Blog Archives
Casey Hudson Leaves BioWare
It’s starting to seem as though all we do around here is cover major departures from developers but this is a fairly significant one. Long-time BioWare employee and director of the Mass Effect trilogy, Casey Hudson, announced his departure from the company after 16 years.
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EA Announces Xbox One Game Subscription Service
Back when the Xbox One was first launched, EA came on to the stage and mentioned that they had a special relationship with Microsoft and the Xbox brand. Back in 2013, that meant cancelling their online pass program because they knew that Microsoft was going to load the Xbox One with DRM.
In 2014, that special relationship means that EA is bringing a new product offering exclusively to Xbox One. However, it’s not a new exclusive game. It’s a subscription service that’s exclusive to the Xbox One called EA Access.
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EA Says Dungeon Keeper Mobile “Innovated Too Much”
In June, EA CEO Andrew Wilson referred to the mobile version of Dungeon Keeper as “a shame.” In doing so, he seemed to be admitting that EA had made a mistake with their approach to bringing the cult classic to the mobile gaming space as a free-to-play game.
Don’t tell that to EA Mobile boss Frank Gibeau. He didn’t think that the failure of Dungeon Keeper Mobile was a result of the monetization model. Instead, in an interview with Games Industry, Gibeau said that Dungeon Keeper Mobile “innovated too much or tried some different things that people just weren’t ready for.”
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Is EA Spying On Your Computer Using Origin?
Privacy is a pretty important issue but many companies don’t seem to take the privacy of their customers and users as seriously as they do. The latest company accused of taking their customers’ privacy for granted is EA. Last weekend, a Reddit and Origin user discovered that EA’s Origin client was looking through the files on his computer.
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Battlefield Hardline Beta Impressions: $60 of an Expansion Pack
I know that it’s been a few weeks since the Battlefield Hardline beta has wrapped up but I think I’ve documented (either here or on The Lowdown) how busy I was during the month of June. Now that I’ve finally got a little bit of free time, I’m going to start pumping out reviews and other long-form pieces with a bit more frequency.
So let’s start with the beta for Battlefield Hardline. It was launched with great fanfare at the end of EA’s E3 keynote and was so popular that the Battlefield website crashed as people tried to get into the Beta. With all that hype, it would be hard for BF Hardline to live up to it. And, wouldn’t you know it, Hardline didn’t live up to the hype.
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E3 2014: EA Press Conference Trailer Roundup
As I’ve been doing this whole way along, it’s time to follow-up the press conference post with some of the videos shown at the press conference. And just like how EA front-loaded their media briefing with all the cool news and videos, all the cool trailers start this post off. So it’s DICE and BioWare upfront with all the bog standard EA crap following. Maybe they’ll pull a Microsoft and learn their lesson for 2015… Nah.
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E3 2014: You Can’t Teach an EA Dog New Tricks
In between Monday’s press conferences for Microsoft and Sony, the usual publishers got their work in. Electronic Arts, twice named the Worst Company in America, was the first to show off their new wares at E3. Actually, no, they didn’t show off much new. In fact, apart from some new trailers, I don’t think the word new should be used anywhere near this media briefing.
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Dawngate Beta Impressions: Breaking Meta But Not the Mold
I’m not so sure that it’s everyone wants to get into MOBAs but everyone feels as though they have to get into MOBAs. While Riot Games is on their own and on top of the pile, all the other big players are trying to get in with their own MOBAs. Blizzard/Activision is trying something a bit more fan service and team objective based with Heroes of the Storm. Deep Silver is doing the Dead Island zombie MOBA. WB Interactive is onboard with Infinite Crisis. And, of course, Valve has Dota 2.
Now, Electronic Arts is the last one to jump into the MOBA fray by publishing someone else’s MOBA under their banner. Dawngate might seem to have a lot more in common with League of Legends than the other competitors but it also has some unique ways to differentiate itself from the king of MOBAs. Does it find its way to a solid third in the pack?
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EA Finalizes Settlement in NCAA Video Game Lawsuit
Electronic Arts and the Collegiate Licencing Company have settled a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit over the use of the likenesses of NCAA Division I (and FBS) football and basketball players in EA Sports video games without compensation.
After agreeing to a settlement in principle back in September 2013, the three parties agreed to a settlement worth $40 million for the estimated up to 200,000 players who appeared in the EA Sports NCAA Football and NCAA Basketball / March Madness games since 2003.
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EA Cancelling Multiplayer for Over 50 Games on June 30th
With the shutting down of GameSpy’s multiplayer servers at the end of June, we knew a number of old games would be put out of their misery. It looks like the back catalogue of EA will be among the hardest hit by the closure of GameSpy’s multiplayer services with over fifty titles seeing the multiplayer portion of the games closed permanently.
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