EA: The Human Story (2004) • Hacker News Board

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#71

Post by nu11ptr » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #31

snet0 wrote: post #27

Earlier 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.

+1 for GOG. I don't play games much anymore, but I still collect some of the older ones I enjoy on GOG knowing that there is no DRM. I tried steam and purchased a few games, but honestly I prefer to just have the game flat out without needing a "client" to get them, so while many people praise Steam... I'll pass.

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#72

Post by markdestouches » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

LocalH wrote: post #4

branon wrote: post #3

EA 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 is just a side effect of hypercapitalism at play. Aspects of capitalism aren't bad, but when capitalism is the single biggest driving force of your society , things like this are bound to happen, because the endgame that gets rammed down everyone's throat is "making money is your life's purpose". These types of things have happened across how many industries at this point, historically? Practically all of them.

Such issues are solved with proper regulation and effective antitrust laws. Unfortunately, if you lose the moment and allow the companies to gain enough power, it becomes incredibly difficult to push back against that. That's basically the state of things in the US

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#73

Post by nu11ptr » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:17 PM UTC

This should have a "(2004)" suffix on the title. I thought this was current and only accidently noticed the date later.

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#74

Post by silentsea90 » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

Why does game dev take so long? I assume most of the physics, game dynamics etc are standardized. Artwork, building a story, designing the game etc sure require work per game. I ask as a noob, not expressing an opinion at all.

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#75

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#76

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

nu11ptr wrote: post #73

This should have a "(2004)" suffix on the title. I thought this was current and only accidently noticed the date later.

[deleted]

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#77

Post by silentsea90 » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

nu11ptr wrote: post #73

This should have a "(2004)" suffix on the title. I thought this was current and only accidently noticed the date later.

Great call out. I was confused why Madden 2005 was being referenced but it makes more sense (note: madden 2005 launched in 2004)

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#78

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

m0llusk wrote: post #15

Disabling the back button on my browser limited my sympathies.

[deleted]

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#79

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

0x500x79 wrote: post #40

I see that "Vote with your feet" got downvoted in the thread, but it's true. I worked for another one of the large game studios in the US for a long time. The practices employed at the game studio were built around keeping people attached to their jobs because they love video games and loved the games we built. It was weaponized excessively. Almost every town-hall, all-hands, etc was framed around the product and kee…

[deleted]

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#80

Post by dijit » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

> Their devotion to D&I

I worked for a competitor and this is single-handedly the most frustrating thing I had to deal with honestly.

Not because it’s not a noble objective, but because it was weaponised by a minority of people to control the studio in various ways, it was bullying in its purest form and extremely toxic - the environment felt really hostile, like saying something even moderately wrong would lead to an incursion. Saying anything against that behaviour meant you were somehow anti-feminist or misogynist or racist, even defending yourself. They were the arbiters of what D&I means and they can do no wrong.

To give you an example of what I mean: during the start of the pandemic the managing director of the studio said “we don’t know if this virus will be nothing, or the next Spanish flu, so we should take all necessary precaution in the worst case” - he was dragged publicly by our internal D&I delegation about the sheer racism of saying “Spanish” flu.

So, I treat strong D&I initiatives as a red flag, personally.

But I agree that EA is considered one of the better employers in the industry, even if the games are aggressively monetised, it seems that they try to take care of employees.