Top 10 Things EA NEEDS To Do Better!

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#10: Stop Pandering at E3

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E3 is, essentially, one massive press conference. It's not a music concert, it's not a comedy show, and it's not the Oscars. So, why does EA feel the need to sell their games by hiring YouTubers and celebrities for their EA Plays event? We don’t need Zac Efron and Jamie Foxx to sell us on “Battlefield 1”. We don’t need a YouTuber telling us how awesome “Need for Speed” or “FIFA” is. And please, no theatrical on-stage performances. EA, you don’t need celebrity endorsements to sell your games, so long as they’re good. Just come out and show us what everyone is working on. That’s all you need to do.

It’s hard to keep a secret in the age of the internet. Leaks happen, rumors can start up easily, and scandals can come flooding at any moment. This power should not be taken lightly. So, when you say something in a public letter to your investors, like, say, that the removal of microtransactions won’t - quote - “have a material impact on EA’s fiscal year” in regards to “Battlefront II,” gamers will find out, and considering the controversy surrounding loot boxes in the world of AAA gaming at the moment, they will not be pleased - understandably so. If you want to have microtransactions in your game, just be honest with the consumer about why they’re there.

With the sheer number of studios EA has purchased, there's a lot of great titles EA has under its belt. Unfortunately, many of them have been collecting dust when they could be collecting our cold, hard cash. Where’s “Wing Commander” been? Why not bring back “Ultima?” Hell, why not bring back “Cel Damage?” EA has some good studios under its belt, and instead of shutting them down, they should be giving them established IPs to work on. If EA really wants our sixty dollars, they'd bring back one of these classic titles fans have been craving for far too long.

EA wasn’t called “Worst Company in America” for two years for nothing. With games rushing out the door in unfinished, buggy states, it's clear that EA is running a tight schedule on everything. Just from reading Kotaku News Editor Jason Schreier’s report on Visceral Games’ shut down, the constant pressure and tight scheduling lowered employee morale, with developers walking in and out the door throughout their “Star Wars” project. Games take time, both single-player and multiplayer. Many companies have had bad records of missed deadlines, but managed to turn games into something great. You’re running a company fueled by creativity, not cooking hamburgers.

Wanna know why Visceral Games was shut down? It's because they’re now-canceled “Star Wars” game was looking like “a much more linear game, which people don’t like as much today as they did five years ago or ten years ago” - at least, according to EA. Meanwhile, 2017 saw the release and success of “Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice,” “Horizon Zero Dawn,” “Resident Evil 7,” “Breath of the Wild,” “Super Mario Odyssey” and many, many more… so their competitors seem to think differently. EA won’t get anywhere if they put all their eggs in the multiplayer basket and ignore half of the market.

Following trends may have its benefits in sales, especially if you do something unique with it, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of unique ideas. Dragon Age 2 for example was heavily criticized upon release as it tried to replicate the experience from the then-popular Mass Effect, as opposed to the game it was a sequel to. But the biggest failure with this mindset came with the publishing of Insomniac Games’s “Fuse”. A game that was originally a more over-the-top cartoony game that stood out called: “Overstrike”. But then "Overstrike" was rebranded into a forgetful gritty realism shooter because … “Focus groups wanted more Call of Duty”. Do you hear anyone talk about ‘Fuse’ anymore? I didn’t think so?

Ever notice that EA’s games have started to feel less meaty? Like, a whole bone with no meat? We could easily point to “Battlefront” 2015 and its fifty-dollar Season Pass nonsense, or “The Sims 4” and its endless stream of DLC, but it really applies to most of EA’s catalog of the past couple of years. When you cut up your games like this, gamers tend to feel cheated out of their purchase, especially when you’re charging sixty dollars for what should be a COMPLETE game.

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#3: Make Origin More User Friendly

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What an absolute mess this has been… Over the years, Origin has been under fire for some of the most strict, uptight policies among gaming services. Accusations of spying, weak security systems, and numerous account bans over ridiculous reasons, Origin is not the most user-friendly. Things have gotten better over the years, but not by a huge margin. Benefits have been added, like discounts on certain purchases and early access to big games, but when you have other services like Steam offering similar benefits with better policies, Origin just isn’t worth it for how control-hungry it is. Where it stands as of writing this, even Origin users can’t stand the system.

There's a joke that EA is the “serial killer” of video game studios. It's a little hard to testify against that when there are lists of companies EA has bought only to shut down a few years later. Yes, Visceral Games and its highly anticipated Star Wars game comes to mind, but that's just a recent example. Other companies include Pandemic (the creators of the original “Battlefront” games, and Westwood, the team that brought us the “Command & Conquer” series. Sadly, these studios will never see the light of day again, and EA’s recent acquisition of Respawn makes us frightened for not just the future of Respawn, but of “Titanfall” as well.

You’d think they would have learned their lesson after the “Battlefront II” controversy, but they just pulled the same stunt in “Need for Speed: Payback”…and “FIFA 18”…and “UFC 3.” Microtransactions are incredibly invasive, and when they intrude on IPs that are near and dear to our hearts, any company can quickly become public enemy number one. If you think microtransactions aren’t going to affect a game’s sales, then why put them in? Had “Battlefront II” not incorporated loot boxes and microtransactions in its sixty-dollar price tag, it could have been the best-selling game of 2017. Just make a good, honest game, EA. No sleazy monetization, no pay-to-win loot boxes…just one complete, quality game. It’s really the only way to get back into the good graces of gamers.