What EA Getting Rid of Online Passes Tells Us About The Games Industry (And Gamers)
Thursday, 16th May 2013Posted in Industry
Tags: downloading, ea, gamers, Online Pass, worst company in america
Written by: Paul Nyhart
From out of the heavens this week, EA reigned down the announcement that they will discontinue their practice of online passes. For those not privy to how the “passes” work(ed), a customer who bought a second hand or used game had to purchase an additional, separate pass to access the game’s online features (which usually cost around 10 bucks). If you buy the game new, the “online pass” could be activated with a code included with the game.
The measure allowed the publisher to pocket some coin on the sale of a used game; while EA is largely credited with beginning the practice, it has since been adopted by publishers Activision and Ubisoft. However, EA, in impeccable corporate speak, said the practice is donezo: Continue reading “What EA Getting Rid of Online Passes Tells Us About The Games Industry (And Gamers)” »
The Return of Road Rash: Creator Is “ready to do another one” With Kickstarter
Wednesday, 13th March 2013Posted in Preview
Tags: Dan Geisler, ea, game, rash, reddit, rights, road, road rash, said
Written by: Craig Hunter
The co-creator of Road Rash Dan Geisler is considering Kickstarting a reboot of the game (Reddit via CVG).
A Reddit user, kybobs, posted the question “Why hasn’t this game resurfaced?” with the image seen below.
Within a few hours Geisler made an appearance saying, “It hasn’t resurfaced because I was burned out after Road Rash 3,” he said, “But I’m ready to do another one now. I just needed 20 years off.”
“I’m ready to make a better one now. I miss playing it too. If there is enough interest, I’ll do a Kickstart on it. BTW thanks for the post. Dan Geisler, programmer/co-designer Road Rash 1, 2 and 3.”
Geisler dropped a link in his response with a picture of himself holding a dated piece of paper that reads, “Hi Reddit!”. He also provided a link to his LinkedIn profile to show they matched.
He mentioned that the idea would be to render the game out in 3D but still maintain the “2.5D” graphical style of the originals.
At this point EA still owns the rights to the franchise, “Road Rash was my baby. I will need to talk with EA to get the rights. But I dont think they have a lock on motorcycle combat anymore,” Geisler said.
If that doesn’t fair well, he said he would create a spiritual successor to the classic franchise that is rooted in the same mechanics. “We dont need no stinking rights! Motorcycle combat? Yeah, we can do that. Thanks the the encouragement,” said Geisler.
The last we saw of the series was 1999′s Road Rash 64. EA was asked about a possible reboot of the game back in 2011 where Labels president Frank Gibeau said regarding Road Rash, “we can’t just put them on new tech with the same gameplay from ten years ago, we’ve got to have something new.”
There was also a rumored Road Rash project in development at EA Warrington that never got released (via Eurogamer). Check out the concept video for it below.
Always Online DRM Continues To Plague SimCity Players, EA To Add Two More Servers
Thursday, 7th March 2013Posted in Industry
Tags: Australia, connectivity, ea, game, gamers, issues, Oceanic Servers, online, servers, SimCity
Written by: Craig Hunter
The newest iteration in the SimCity franchise recently launched to fairly favorable reviews. The main problem is the online connectivity issues many players are experiencing.
After US gamers struggled during the launch to connect with the game, new reports from Australian gamers with the same issue have surfaced. Players in that region are having a hard time accessing SimCity’s Oceanic servers (via Polygon).
Not only is there connectivity problems, some Australian region gamers are reporting that their entire cities have been deleted.
Did EA Cancel Dead Space 4?
Tuesday, 5th March 2013Posted in Industry
Tags: cancelled, dead, Dead Space, development, ea, just, montreal, source, space, visceral
Written by: Craig Hunter
A trusted source close to VideoGamer has told the outlet that EA is terminating development on its Dead Space franchise after disappointing sales of Dead Space 3.
The source said that there has been a team at Visceral Montreal working on prototypes and concepts for Dead Space 4 for a little while now. The team was also starting to work on the early stages of the game’s narrative.
Continue reading “Did EA Cancel Dead Space 4?” »
Annual EA Sports Challenge Series Presents $1 Million In Prize Money
Tuesday, 12th February 2013Posted in Industry
Tags: 1 million, ea, gamers, gaming, madden, series, tournament
Written by: Craig Hunter
Virgin Gaming and EA have partnered up again for the annual EA Sports Challenge Series. It took place on February 9 and is one of the largest live gaming tournaments in the world. Gaming takes place solely on the Playstation 3 (via GI).
The tournament handed out over $1 million in prize money to players competing in FIFA Soccer 13, MADDEN 13 and NHL 13. Over 1000 spectators piled into Lagasse’s Stadium in Las Vegas to watch 640 different gamers complete.
Continue reading “Annual EA Sports Challenge Series Presents $1 Million In Prize Money” »
EA Shutting Down Online Servers For a Dozen+ Different Games
Wednesday, 2nd January 2013Posted in Blog Archive, Industry
Tags: 360, ea, fifa, nfl, NHL, online, ps3, services, shutdown, xbox
Written by: Craig Hunter
Starting tomorrow EA is continuing the industry’s tradition of shutting down online game servers. The company will be closing online functionality for a dozen or so of its games, most of which are 2011 sports titles. Games like FIFA 11 and Madden NFL 11 will have the online servers shut down in order to free up man power for newer titles (via GameSpot).
A statement on the EA Services Updates page said that these decisions are “never easy” and that the “development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into these games almost as much as the customers playing them and it is hard to see one retired.”
Continue reading “EA Shutting Down Online Servers For a Dozen+ Different Games” »
Dragon Age III Rumored to Be a Next Gen Title
Wednesday, 28th November 2012Posted in Preview
Tags: bioware, Dragon Age 3, ea, game, Inquisition, rumors, title, want
Written by: Craig Hunter
Back in September rumors began to surface about a third Dragon Age title in the works at BioWare. Stories of the game being tested and a survey going out to fans regarding the title of the game prompted EA to make the game official.
The rumored survey ended up containing the game’s full name, Dragon Age III: Inquisition.
At that point the press release failed to leave out one important detail though, the platform DA3 would ship on.
Continue reading “Dragon Age III Rumored to Be a Next Gen Title” »
Mirror’s Edge 2 Rumored To Be In Development
Wednesday, 21st November 2012Posted in Preview
Tags: battlefield, Ben Cousins, DICE, ea, game, Mirror's Edge 2
Written by: Craig Hunter
Mirror’s Edge was released in 2008 on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and has left fans of the game wanting a sequel ever since. Although the game sold quite well many thought that because it didn’t quite meet EA’s expectations it may never see a sequel.
All that has changed today after Ben Cousins responded to a Eurogamer story on DICE, saying that Mirror’s Edge 2 is indeed in development right now.
Eurogamer ran a story this morning entitled “DICE: ‘we don’t want to become a Battlefield factory’” which prompted Cousins to tweet about Mirror’s Edge 2 being in development at DICE. Continue reading “Mirror’s Edge 2 Rumored To Be In Development” »
Be Careful, EA Origin Accounts Are Being Hijacked
Wednesday, 14th November 2012Posted in Industry
Tags: account, accounts, ea, email, Eurogamer, hacked, hijacked, issue, Origin, support
Written by: Craig Hunter
Some EA Origin security issues have surfaced with an untold number of accounts being hijacked. According to Eurogamer some of the service’s users have been emailed by Origin saying that they have successfully changed their account’s password or email even when they have not. A handful or more of these cases have popped up on various outlets including the NeoGaf forum and the EA support boards.
Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter was one of these unfortunate souls to have their account hijacked. Below you can see the email he received from Origin.
Continue reading “Be Careful, EA Origin Accounts Are Being Hijacked” »
Manufacturing Mistake Puts Mass Effect On The Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Disc
Tuesday, 13th November 2012Posted in Industry
Tags: Activision, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, cod, disc, ea, error, mass effect 2, read
Written by: Craig Hunter
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 released today and has received many favorable reviews so far. Those reviewers must have played the console version because there has been a mistake made in the manufacturing process of the physical PC versions of the new Treyarch shooter.
According to several reports around the internet players are saying that the PC version of the game isn’t exactly what they paid for. Day one Call of Duty players who bought the PC version found that upon inserting disc 2 when prompted they received an extremely odd Mass Effect 2 read error.
We have a video below from YouTube user ‘zeroiez’ showing off the error (NSFW). Scroll down for info on how to correct the issue.
Continue reading “Manufacturing Mistake Puts Mass Effect On The Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Disc” »
New Mass Effect Game in Development at BioWare Montreal
Monday, 12th November 2012Posted in Gaming News
Tags: bioware, Casey Hudson, Commander Shepard, ea, franchise, mass effect, montreal, Shepard, Yanick Roy
Written by: Craig Hunter
It is no secret that the massively popular Mass Effect franchise will be getting another game at some point. Although the details are extremely scarce at this point we do now have confirmation that a new ME title is in the works according to a post on Bioware’s blog (via Gameinformer).
We previously reported to you on a new Mass Effect game when the title’s devs said that the game would not feature a character like Commander Shepard again. Although Commander Shepard’s story did indeed come to an end, Mass Effect as a franchise has not.
Continue reading “New Mass Effect Game in Development at BioWare Montreal” »
Army Of Two: The Devil’s Cartel Release Date and Preorder Bonuses Announced
Thursday, 1st November 2012Posted in Preview
Tags: Army of Two, Co-op, Drug War, ea, mexico, Pre-order Bonuses, The Devil's Cartel, Visceral Games
Written by: Craig Hunter
Electronic Arts and Visceral Games announced the official release date and pre-order bonuses for the upcoming co-op shooter Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel. EA says the Visceral title will be coming on March 26, 2013 and we now have details on the first pre order bonuses below.
We also have some gameplay footage for those of you that haven’t checked it out yet (via GT) as well as some new screenshots and the limited edition trailer after the break (via Joystiq).
Continue reading “Army Of Two: The Devil’s Cartel Release Date and Preorder Bonuses Announced” »
Oddworld Creator Prefers Not To Sell Company, Tells Electronic Arts To F*ck Off
Tuesday, 2nd October 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: ea, Electronic Arts, Lorne Lanning, Oddworld, Oddworld Inhabitants, Stewart Gilray
Written by: Jeff Nau
Follow @jeffnau
As our title would suggest, Lorne Lanning doesn’t shy away from his feelings on Electronic Arts.
In a recent interview, the Oddworld creator/game developer says that he told EA ‘f*ck you very much’ when they looked into purchasing his company, Oddworld Inhabitants. He didn’t hold back in throwing a few more jabs at the conglomerate, hinting that they were little else besides money-grubbing bastards, out to eat up the little guy and spend the profits on expensive crap.
“Our agreement is, you won’t be seeing our profit being spent on Ferraris and shit like that,” Lanning said. “Our profits are going back into games so we can ultimately raise to the point where we can grow our audience.” Continue reading “Oddworld Creator Prefers Not To Sell Company, Tells Electronic Arts To F*ck Off” »
President Obama Advertising Campaign Makes Way Into Video Games (Again)
Thursday, 20th September 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming, News, Pop Culture
Tags: ea, gaming advertisement, Obama, politics
Written by: Paul Nyhart
It was four years ago that advertisments appealing to gamers looking for “hope”, “change”, and a “different leader” began popping up on billboards in game’s like Burnout Paradise (at the cost of 45 grand).
Today, President Obama’s team has stepped up their effort to increase advertising on video games across the country, even though he had a message just a year ago to “Turn Off the video games and pick up a book…”
…a message that was intended to Continue reading “President Obama Advertising Campaign Makes Way Into Video Games (Again)” »
Daily Gaming: Dragon Age III: Inquisition Announced
Monday, 17th September 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: 2013, announced, bioware, Dragon Age III, ea, Inquisition
Written by: Craig Hunter
After reports of a new Dragon Age hit the Bioware forums, EA has now officially announced the next iteration in the series.
Rumors had previously surfaced of EA taking surveys among fans of the series to decide what the title of the game will be. We now know that the next sequel in the fantasy RPG series is called Dragon Age III: Inquisition and is officially on the way.
Bioware executive producer Mark Darrah, posted on the official site today that not only is the title officially announced but that it has been in development for over two years now. Continue reading “Daily Gaming: Dragon Age III: Inquisition Announced” »
Daily Gaming: Half-Life 3,’ ‘Dragon Age 3′ on Gamescom New Release List
Tuesday, 14th August 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: Chet Faliszek, Dragon Age 3, ea, GamesCom, Germany, Half Life 3, Sony, The Verge, valve
Written by: Craig Hunter
With Gamescom kicking off in Germany tomorrow many are expecting at least a few interesting announcements. Half Life 3 and Dragon Age 3 have both been included in the Gamescom 2012 official site listings.
Although the show doesn’t start officially until tomorrow both Sony and EA have their respective press conferences slated for today. EA was scheduled for this morning at 10 am ET for its announcements with Sony making its appearance slightly later at 1pm ET. It is certainly believed that if indeed Dragon Age 3 were to be announced it would happen during EA’s press conference, it didn’t. Continue reading “Daily Gaming: Half-Life 3,’ ‘Dragon Age 3′ on Gamescom New Release List” »
DAILY GAMING: EA Announces Army of Two: The Devils Cartel Today [Debut Trailer]
Thursday, 2nd August 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: Army of Two, Co-op, Dead Space, Drug War, ea, mexico, The Devil's Cartel, Visceral Games
Written by: Craig Hunter
Follow @jordankahn
Just before EA’s software showcase today the company announced a brand new Army of Two game entitled ‘The Devil’s Cartel’. Developed by Visceral Games who is responsible for The Godfather series as well as the ongoing Dead Space franchise, The Devil’s Cartel will be created using DICE’s Frostbite 2 engine.
We get our first look at the title with the debut trailer/interview below courtesy of Game Informer.
Continue reading “DAILY GAMING: EA Announces Army of Two: The Devils Cartel Today [Debut Trailer]” »
DAILY GAMING: ‘Battlefield 4′ Beta Launches Fall 2013
Tuesday, 17th July 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: 2013, battlefield 4, beta, DICE, ea, medal of honor, multiplayer, warfighter
Written by: Craig Hunter
Electronic Arts confirmed this morning that Battlefield 4 will begin its official beta in fall 2013.
EA confirmed the Battlefield 4 beta this morning after we caught a glimpse of it at the beginning of the latest Medal of Honor footage (below). All players who pre order Medal of Honor Warfighter Limited Edition, which is due out on October 23rd, will receive exclusive access to the Battlefield 4 beta. Continue reading “DAILY GAMING: ‘Battlefield 4′ Beta Launches Fall 2013” »
Over 800,000 Members Purchase Battlefield 3 Premium
Friday, 29th June 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: 800000, ACB-90 Knife, battlefield 3, Battlefield 3 Premium, camo, e3, ea, Patrick Soderlund, Playstation 3
Written by: Craig Hunter
Follow @jordankahn
EA announced today that over 800,000 have purchased Battlefield 3 Premium, the new service that launched at this year’s E3. The massive number of users was reached in the service’s first two weeks of availability making it “very promising” that we will be seeing similar services made available in the future said EA Games executive vice president, Patrick Soderlund, to USA Today (via IGN).
Soderlund went on to say in the USA Today interview, “We are very pleased with the performance so far,” continuing with “We’re actually only two weeks into it, so it’s a little early to tell how this is going to pay off. It certainly it looks very promising right now.” Continue reading “Over 800,000 Members Purchase Battlefield 3 Premium” »
Ngmoco/Former EA Guy Predicts the Death of Console Gaming (It’s Coming Sooner Than You Think)
Wednesday, 27th June 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: Ben Cousins, console, ea, F2P, free-to-play, games, gaming, mobile, Ngmoco
Written by: Jeff Nau
Follow @jeffnau
If there was any lingering doubt as to the fate of the console (and if you like consoles at all), General Manager of Ngmoco Sweden Ben Cousins has bad news for you: console gaming is basically in its death throes.
It’s not quite as simple as mobile destroying console-gaming overnight; Cousins believes that there’s a few different steps behind this inevitable process, though at the very most they will take about 5-10 years.
STEP 1: Mobile Kills Console. According to Continue reading “Ngmoco/Former EA Guy Predicts the Death of Console Gaming (It’s Coming Sooner Than You Think)” »
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