[QUOTE=Jetamo;52952061]Hear me out on this, but I don't want EA to go bankrupt.
So many IPs have been lost or otherwise won't resurface from the closure of THQ, and they were small compared to EA. If EA went bankrupt, what happens to Origin, and the games you may own on there? If the rights to certain IPs goes to a different company than the one that holds the reins to Origin, what happens to say, Battlefield?
I want them to get their shit together and stop trying to squeeze every penny out of people, stop going for the focus-groups and focus on actually making good games, but I feel if they were to go straight under we'd be losing more than "winning" over "evil EA".[/QUOTE]
Whether that's better or worse can't be much speculated on. EA is sitting on most of their IPs and laying off the associated devs so this isn't good either.
It's frankly a fantastical idea that a company such as them would one day decide to stop pursuing the most profitable product in lieu of a "good" product.
Even if their ways lead to their own end they'd never learn with their out of touch shareholders and professional CEOs.
are we really asking for too much...
the game costs 70 fucking dollars, if you want to riddle it with microtransactions then at least pretend you care and retail the game for like 25 dollars or something... ffs
[QUOTE=RichyZ;52952856]please take a look at this: [URL]http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/5578606879x0x961860/4F5CB085-A761-42D8-A4F0-CCC1FF49AE4A/Q2_FY18_Earnings_Release_-_Final.pdf[/URL]
digital net revenue: 689 million dollars
this is pure profit btw, solely from origin/their cut on psn/xbl[/QUOTE]
Okay, now skip to page 9. $959 million in revenue- wow, so much money. But then $389 million cost of revenue (inc. paying the devs), so $570 million gross profit. [I]Then[/I] operating expenses take out another $611 million. Ultimately despite taking in $959 million in revenue for Q3, they suffered a [I]loss[/I] of $41 million dollars. Probably the only reason they aren't actively firing developers to shore up expenses is that they had a much better prior quarter. It's not like they're consistently making money hand over fist every quarter.
I'm all for criticizing EA's business practices but this simplistic 'look at how much money they got, they can't possibly need more' is a really poor criticism, especially when it's simply factually wrong (revenue != gross profit != actual profit).
[QUOTE=Protocol7;52951914]Mark my words, as soon as EA and Battlefront 2 are out of the limelight, the microtransactions will arrive shortly thereafter.
Until we get some legislation preventing or limiting these predatory practices, they won't stop.[/QUOTE]
When that time happens, it's very likely that the game's lifecycle would have ended and as such EA will just cut their losses.
Doesn't mean they won't look into doing this for [I]other[/I] future titles though, although probably not in the same series. Woulden't rule that out though.
[QUOTE=catbarf;52953136]Okay, now skip to page 9. $959 million in revenue- wow, so much money. But then $389 million cost of revenue (inc. paying the devs), so $570 million gross profit. [I]Then[/I] operating expenses take out another $611 million. Ultimately despite taking in $959 million in revenue for Q3, they suffered a [I]loss[/I] of $41 million dollars. Probably the only reason they aren't actively firing developers to shore up expenses is that they had a much better prior quarter. It's not like they're consistently making money hand over fist every quarter.
I'm all for criticizing EA's business practices but this simplistic 'look at how much money they got, they can't possibly need more' is a really poor criticism, especially when it's simply factually wrong (revenue != gross profit != actual profit).[/QUOTE]
Though I agree with the sentiment and overall thrust of this counter-point, I have a large but.
BUT EA is wholly in charge of adjusting how much money they spend on their projects and employees. So it's not 'factually wrong' to state 'look how much money they have' when we account for the fact that they are in control of how much of that money they use and decide to gamble on. If anything it's yet another good angle to criticize them from. They are creating their own problem that they may be internally attempting to use as justification for 'the reason we need microtransactions' - and nobody should fall for that outside their company.
[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52953172]Though I agree with the sentiment and overall thrust of this counter-point, I have a large but.
BUT EA is wholly in charge of adjusting how much money they spend on their projects and employees. So it's not 'factually wrong' to state 'look how much money they have' when we account for the fact that they are in control of how much of that money they use and decide to gamble on. If anything it's yet another good angle to criticize them from. They are creating their own problem that they may be internally attempting to use as justification for 'the reason we need microtransactions' - and nobody should fall for that outside their company.[/QUOTE]
Well, yeah. They spent at [I]least[/I] twice as much on advertising, management, and corporate costs as they did on actually paying developers. It's clear that their business strategy involves a lot of bloat on things that aren't game development and they absolutely should be criticized for that.
The only thing I am objecting to is the idea that because they take in a lot of money, that they have no fiscal justification for microtransactions, as if they're just swimming in money 24/7 and only pure greed could possibly be the motivation.
If you believe it so easy to prove: Justify (fiscally) the need for microtransactions while at the same time justifying them not downsizing their advertising budgets, management, and corporate costs. I think the motivation is pretty naked if you take the time to think about it.
[quote][...] the implication is that they could just decide not to maximize their profit and they'd be just fine[/quote]
Nah, the implication is that because they're deciding not to do that and going full-throttle on microtransactions showing up in every single one of their games: what they're after is maximizing their profits by introducing gambling into all their games rather than considering reducing their spending. Therefore the problem isn't that they don't have money - the problem is that they want [I]more[/I] money - which throws the justification of 'but they're not swimming in money' out the window. Even if they're not 'swimming in it' you can't justify what they're doing as 'fiscally necessary'.
(Sorry for deleting that part of my post, was going to put it in its own post instead)
[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52953319]If you believe it so easy to prove: Justify (fiscally) the need for microtransactions while at the same time justifying them not downsizing their advertising budgets, management, and corporate costs. I think the motivation is pretty naked if you take the time to think about it.[/QUOTE]
Like I said, they have bloat and clearly need to get their priorities sorted. But that's not something that's going to happen overnight. People are making it out like their choice to remonetize or not [I]right now[/I] is whether they make a shitton of money or just a lot of money, but on an operational level I don't think that's the case. If they decide not to remonetize, they'll take a financial hit, they'll suffer a loss, they'll hopefully learn how to downscale, and a lot of people will be fired as a result.
RichyZ said employees are safe as hell because the company earns so much money, I don't think that's true- because the numbers don't paint a picture of a company that can significantly cut back on their predicted profit without downsizing.
[QUOTE=catbarf;52953339](Sorry for deleting that part of my post, was going to put it in its own post instead)
Like I said, they have bloat and clearly need to get their priorities sorted. But that's not something that's going to happen overnight. People are making it out like their choice to remonetize or not [I]right now[/I] is whether they make a shitton of money or just a lot of money, but on an operational level I don't think that's the case. If they decide not to remonetize, they'll take a financial hit, they'll suffer a loss, they'll hopefully learn how to downscale, and a lot of people will be fired as a result.
RichyZ said employees are safe as hell because the company earns so much money, I don't think that's true- because the numbers don't paint a picture of a company that can significantly cut back on their predicted profit without downsizing.[/QUOTE]
Having worked in the industry for a long while: It's their choice and they weren't going to take a financial hit either way (lootboxes or not) until they [I]chose[/I] to increase their spending. They would only take a financial hit because they increased their spending - they created their own problem.
I mean, to put this another way: You're saying 'it's understandable that I chose to charge people $50 for a loaf of bread because I increased the unit production cost from $0.50c/u to $40/u - if I didn't charge people $50 a loaf why, then, I'd take a financial hit'!
[QUOTE=catbarf;52953136]... Ultimately despite taking in $959 million in revenue for Q3, they suffered a [I]loss[/I] of $41 million dollars. ...[/QUOTE]
For one quarter sure, but that same exact page details even though [U]just quarter 3[/U] was a loss, that both Q3 [B]and[/B] Q2 shows a net income of 622 million.
How about we go one farther with that, since looking at just quarters doesn't give a decent representation due to certain Q's being stronger than others, and look at the 2017 fiscal year entirely? Total net income was 967 million - straight to the bank. Further even, 2016 was 1.156 freaking billion, 2015 was 875 Million... 2014 was hilariously poor though, only 8 million. These last few years if MTX's and coming to the realization that they can actually charge for updates, EA have been steadily making huge profits compared to 10 years ago. Looking at annual reports you can see that EA has been steadily making an incremental amount of money almost every year, with the exception of 2008-2011, which they took a massive loss of combined to about 2.495 billion.
That could be explained by a few things, such as the change in management from '07, or the 07/08 financial/economic crisis which, to be fair, had a impact on almost everything.
I'm still more likely to agree with part of his original post, even if it was skewed with using the wrong numbers. There's no good reason to have ridiculous MTX, or to cut the game up into buyable chunks beyond the usual corporate dabbling of "Maximizing profit for the better of our shareholders".
[QUOTE=catbarf;52953273]... The only thing I am objecting to is the idea that because they take in a lot of money, that they have no fiscal justification for microtransactions, ...[/QUOTE]
Running a business may as well be inherently greed, the main reason to operate a company [I]is for the purpose of making money, [/I]is it not? Maximize profits and all that. To say they have no reason beyond making [U]more[/U] money is true, that's the main driving force behind any decision a company makes.
[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52953351]I mean, to put this another way: You're saying 'it's understandable that I chose to charge people $50 for a loaf of bread because I increased the unit production cost from $0.50c/u to $40/u - if I didn't charge people $50 a loaf why, then, I'd take a financial hit'![/QUOTE]
I'm just saying that there's a difference between
'I'm charging $50 for a loaf of bread because I want more money'
and
'I'm charging $50 for a loaf of bread because that's what I need to charge in order to pay this literal army of bakers'
If it's the first one, it's greed, pure and simple. If it's the second, it's time to sit down and talk about whether or not a $50 loaf of bread is something the market actually wants, and make some serious changes to how they do business.
All I'm saying is that I think it's the latter, not the former. How explicitly do I have to say 'I think they charge for microtransactions because they need it to make up for the amount they spend on unnecessary things, [i]not[/i] just out of pure greed because they can' without it being perceived as a defense of EA's business practices?
Nah, I'm more saying:
'I've chosen to inflate the cost of my production on this $2 loaf of bread to $40 so that I can state that charging $50 is necessary; meanwhile 'burying the lede' that this nonetheless only increases my profits while causing an undue burden on my customers - of which I am perfectly happy to do so while playing the victim and trying to state but guys I have to do it - just look at how much we're spending vs. receiving!'
Which isn't either of those two and is them creating costs (that, let's be right out front with this right here: largely aren't 'costs') to play the victim to 'justify' their greed. It isn't 'we've decided to raise the price of bread to make money' it's 'oh man, our production costs have gotten so high [because we made them that high]! man, sorry, we've just gotta start charging you by the slice rather than by the loaf - and at a drastically increased markup! But I mean, we can't help it, we've gotta charge that amount to survive and you want us to survive, right?'
Also...Also. You know that Net profit document actually shows how much these games cost.
Like, we can see how much it cost to not only keep people working, licensing and advertising cost EA.
Battlefront 1 made 900% of that back and then some. So no. They don't fucking need additional charges.
EA wants to bring the microtransaction economy from the mobile market to the mainstream AAA market, plain and simple. Cosmetic microtransactions don't make you nearly as much money as pay to win systems, which the mobile market clearly proves with things like Clash Royale. Saying they won't add them back is a complete lie, and they only say cosmetic microtransactions would ruin the canon so they don't just flat out tell you that they don't make them enough money, because they want all of the money not just some of it.
They have them in mobile games, they have them in sports games, and now they're trying to put them in AAA games. As much as the core audience doesn't like them, the whales will always buy them, and that's how they make their money. If a bunch of people just didn't buy it, they wouldn't care, the whales still would, and that's how they would make their money. If they didn't get so much public backlash for adding them in Battlefront 2, they would have stayed in. Once coverage dies off, and people start buying it, they will just add them right back in.
It's clear that EA doesn't care about artistic vision or original ideas, they just want to make things that follow market trends and make them the most profit. They care more about their stock prices than they do actually making good games, they are everything wrong with the AAA industry.
[QUOTE=Protocol7;52951914]Mark my words, as soon as EA and Battlefront 2 are out of the limelight, the microtransactions will arrive shortly thereafter.
Until we get some legislation preventing or limiting these predatory practices, they won't stop.[/QUOTE]
This might be optimistic but I feel like the community will keep a close eye on this game even after it becomes less relevant, the damage has been done already and many people want to crown BF2 as the king of fucked up business practises.
Death to EA and all other publishers like them is all I'll say. These sort of business practice-pushing, harmful, vampiric companies should not be welcome in this industry.
[QUOTE=catbarf;52953136]Okay, now skip to page 9. $959 million in revenue- wow, so much money. But then $389 million cost of revenue (inc. paying the devs), so $570 million gross profit. [I]Then[/I] operating expenses take out another $611 million. Ultimately despite taking in $959 million in revenue for Q3, they suffered a [I]loss[/I] of $41 million dollars. Probably the only reason they aren't actively firing developers to shore up expenses is that they had a much better prior quarter. It's not like they're consistently making money hand over fist every quarter.
I'm all for criticizing EA's business practices but this simplistic 'look at how much money they got, they can't possibly need more' is a really poor criticism, especially when it's simply factually wrong (revenue != gross profit != actual profit).[/QUOTE]
the "only reason they're not firing developers" is because profitability is increasingly taking a back seat in the tech industry - market cap is increasingly associated with reinvestment into research and process improvement (they pumped $40m into research and development in that quarter compared to last year, ~55% of their profit growth compare that to the 7m that was the result of general and administrative costs)
[QUOTE=tyanet;52952344]To me, this reads like he's some kind of lizard person.
"Yesss, we are attempting to understand the human consumerssss and what they wantssssssss."[/QUOTE]
What I find funny is how they are trying to convince us that the loot boxes were part of a way to make us happy, because that's what we wanted, and that they are constantly listening to us to know, and not just trying to slip this shit by us to make more profit.
[QUOTE=Steel & Iron;52951988][t]https://i.imgur.com/XEH3hTb.jpg[/t][t]https://i.imgur.com/K5dYh5A.jpg[/t][t]https://i.imgur.com/QK4xRj7.jpg[/t]
That's bullshit but I believe it.[/QUOTE]
This hurts.
[QUOTE=Killuah;52954088]This hurts.[/QUOTE]
Forgetting it will just make it happen again.
ME3 hurts the most because the ending made everyone forget about how super rushed the rest of the game was. There's entire areas that have bugged quests, huge sections cut out, massive cutbacks due to time constraints on animations, environments and the like, no substantial sidequests outside of using outsourced MP Assets among a lot, lot of bugs. EA fucked them hard and made Bioware's mistakes super obvious.
Andromeda was totes Bioware's fault so can't blame them for that though
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