Analyst: EA Sports is underperforming and trend may continue

Wow, I actually thought that you guys had one of the best jobs in the world.

Well I used to think the same of games beta testers until I found out they are underpaid and treated like dog shit. The fact of the matter is, few people will pay you to have fun.

ThornedVenom: A lot of my friends believe that, and while it's fun to review these games, some of them are just...bad. It's really a mixed bag.

i, too, thought you guys had the best job in the world..

until i realised you couldn't spell.
(surely the foundations of journalism?)

I like to think of EAs soundtracks as "ass-music".

wow you gotta be pretty bold to admit your a Knickerbocker fan right about now lol. im tellin you all they have to do is fire Thomas and get rid of Marbury. it's shown time after time that after a team gets rid of Marbury they get alot better, and the Knicks have nowhere to go but up at this point. thing will get better for you though man, i expect them to pull the trigger on some big trade before the deadline, they have to...

You must not have bought an EA Sports game recently, I am tired of 'punk rock'

My favorite was in Fight Night 3, one song had to many cursewords in one verse it sounds................ li.....ke........ this


360's dash music player is a savior.

Now thats not true. Do your research before you speak.

What????? What does the music in a game has anything to do with it you buy it or not? So do you buy Madden, and then return it because you didn't appreciate the music selection? Can you please stop talking out of your butt…

yea it really makes me sad to know that they would rather "get rid of" the competition then actually "beat" them. instead of spending all that money on exclusivity contracts and hurting the legacy of your titles, why not use that money to hire some decent developers and make a game that is actually better than the competitions. i havent played an EA Sports game in forever cause they all suck now. and i used to have such fond memories of Madden and NBA Live matches with my friends.

2k basketball does it and so did 2k football at the time

gregory mitchell: have you played a 2k basketball game recently? It's the same game, except without updated visuals. (not saying it's not a great basketball sim... but if you want to talk about recycled gameplay)

I'd say it's an issue with EA in general. Look, most EA DEVELOPED games tend to be lackluster. They seem to lack a coherent thought process or even a way to think as individuals. I mean, we can mention games which seem like factory projects all the time, EA truly sells that point home. They have strict schedules, set tasks, and hell, even move their workers around like it is a lifeless production line. And at the end of the day, their tactics show. They just seem sooooo, generic in their endeavors.

Which is sad because I see the people they hire in before they work there. You see EA employees posting stuff on 3D forums everywhere and their stuff in their spare time is phenominal. It's just the "factory" mentality that drags their work down.

Also, majority of people who give EA credit for certain games really need to look at the publisher versus developer aspect of it. EA publishes decent games, but they sure as fuck don't make them.

No you obviously didnt play the game or the demo. Its almost completely different. the Ai is waaay smarter and quicker to react. your teammates actually jump for boards. and they have that lock defense which evened the playing field and helps you play real defense not that chessy smother and intercept tactic everyone was using online. they also made everyone bigger and slowed it down a bit. theres more pass diving. better passing(most of the time). and they took out the inbound hail mary.

"If you don't like EA and their games, don't play them."

Okay, I'm a football fan and really want to play an NFL football game. I don't like EA and their games.

How am I going to play NFL football?

Please, think before you fucking talk. Do you understand the concept of MONOPOLY?

EA a monopoly? Hardly. They can't even get the rights to Major League Baseball.

I want to play a GOOD Baseball game. EA can't make them because of licensing BS. The 2K series MLB games are alright. They aren't at the same level. So, I don't play them. Am I missing out on the game if I do not like it? Not to me, but fans of it will say I am. Madden 08 is the best football sim to date, so I say you are missing out on it.

There is no "MONOPOLY" in this industry. I'm not knocking them for making a buck. It is a business. You can't please everybody!

You're right, Madden is getting better. NHL has also gotten way better. EA is actually making more incremental progress with their sports games the past few years than in those before. They still have two major problems though: one, they sell games that are unfinished pieces of crap sometimes (anyone play Madden 06 on the 360?), and they also don't play-test their games very well. I've had several EA Sports games that would allow you to change the settings for every game (such as turning announcer volume to 0), but every time you start a game, the setting you made does not take effect until you pause the game, go to the menu, and close out. That's just sloppy. Even in this year's Madden, there is an obvious over-fumbling issue and no setting to tweak it. Every time they release games with those problems, they lose goodwill with the customers, and rightly so. While I don't think the exclusive licenses help, EA Sports released crap even before that.

"Although some games have sparked improvements big and small (FIFA & Hockey), "

Funny, that, because they actually have competition in both areas (Konami and 2K Sports respectively.)

People bitch about EA all of the time because they are pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the death of the NFL franchise as a viable console gaming option. Having played every iteration of Madden since the SNES, I can tell you that- for ME- it's just not fun anymore, and I can also tell you that since '06 for the 360 I haven't even come close to being interested in actually *buying* a copy. Why is this bad? Why should EA care? Because as a multibillion dollar publicly traded company they are surprisingly sensitive to trends in their marketplace, and history would suggest that this is the way things go: first a few people think you're irrelevant, then a few hundred, then a few thousand, then a few hundred thousand and pretty soon you gotta close those sweatshops in Tekrit. I am glad that you find them so awesome, but for the most part my friends and I who were weened on Intellivision and Tecmo Bowl could really give a shit, and new generations spring forth interested in fresh[er] franchises like Bioshock, Gears of War and Asassin's Creed. As far as sports not changing much throughout the years, I'm kinda dumbfounded at that statement- if game designers as a species adhered to that logic we'd all still be that shitty old Mattel electronic football where your running back is a red dash.

You are right about one thing- as a single individual my not buying EA games won't mean a good goddamn to their bottom line. But when you extend that to my friends, and the friends that my friends know, and to their friends... well, all of a sudden you're talking about real numbers, real dollars and really negative trends that aren't so easily turned around. As a big, fat, bloated corporate whale they are neither nimble enough to roll with the the changes nor are they equipped with the institutional capacity and hunger to innovate that seems to fuel other gaming companies, who often have to take risks just to be noticed. EA hurting- shedding corporate fat, NOT gobbling up good smaller independent studios who still know how to make a good game- can only be a good thing.

Fifa Street and Tour I will agree with you.

But you gotta buy the full Skate. It is so much deeper than the demo leads on.

skate is worth the buy, IMO, if you're really into skateboarding and/or skating games. The demo is just a short tutorial which doesn't do it justice. I got sick of the Tony Hawk games. I'd at least buy it when the price drops.

I'm going mutant league. Reggie Fright rules.