This was one of the posts selected for inclusion in Spolsky's "The Best Software Writing", a book that I very much enjoyed and recommend.
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Software-Writing-Selected-Introd...
EA: The Human Story (2004)
51–60 of 156 posts
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the alternative to capitalism, PBS but for video games?
would gamepass be the closest to that? The other alternative would be games being small indie projects or huge community things. The mods people release for free are sometimes pretty insane in scope, even if Noone ever paid for a game again we'd still get some decent games at least
Game pass is more like the Netflix of gaming. Not all the content you want but at a reasonable price. Stuff gets removed a lot and there's lots of fragmentation with competing services.
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I used to unapologetically pirate video games and only within the past two years have I finally come full circle and begun purchasing games, both new titles and older ones I had played in the past but never paid for until now. If you are buying games/software as used, do the original creators see a dime of that purchase or is it just as if you never did pay for it?
They didn't say used. Also that is such reductive argument. When I sell my furniture to someone else am I supposed to pity the carpenters and whatnot? How about when I sell my house, should the developers who built it get a cut?
Yeah, I guess it reads like that's what I was implying.
I was just asking if original creators get a cut of the used price. I had seen discussions around that before, but didn't know if it ever became a thing or not. Just a simple question. Wasn't trying to be reductive and did not mean to piss in your cheerios this mornign
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#54EA perpetuates practices that hurt customers, too. I used to unapologetically pirate video games and only within the past two years have I finally come full circle and begun purchasing games, both new titles and older ones I had played in the past but never paid for until now. Steam has been the tool of choice for this reconciliation process. As a result, some of the hardships that paying customers encounter have bec…
>I don't see why competent studios like Blizzard/BioWare/Id could not simply self-publish their games related to this is how the games are managed once installed as well. Each studio is moving towards each having their own "Hub" for their games. Usually it is referred to as a "Launcher", but I dont think it is going to end there. For example, Blizzard has "Battle.net". You open battlenet, log in to battle net, and th…
That's the "future" that we already have except things like OAuth and single sign on make that transparent to the user.
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#55(opinions are my own and not EA's) I've been at EA for about 1.5 years now and have never enjoyed working somewhere as much as this. Their devotion to D&I, their culture around management (and the thorough training each manager gets), career progression, and feedback, their flexibility for each individual (even given their size), how frequently we actually get to speak with SVP-level leadership to ask questions/voice…
I suspect that your experience comes from working at EA in a leadership capacity, whereas the toxicity complaints come from the front-line workers (IE, SWE, QA).
I worked at EA for almost eight years as an SE individual contributor and it was honestly great. Don't get me wrong, the place had its issues, but from the perspective of my specific job, coworkers, work-life balance, benefits, etc, it was excellent and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. But I think I really lucked out with my studio, line managers, and TDs. At such a huge company there will be a whole range of positive and negative experiences across locations and teams.
Edit: there was definitely plenty of overtime though. Just wanted add this to make sure I didn't paint an overly idealistic picture despite my overall positive experience.
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I used to unapologetically pirate video games and only within the past two years have I finally come full circle and begun purchasing games, both new titles and older ones I had played in the past but never paid for until now. If you are buying games/software as used, do the original creators see a dime of that purchase or is it just as if you never did pay for it?
They didn't say used. Also that is such reductive argument. When I sell my furniture to someone else am I supposed to pity the carpenters and whatnot? How about when I sell my house, should the developers who built it get a cut?
> How about when I sell my house, should the developers who built it get a cut?
Only a matter of time?
Some NFTs used this as (an additional) money grab - every time the NFT is resold, N% of the purchase price goes to devs - so the idea is definitely out there in other forms today.
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds me of something Gabe Newell famously said about Steam. > "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after t…
Afaik only GOG sells games without DRM. I have bought EA/Ubishit games on Steam which when you open the game, it installs Origin/UbiWhatever and then run through them only.
Steam doesn't force you to be DRM-free like GOG, but they definitely do have DRM-free games. You can launch them from the .exe without internet or Steam installed, but it's up to the publisher
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#58EA perpetuates practices that hurt customers, too. I used to unapologetically pirate video games and only within the past two years have I finally come full circle and begun purchasing games, both new titles and older ones I had played in the past but never paid for until now. Steam has been the tool of choice for this reconciliation process. As a result, some of the hardships that paying customers encounter have bec…
>Lo and behold, I'm sitting in a hotel last night trying to play Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and the thing refuses to function because I'm not connected to the Internet. I was astounded. This has never happened to me before. Why am I subject to this as a customer? If I steal the game, I receive a product without this glaring defect (I believe the defect has a name: "Origin").
And that's why I still haven't bought "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2" two years later.
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#59EA perpetuates practices that hurt customers, too. I used to unapologetically pirate video games and only within the past two years have I finally come full circle and begun purchasing games, both new titles and older ones I had played in the past but never paid for until now. Steam has been the tool of choice for this reconciliation process. As a result, some of the hardships that paying customers encounter have bec…
This reminds me of something Gabe Newell famously said about Steam. > "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after t…
TBF Valve and Steam were IIRC the first or very close to first to have a game that required online activation (not including like MMOs) with Half-Life 2. Steam was incredibly frustrating for me as a kid stuck with dial up as the offline mode was tremendously broken and the install DVDs always fetched large portions (for dial-up anyways) of the game from some server. Plus you had to update games upon install even if you didn't want to which meant longer downloads.
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds me of something Gabe Newell famously said about Steam. > "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after t…
Afaik only GOG sells games without DRM. I have bought EA/Ubishit games on Steam which when you open the game, it installs Origin/UbiWhatever and then run through them only.
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