"Speaking at London Games Conference earlier in the week Cousins (EA-Easy executive) said that the company's rivals are "resting on their laurels" when it comes to investing in the future of video games."
Really? Other companies are resting on their laurels compared to EA? Because as what I see whenever I go to a store selling PC games is that most of the market is MMOs, and pretty much none of that thriving market is EA. If by "resting on their laurels" he means not buying up successful and productive software shops to turn them into unproductive rubbish bins I'd have to agree. But with what EA has done to the Sims Online, Origins Studios, Earth & Beyond, and most recently the disaster which is Mythic Entertainment....
EA is talking a hilarious amount of smack. It is like the nerdy preppy kid in college telling the all-star athletes that he is going to single-handedly kick all their butts at basketball.
I mean sure, maybe Bioware I can understand because they have a good track record. But when you tell me EA is making a Star Wars MMO I expect it to turn out like this:
Because if any game company knows how to rest on its imperial laurels while its little game studios struggle and die, it has to be EA (Sorry to Mythic Entertainment)
Need to read some really dramatic flare ups about EA, Mythic, WAR, or simply just want to see verbal sparks fly and flames erupt? Here you go, go read "EALouse"!
An article from MCV about Capcom responding to Clergy criticizing the newest Resident Evil game has been making the rounds. Proof yet again that journalism is suffering these days because everywhere I've looked I've seen no more information than presented in the original article. It just isn't much.
"Bishop Bryant of Jarrow, Archdeacon Brian Smith and Rt Rev John Goddard have all accused the game of promoting such interests amongst the UK’s youth, with the latter stating: “If we dabble in this area we open ourselves to influences and put ourselves at risk. I would regard any encouragement for children to be drawn into this behaviour with extreme horror.”
The initial article leaves me with several questions:
Who are these Bishop Bryant, Archdeacon Smith, and Rt Rev Goddard?
What organizations do they belong to?
Where did they originally say or write these quotes?
Were the anti-Resident Evil quotes published?
Why did Capcom feel the need to respond?
Why do these news sites keep passing around stories without investigation when they've been had before?
Unfortunately I've not found anyone who has really tried to answer those questions. So I spent a couple hours today and worked on the first question. Who are these 3 guys. Archdeacon Brian Smith was the only one I could get to come up in a google search not related to the Capcom article as there appears to be or have been an Archdeacon Brian Smith on the Isle of Mann off the coast of Britain. Nothing came up providing any context. I've also found reports from a few other bloggers who've found as little or less than I have.
So let me be a cynic here and postulate a theory. Resident Evil 5 initially got loads and loads of free publicity because of the "racism controversy" because it was set in Africa and a lot of black zombies (Shooting White Zombies okay... shooting Black Zombies racist?). Capcom wasn't really sorry, they ate the press up and fanned the flames for free publicity. There were even flash games on the web where you could shoot black african zombies.
But now Resident Evil 5 is being released to not much fanfare. How many of you even knew that it released in the U.S. last week? There wasn't even a peep about it. It releases in Europe next week and surely Capcom wants people to know but the budget for advertising is low in this recession. I suspect after seeing all the publicity EA got for it Capcom is now giving it a try. How about another controversy for RE5? We've got a cult in our game so we can pick on a religious group... lets see Christians or Jews are always the modern favorites aren't they? (They don't have the brass ones to pick on Muslims).
I mean it wasn't a controversy before this, so why would Capcom create the corporate publicity blitz around a protest nobody had heard of?
Because you know it isn't like people can be retrained to write java for less than $200 million. Oh wait, we can train people and don't have to treat them as disposable!
PAX had a lot of kewl gadgets as always. Super cooled computers, gloves that work as your keyboard and mouse, new touch based interfaces, a neat black glove that works as an interface, and of course the return of the incredible tables from Geek Chic.
Actually I mostly just noticed the peregrine glove and not just because it was next to the Elemental/Stardock booth. I always pay attention to new interfaces as they promise to be the really big thing like the Nintendo Wii Remote or the next big flop like the Nintendo Power Glove. The Peregrine glove is a much more intuitive interface, if they can produce it cheaply enough for the mass market then I expect you'll be hearing a lot more about it in the future barring any unforseen disasters.
Jupiter broadcasting covered the Peregrine and a lot more tech stuff from PAX a lot better than I can:
So I guess I have to retract half a point about EA being smart enough not to continue their stupid "Sin to Win" promotion at PAX. They didn't do it at PAX... but they are still promoting stupid, stupid contests directly with gaming media. See this adult humor webcomic making fun of EA today at Ctrl-Alt-Del. In Mixed news the pro-Draconian EA is now selling their games on the Anti-DRM Stardock's Impulse digital distribution network. Something has gotta give here, this is NOT a match made in heaven or hell. Watch this become some bad EA promotion for Dante's Inferno about "Limbo" (the portion of hell that always looks at heaven but can never get there).
Real life has been too hectic or stressful to do anything with painting or terrain. Baby doesn't want to sleep at nights now. Unemployment extension is running out (so having to get another extension) as I'm now going on way the heck too long without a regular paying job. I am Looking into training or returning to school to make myself more competitive on the job market but I'm not sure the government wants to pay for that. I'm hoping within the next week I'll have the time to do some more videos about terrain or models I've painted. Plus hopefully the first Anima Tactics organization video.
I'm glad for labor day after PAX. It is so intense, especially when you take an excited kid on the second day. One thing I certainly noticed about PAX this year though was that families and women made up a much higher percentage of the demographic. 5 years ago there was about one girl out of every ten or twenty attendees. Now it is more like one out of four. I noticed EA didn't have their "Sin to Win" contest. As I'd said I wondered if they'd try it at PAX after the previous disasters at E3 and Comic-con. The PAX crowd would mob them if they did and so they finally appeared to have dropped this idiotic promotion. EA itself was kind of low-key and swallowed up by the great displays from subsidiaries Mythic and Bioware. Maybe they could take a few lessons from them on how to promote a game? Honestly I had trouble finding EA until I realized that what was next to the Diablo III booth was Dante's Inferno and not a continuation of Diablo III.
By the way I have to contrast this with Turbine who had a Succubus themed contest for D&D online. They got a booth babe (Pictured on the right) who was both devilish looking without sinking to below-the-groin sleaze. On that note I should also announce for all of those interested in a free-to-play MMO that D&D online is now free to play. Extra content can be bought with micro transactions (consider yourself advised) but you can enjoy all of the basic game for free. Get on board soon because I'm sure their subscription levels are going to shoot through the roof.
The second part of the PAX "Legend of Neil" panel is now up on Youtube if you enjoy that kind of crass humor, you sicko. I noticed that episode 4 is late. Stop slacking Sandeep! Also, Comedy Central you need to get these guys like an actual budget. Speaking of budgets... I'm sorry to say that I filled up my cameras only memory chip after this part so it doesn't continue on. Feel free to email me about a financial contribution if you'd like to make sure this doesn't happen again (I wish).
P.S. - Felicia Day is still a traitor for going to that other Con instead of PAX this year
One of the things I looked forward to when moving back to Seattle was the more moderate climate. Doesn't feel like it right now though I know things are a lot worse in the interior of the state.
Speaking of heat, I wonder if anyone at EA is ever going to feel it? EA and their Dante's Inferno publicity stunds are a Penny Arcade punchline now. I'm almost eager for them not to repent, they're a sponsor of PAX and if they pull this kind of stunt there they'll be invoking unholy retribution. The kind that would just put a smile on my face.
I've been working a lot on terrain lately and I intend to do a terrain segment showing off what I've built and how I've done it. Here is a prelude of what is to come.
Speaking of excitement, all you VOR fans are going to start getting excited next week I'm informed. I'm sworn to secrecy but I think monday will be a good day to be camping the bioplazm forums. Meanwhile I've been working on my Golem, trying to figure out what detail colors I'm going to be using for my Pounders.
How is it that EA manages to stay in business? They're just one EA-Fail after another, such that they just got the before linked twitter site dedicated to their constantly occurring failures.
So well now they've issued an apology... sort of... on the obscure twitter service twitpic:
We understand there's a lot of debate right now around our "Sin to Win" promotion at Comic-Con and wanted to clarify a few things. We created this promotion as part of our marketing efforts around the circle of Lust (one of the nine sins/circles of Hell). Each month we will be focusing on a new Circle of Hell. This month is Lust. Costumed reps are a tradition at Comic-Con. In the spirit of both the Circle of Lust and Comic-Con, we are encouraging attendees to Tweet photos of themselves with any of the costumed reps at Comic-Con here, find us on Facebook or via e-mail. "Commit acts of lust" is simply a tongue-in-cheek way to say take pictures with costumed reps. Also, a "Night of Lust" means only that the winner will receive a chaperoned VIP night on the town with the Dante's Inferno reps, all expenses paid, as well as other prizes.
We apologize for any confusion and offense that resulted from our choice of wording, and want to assure you that we take your concerns and sentiments seriously. We'll continue to follow your comments and please let us know if you have any other thoughts or concerns. Keep watching as the event unfolds and we hope you'll agree that it was all done in the spirit of the good natured fun of Comic-Con.
There is a lot of debate? Yeah, about whether the people at EA are stupid or just sexist misogynists. They take the concerns so seriously they're not even willing to give the apology the same attention they gave the contest. The good news is that apparently not even the lowliest comic-con attendee can match EA's level of low... because nobody sent in any entries for the contest. Wow! EA thought we were confused but the reality is everybody thought you were just stupidly misogynistic to participate. Plus the marketing morons advertising yourself like a game of Evony is not a way to impress hardcore gamers into playing your game.
So at least EA sticks to its guns. In the EA manuscript their customers are pirates, they're stupid, and they just don't understand these disgustingly stupid mysogynist contests they produce... they will never admit to making mistakes, being outright wrong, or making bad management decisions.
Maybe instead of laying off competent people at your studio acquisitions, you should be laying off the managers at EA. Instead of merging and firing the heads of successful studios like Mythic and Bioware, maybe you should be asking what it would take for them to replace the incompetent managers at the parent company with a long, long history of being unethical screwups.
Maybe pigs will fly and I'll get rich writing a blog.
I've got a few friends who are really looking forward to the Knights of "The Old Republic" MMO from Bioware. I warned them not to get their hopes up too high since EA is now in charge.
Sure enough, EA has put Paul Bennett in charge of Creative Director for Bioware-Mythic. Yes, coming over from the greatly successful MMO studios of EA (what MMO didn't they sink?) and coming on board for the slowly sinking ship that is WAR (recently laying off massively in their QA and customer service departments as per my prior blog entry) is now in charge of Creative development. Because when you're a big egotistical manager for a hugely egotistical corporation like EA or SOE you always take your failed managers and promote them on to your new great endeavors.
Head for the link to read more of this creative vision that he is bringing or enforcing on Bioware.
Paul Bennett:The concept of there being MMOs is probably dead. There are just games. There's online games, and very soon there will just be games. They will all be online anyway. I don't think there's an MMO any more. I think there's online games and there's online revenue, and they're sort of going to combine.
and now.... and now we have EA's "Sin to Win" contest as yet another reason.
So go to Comic-Con, get pictures of yourself sexually harassing a booth babe and EA will reward you? Note that nowhere in the flyer does it say ANYTHING about EA booth babe's so if you think it is just their employees and they're prepared... think again. Even if it was EA employees I think it would be (or is?) fodder for a sexual harassment lawsuit. However, they've opened themselves up to a lawsuit from any girl working as a booth babe for any company at Comic-Con.
Wish I could get some of the lawsuit money EA is going to have to dish out for this publicity stunt.
With companies like these, it starts to feel difficult NOT to endorse piracy for those who feel the need to play their games. I think EA is trying to make Walmart start to look ethical.
Electronic Arts will play host to a panel on homophobia in videogame culture organized by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation this Saturday<...>
Topics will include "how to provide safe spaces for LGBT people online, how to ensure the best policies are in place to prevent virtual attacks against LGBT people and how to educate the users of online communities about the effects of homophobia."
Emphasis in bold is mine, I don't care about the rest. I'm of the opinion that most people playing games want some time away from the issues of the real world. Pick a political hot button issue and people want away from it. I really don't want my games trying to educate me about homo-anything. Most popular games are a variant of "kill things and take their stuff", where does sexuality have anything to do with it? We aren't talking obscure japanese hentai games here. In any guild I've been in leadership for this rule has always existed: We don't talk about politics, religion, or sexuality in guild chat. People have strong opinions about those subjects and talking about it in guild chat tends to break an otherwise fun guild based around roleplay, raiding, or PvP. In WoW I was particularly vicious about guild kicking and /ignoring anyone who used gay pejoratives and I would lurk around on alts to enforce it with new recruits. I'm not promoting the behavior, I just don't think anybody trying to have fun wants EA or anyone else to have a homesexuality debate shoved down their throat.
Sigh, I think I've had my fill from the U.S. media this last week. Get ready for a religion & gaming rant in this blog (or stop reading now).
Does it seem like the only thing that won't get mocked by the U.S. news when it comes to religion is Atheism and Islam? Even though combined they still make up less than 10% of the total U.S. population. Earlier this week I read and watched lots of news about how every Christian and all of the Right Wing media is incitement towards domestic terrorism. Yet just before and also the same day we saw terrorist/hate crime acts by Muslims played down in the mainstream media. Thank goodness for the internet and bloggers who will present things that the Cable news networks and Newspapers won't.
I think what was really over the top was the media response to President Obama's speech this week. I'm not going to talk about the speech or the merits of it, you're all welcome to your own political persuasions. But in the U.S. I saw the media stooping to a level deference for Islam that would knock me over flat if they did the same for Christianity, Judaism or even Buddhism. Here is the media emoticon version:
Muslim World = 8D Christian Nation = ~:( Jewist State = >:-[
Now I'll be open and honest, I've got respect for a lot of religions but the "Religion of Peace" has yet to win my good neighbor "wouldn't it be nice to have more of those nice folks living next to you" award. While I appreciate the cultures and people of Europe and the Middle East, the months of my life spent in those parts of the world have made me very, very, very grateful to be living in a country with Freedom of Religion protections for as long as it can be made to last.
So what does any of this have to do with gaming? Enter Electronic Arts, already known for draconian measures against paying customers to take control of their computers and make sure you're not doing anything they don't approve of because you've played one of their games. Known for paying bottom dollar in the game industry to its employees, being the first to layoff, hostile corporate takeovers, and having the most MMO games close servers after release. Well here is another one:
EA is now inventing fake religious controversies over their games to try and get media attention.
Easily believed to be another wacky group of Christians right? Well a lot of people believed so, but this is actually an EA publicity stunt. If this had been done as a joke, I might have taken it as one but AP news actually had to do some research to determine it was a fake. I find this as funny as a fake Suicide bomber, fake Self-immolating monk, or an Anti-Semitic joke.
It has already been my policy to not buy EA games because you have no idea what their software is going to do to your computer since they have demonstrated time after time having 0 respect for their customers. But after this kind of gross public misconduct I'm ready to start my own Electronic Arts boycott that extends to Wii games and every platform. I'm not into boycott petitions, but just hurting them where it counts... their bottom line.
Now on to another E3 note: I guess the good side of the fake Electronics Arts protest is that the E3 security recognized their constitutional right to assemble on a public sidewalk and FAKE protest. Unfortunately they didn't do it out of principle as they tried to have these booth babe protesters removed from the public sidewalk. This also happened to be another fake protest, fake protesting the $3,000 fine for having booth babes wearing bikinis inside the Adults Only E3... in Los Angeles.
Soooooo, yeah. Skip E3, if you have any sense go to PAX which so far has never failed to have more common sense and more respect for your 1st Amendment Rights.
I mean sure, maybe Bioware I can understand because they have a good track record. But when you tell me EA is making a Star Wars MMO I expect it to turn out like this:
