors such as GOG and humble bundle for offering the option to go DRM free. They will continue to make the consumer look like to villain and treated as such. These actions of uncaring ignorance speak volumes and I will not stand idly by to watch as these actions erode what's left games industry's integrity away.

[Seattleite]

Nowhere in your rambling, incoherent response did you come close to anything that could be considered a rational response.

 

You're an idiot shill, blaming piracy for every malady in the industry. The truth is that these issues actually exist because corporations suck. Corporations will always find a scapegoat to point to whenever they do something they know will be unpopular. It's always pirates. They're always lying.

 

Take the PC release of Gears of War. It was a buggy shitstorm of a port that was nearly completely unplayable and proved Epic couldn't port for shit. But what did Epic say their reason for now releasing a PC version of Gears of War 2 was? "Because pirates!" NOBODY FUCKING PIRATED THAT GAME. IT WAS NOT WORTH THE TIME IT TOOK TO DOWNLOAD. That was a bold-faced fucking lie, and everybody who played the PC Gears of War knew that Epic actually cancelled the PC version of #2 because the first one was horrible. But idiot sheep like you believed every word and shook your fist at all six pirates who downloaded it.

 

EA's excuse for the always-online DRM? Piracy. Of course, EA games are actually pirated more the more intense their DRM becomes, because piracy is DRM-free and their DRM is a complete pain in the ass, so they're just giving away a little of their sales, so assuming people running an enormous corporation that masterfully manipulates the markets is not impossibly stupid, there has to be another reason. It should be obvious. The real reason for always-online was to allow them to kill games at will. EA loves to kill games, they always have and always will. The reason for this is simple. A game that is alive is a game that is still being played. A game that's still being played is a reason not to buy its newest sequel, Carbon Copy IX. It's also a reason not to buy a similar game.

 

These companies do this on purpose. That's the reason the newest game consoles had no backwards compatibility, because people would just keep playing the old games and that would reduce sales of the new ones. That's the reason why they shut down the servers for multiplayer games after time, even if there's still a LOT of people player it. They need to force people into newer ones, so they will spend more money.

 

Do you seriously not understand that fucking the consumers is their entire business model? The entire AAA industry is corrupt, especially the giants in it, EA, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. They don't deserve a chance. They had their chance, and they chose to emphasize shovel-ware because it makes more money, and go to increasingly disgusting lengths to force us all to buy the newest ones.

 

But no, you'll just blame piracy for everything bad in the industry. I mean, it's not like corporations are legally obligated to maximise profits at all costs or anything, and all of these things they're doing will raise profits massively whether pirates exist or not, and they can just blame the pirates even for dick moves they pull with games just about nobody pirated since idiots like you are so eager to buy into that bullshit.

 

And that's not even getting into the fact that piracy and boycotting have exactly the same effect on the company and the market, and companies are incapable of telling the difference. We are not responsible for the actions of profit-driven, greedy corporations. They are. And you're an idiot for buying their excuses. But this thread has been derailed too long. I've said all I need to.

[hyperjon]

You know what's actually bad for the employees of EA? WORKING FOR EA. It's one of the most abusive companies in America, it's not "Walmart" bad, but it's pretty damned close. It barely pays anything, it's got shit job security, it hires and fires like nobody's business, and has no respect for its creators, even at the highest levels, being totally willing to throw all the high-level devs out the door and replace them with entirely new ones on a whim, and they've done that to several franchises.

This is more the truth than anything. I had a friend work at EA 15 years ago as a tester. Had nothing good to say about it—just stress and more stress. One day his car broke down. And like that, he was fired. No ifs, ands, or buts—just fired. Zero fucks.

 

(Not in any way the worst story ever, but close to home, y'know?)

 

Anybody working at EA is there short-term, even the executives, because EA is fucking evil. It grabs people, squeezes everything it can out of them, and throws them away. There's no art and no integrity in making an EA game, either. You get dropped into place, told what shovelware to make, and then when it's over they fire you. The shit job will not be in any way different if sales dropped 2% because a bunch of pissed off people stopped buying their games, and as far as they or anybody at EA is concerned, piracy is no different than if we boycotted them instead. They won't get paid any less, they won't be there for less time, nothing will happen other than EA will have slightly less up-trend than usual.

 

Meanwhile, on our end, we don't give any money to EA. And not giving money to EA, no matter how you go about it, is a noble effort. And maybe they'll even notice that their fancy DRM is counter-productive because the more they do it, the more their games get pirated (which is the actual trend, for the record), and they'll stop with pointless DRM that doesn't work and annoys the shit out of their customers. Probably not, though.

While it doesn't make sense for the end users (as it shouldn't), the decision to add DRM was made by the people with a vested monetary interest in the company—i.e. major stockholders. Their goal? To stop losing money on their cash cow(s). Obviously it's not made for the consumer in mind (which is why bad business decisions go forward *coughmicrosoftcough*).

 

Out of touch? Yeah. While they can reach out to their user base, they'll first and foremost be thinking about retaining profits in mind. That'll never go away. So cutting down competition is viable, DRM is viable, and microtransactions are viable (i'm looking at you, pay-$5-to-reload-your-clip shooting game). Hence, not contributing to their business model is a good response to that.

 

Regardless of what defense-force thugs come out to pressure you otherwise, you're ultimately in control. Support or don't.

[cwnmamau]

You know what's actually bad for the employees of EA? WORKING FOR EA. It's one of the most abusive companies in America, it's not "Walmart" bad, but it's pretty damned close. It barely pays anything, it's got shit job security, it hires and fires like nobody's business, and has no respect for its creators, even at the highest levels, being totally willing to throw all the high-level devs out the door and replace them with entirely new ones on a whim, and they've done that to several franchises.

 

Anybody working at EA is there short-term, even the executives, because EA is fucking evil. It grabs people, squeezes everything it can out of them, and throws them away. There's no art and no integrity in making an EA game, either. You get dropped into place, told what shovelware to make, and then when it's over they fire you.

 

This behavior is not unique to EA. This is very common in the animation industry. You work sixty to a hundred hour weeks with no overtime pay for months, only to get fired as soon as your part in the movie is done. Then a whole new crew is brought on for the next movie. I've got a friend who bounces from company to company. No job security, no way to put down roots, no stable relationships. Dallas for six months, California for a year, Vancouver for six months, back to California...

[Seattleite]

This behavior is not unique to EA.

 

Didn't say it was, though EA is especially bad about it, where most game companies only do it to a few specific categories of employees, most notably QA where the "burn out and fire" practice is just about 100% universal. The fact that other companies do it too doesn't make it better, it makes it worse. Especially since EA is still especially bad about it.

[Heliocentrical]

@Seattleite What do not you understand? DRM only exists because pirates exist. If everyone had just been reasonable instead resorting piracy then DRM wouldn't exist in it's current form. It's simply not disputable. If you can't accept that it's partially the consumer's fault for the state that the games industry is in then that's your problem. If you know anything about the history of this industry then you know this to be the case. You can't just write history off with no evidence to contrary. At this point you've done nothing but spout your own opinion with no evidence to back your claims. Which would be fine if you could handle criticism and be reasonable about it. But it's obvious we can't have a reasonable conversation about this so I'll end this right here and now.

 

Why are you here when no one will accept your dubious claims? I'll admit you've done a reasonable job for someone with no evidence. Why do even bother you hanging out with us when you consider all of us to nothing but idiot shills? As you've admitted yourself "In summary: I need to stop being so damned surprised when people are so damned stupid.". Is your ego so fragile that it needs to be constantly stroked at every given opportunity to make yourself feel important and so it doesn't shatter right before your eyes? It is obvious to me that you think your opinion is invalid. You wouldn't have been so defensive and insecure of it otherwise. Do you honestly have nothing better to with your time that you have put down everyone you come across to make yourself feel better? If you honestly think your opinion 100% right then go right ahead. No one(myself included) is stopping you but until you actually produce something that isn't blatant hyperbole then I suggest that you do something constructive with your time if your not willing to give other people's opinions a passing thought.

[Bman]

1st page- a rational and ok debate.

2nd page- well people don't need to agree on everything...

3rd page- Oh, there it is the internet i know

 

So, why instead of being the same old pile of people with too much opinions here,we try to stick to the plan eh?

Send the letters, think about other things we could do. Talking about other things, someone who is close to EA could send some flowers, memorial wreaths, with the names of the games that died. You can ignore emails, you can try to ignore letters, but flowers? Those you just can't. For me, i don't think it's evil sending flowers (just don't send to anyone who's allergic) And it's a pretty good way to be noticeable.

But who am i? just someone who's here trying to give an idea and help with a cause...i'm nobody in the end.

[Seattleite]

@Seattleite What do not you understand? DRM only exists because pirates exist. If everyone had just been reasonable instead resorting piracy then DRM wouldn't exist in it's current form. It's simply not disputable.

 

DRM predates organized piracy. Even Nintendo cartridges that are impossible to pirate had DRM. So much so, Earthbound is LEGENDARY for its horrific DRM. What you just said was a blatant falsehood.

 

If you can't accept that it's partially the consumer's fault for the state that the games industry is in then that's your problem. If you know anything about the history of this industry then you know this to be the case. You can't just write history off with no evidence to contrary. At this point you've done nothing but spout your own opinion with no evidence to back your claims.

 

I guess to you, specific well-known examples don't count as evidence. Either that, or you can't read so well and skipped that entire post.

 

Which would be fine if you could handle criticism and be reasonable about it. But it's obvious we can't have a reasonable conversation about this so I'll end this right here and now.

 

Which would be fine if you would pretend I'm right like like a shill, because I can only see my own position as reasonable.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

Why are you here when no one will accept your dubious claims? I'll admit you've done a reasonable job for someone with no evidence.

 

Again, you have ACTUALLY provided no evidence. I have, three times so far in this thread. I provided three strong examples, and you flat-out ignored them.

 

Why do even bother you hanging out with us when you consider all of us to nothing but idiot shills? As you've admitted yourself "In summary: I need to stop being so damned surprised when people are so damned stupid.".

 

I don't consider all of the site idiot shills. I consider you an idiot shill. Stop assuming other people agree with you.

 

Is your ego so fragile that it needs to be constantly stroked at every given opportunity to make yourself feel important and so it doesn't shatter right before your eyes? It is obvious to me that you think your opinion is invalid. You wouldn't have been so defensive and insecure of it otherwise.

 

Where I come from, we like to call that a "stretch". Or maybe "projection".

 

I'm neither defensive nor insecure. I'm right, and unwilling to make false concessions to placate you. You can't tell the difference.

 

Do you honestly have nothing better to with your time that you have put down everyone you come across to make yourself feel better?

 

Definitely "projection", considering you're the one who started with the insults.

 

See, I don't do this to make myself feel better. This whole stupid thing just makes me feel tired and disappointed. I do this because you believe something that is simply not true.

 

If you honestly think your opinion 100% right then go right ahead.

 

100%? No. I'm sure some DRM was actually designed to prevent piracy. It doesn't work, at all, but some was. That's not the destructive kind, the kind I'm talking about. Things like limited disk uses (like EA had for a while), and always-online single player games (like EA does all the time). Those have nothing to do with piracy. That's just EA's planned obsolescence, masquerading as true DRM.

 

Fun part? The least pirated games of all time are most indie games. They don't HAVE any DRM. Oh, and let's not forget Stardock's old games, which were pretty popular for a while. I have some pretty fond memories of Galciv. Once again, no DRM. Didn't get pirated much.

 

If the industry hasn't figured out that DRM doesn't work, then they're really dumb. I don't think they're really dumb.

 

No one(myself included) is stopping you but until you actually produce something that isn't blatant hyperbole then I suggest that you do something constructive with your time if your not willing to give other people's opinions a passing thought.

 

Who said I don't give your opinions thought? I do. Or rather, I have. Before you ever said it, because I've heard all this nonsense before, thought it through, did my research on the matter and came to the conclusion that your stance on piracy was complete nonsense. Of course, at the time, it was music piracy and it was Metallica's stance. And then I re-evaluated it again for other forms of piracy and found the same things almost universally true.

 

Piracy never occurs at a high enough rate to hurt anybody. If everybody pirated everything, yeah, there'd be a breakdown of all digital markets. But most people don't pirate at all, and those who do still buy *most* of the things they want, only pirating on occasion. We also often legally purchase games we originally pirated. Myself, for instance. The last game I pirated was Pillars of Eternity, which I ended up buying legally, with all DLC, a week later. Before that was Bioshock Infinite, which I ended buying... Eventually. Even Dark Souls, which I now legally own the entire series of, I originally pirated.

 

Pirates are not what you think they are. And we aren't common enough and we don't pirate enough things to cause any damage. As I said, if as many of us as are ever going to just pirate any EA games we want, their sales will barely dip. 2% was not an understatement, it's a reasonable estimate of what'll happen if *everybody* who cares about this just stops paying for EA games. Whether that's though boycotts or piracy is irrelevant, because EA literally cannot tell the difference.

 

In my case? Probably boycotts, but that's pretty meaningless because I can't think of an EA series I actually play. I've got a cracked (but legally purchased) copy of Spore and The Sims 3, I think I'm good. But if you really must have the latest Battlefield game or whatever, I say just pirate it, because EA doesn't deserve your money. It ultimately won't affect them, but it's the thought that counts. And the thought is "Fuck you."

 

Now do you understand my position a bit better? No, because you didn't read a word of the last three paragraphs? Yeah, I knew it'd be a waste of time.

 

Talking about other things, someone who is close to EA could send some flowers, memorial wreaths, with the names of the games that died. You can ignore emails, you can try to ignore letters, but flowers? Those you just can't.

 

I actually really like this idea. How about an obituary, too?

[Heliocentrical]

I have a question, should I send all of my letters to one important person like or should I split the letters up? Which method would be more effective for the operation? For example Peter Moore would be overwhelmed if he got 300 letters in one day but on the other hand would giving 4 people 75 might give the operation more coverage.

 

@Seattleite Again it's your own fault for taking personally whereas I never did. If you actually read through what I said I never directly insulted you whereas you directly insulted me by calling me a shill. If you don't want people to assume that you've taken something personally then stop calling people stupid shills. That the main point I wanted to get across. BTGbullseye, Vapymid and me never intended to insult by challenging your claim. A challenge is not an insult. An insult is calling someone a stupid shill. But this discussion has already overstayed it's welcome. If you want to explain your position further then by all means send me a PM and don't reply to me within this thread about this again.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Guest (see edit history)

[Seattleite]

I have a question, should I send all of my letters to one important person like or should I split the letters up? Which method would be more effective for the operation? For example Peter Moore would be overwhelmed if he got 300 letters in one day but on the other hand would giving 4 people 75 might give the operation more coverage.

 

Hmmm... That's actually a good question. The way I see it, piling it all one one could break that one guy much more easily, but splitting it up would allow us to break more people, which is more likely to get results.

 

My opinion? Hybridize it. Split it up across most of the smaller ones, but pick one guy (and we all know who) to bombard with as many as all the others put together. I mean, he asked how he could help EA win back our trust, and I agree with Ross that we should tell him. Where Ross and I disagree is on the number. Ross says to tell him thousands of times. I think that's an absurd figure. We should tell him tens of thousands of times.

[Bman]

I have a question, should I send all of my letters to one important person like or should I split the letters up? Which method would be more effective for the operation? For example Peter Moore would be overwhelmed if he got 300 letters in one day but on the other hand would giving 4 people 75 might give the operation more coverage.

 

One letter a day, everyday a different person (finish the list, start from the beginning) , do it for 3 months. If everyone do it like this, i think there's bigger chances to cause something. 100 letters today and no letters tomorrow, it's just one day: "Hey pete, remember that day you got a bunch of letters?" or "Hey pete, does the letters are still coming?" . Which one sounds better?