General Gaming Thread

[Your Mom]

I didnt change the birthday thing and just hit enter. Now it wont let me in there

[apsham]

I did that earlier, haha. The trailer should be on YouTube..

[MalaCloudy Black]

I don't even know how to play Poker but I want Poker Night 2 just for Brock Sampson.

[thatshortguy]

I don't even know how to play Poker but I want Poker Night 2 just for Brock Sampson.

Hold 'em is one of the easier forms of poker to play. Give it a look. If you ever get interested, the first one is $5 on Steam and worth every penny.

[apsham]

I was more hoping that it was teasing a future Venture Bros. game.

[Skummy]

I can't understand how this studio could possibly go out of business.

[MalaCloudy Black]

I don't even know how to play Poker but I want Poker Night 2 just for Brock Sampson.

Hold 'em is one of the easier forms of poker to play. Give it a look. If you ever get interested, the first one is $5 on Steam and worth every penny.

I added it to my wishlist, so the next time there's a sale I'll probably pick it up. Yes, I am cheap.

[Benji]

I love how people away from EWB are bashing Microsoft for the dislikeable 360 news and rumours, and saying they'll move to the PS4. Lest we forget the security fiasco Sony had where Sony were the villains, and Microsoft the conquering hero.

Gamers have hilariously short memories.

[TCO]

What about the fact the first 3 years worth of 360 consoles were faulty pieces of shit that kept breaking. People have forgotten about that fairly fast. Both will have their positives and negatives, it'll just come down to whatever takes your fancy.

I'm gonna base mine on price and what my friends are getting, I have zero loyalty so I'm eagerly awaiting what Microsoft have to offer.

[apsham]

The news of a 500 dollar 720 that needs to be always on.. is kind of worth kicking up a bit of a fuss in my mind. That certainly kills the prospect of picking one up for me.. I just can't support that direction. And I kind of feel that when it all comes out in an announced fashion it actually won't be too far off any of that, just because that seems to be the stated direction that Microsoft wants to take it. Their statements about basically making their next console into something that resembles a gaming cable box is such a turn off for me marketing wise.

[TKz]

I've been Sony since the PS1. The only reason I'll be getting a console is for the exclusives (Final Fantasy), so I figure I might as well stick with the controller I like. I'll maybe pick up the next xbox at some point now I'll have the cash to do it.

[apsham]

I think my word can be trusted as someone who's had the best of both worlds.

[Cactus Drags]

The preowned block would likely kill any chance of my going with the next Xbox, sadly. I'm not going to get all uppity about it, I understand they want to make their money, but it's a questionable decision if that is indeed the direction they're headed. I guess a smaller always-connected market that's willing to pay full whack along with subscriptions, add-ons and not trading in must be worth more than a larger install base that part-exchanges, doesn't play online and doesn't pay for digital content.

[apsham]

Peter Moore responds to EA being named The Worst Company In America for the second year in a row by The Consumerist:

http://www.ea.com/news/we-can-do-better

The tallest trees catch the most wind.

That’s an expression I frequently use when asked to defend EA’s place in the gaming industry. And it comes to mind again this week as we get deeper into the brackets of an annual Web poll to name the “Worst Company in America.”

This is the same poll that last year judged us as worse than companies responsible for the biggest oil spill in history, the mortgage crisis, and bank bailouts that cost millions of taxpayer dollars. The complaints against us last year were our support of SOPA (not true), and that they didn’t like the ending to Mass Effect 3.

This year’s contest started in March with EA outpolling a company which organizers contend is conspiring to corner the world market on mid-priced beer, and (gulp) allegedly waters down its product. That debate takes place in bars – our audience lives on the Internet. So no surprise that we drew more votes there.

Let me cut to the chase: it appears EA is going to “win.” Like the Yankees, Lakers and Manchester United, EA is one of those organizations that is defined by both a legacy of success, and a legion of critics (especially me regarding all three of those teams).

Are we really the “Worst Company in America?” I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve made plenty of mistakes. These include server shut downs too early, games that didn’t meet expectations, missteps on new pricing models and most recently, severely fumbling the launch of SimCity. We owe gamers better performance than this.

Some of these complaints are 100 percent legitimate – like all large companies we are not perfect. But others just don’t hold water:

• Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period.
• Some claim there’s no room for Origin as a competitor to Steam. 45 million registered users are proving that wrong.
• Some people think that free-to-play games and micro-transactions are a pox on gaming. Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games.
• We’ve seen mailing lists that direct people to vote for EA because they disagree with the choice of the cover athlete on Madden NFL. Yes, really…
• In the past year, we have received thousands of emails and postcards protesting against EA for allowing players to create LGBT characters in our games. This week, we’re seeing posts on conservative web sites urging people to protest our LGBT policy by voting EA the Worst Company in America.

That last one is particularly telling. If that’s what makes us the worst company, bring it on. Because we're not caving on that.

We are committed to fixing our mistakes. Over the last three weeks, 900,000 SimCity players took us up on a free game offer for their troubles. We owed them that. We’re constantly listening to feedback from our players, through our Customer Experience group, Twitter, this blog, or other sites. The feedback is vital, and impacts the decisions we make.

I expect the debate will include a lot of comments under this post. But here’s the truth: each year EA interacts with more than 350 million gamers; Origin is breaking records for revenue and users; The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Real Racing 3 are at the top of the mobile charts; Battlefield 3 and FIFA are stunning achievements with tens of millions of players; and SimCity is being enjoyed by millions of passionate fans all over the world.

Every day, millions of people across globe play and love our games – literally, hundreds of millions more than will vote in this contest.

So here’s my response to this poll: We can do better. We will do better. But I am damn proud of this company, the people around the globe who work at EA, the games we create and the people that play them.

The tallest trees catch the most wind. At EA we remain proud and unbowed.

[Cactus Drags]

They're not the worst. But they have a particular reputation for caring about business first and games second, and the fact that their customer service and support is atrocious and they always seem to start or tag along with unpopular initiatives like the online pass makes people hate them. You can't give off this air of apathy towards your customers and then cry foul when they rip you for it.

[King Ellis]

What's that? Someone like Walmart pays a pittance to it's employees? They have low job satisfaction and high labour turnover? They're cited as a primary reason for the death of local community stores?

Medical insurance companies rake in billions but wont cover many families, leaving them fucked if they fall ill and have to rack up huge expenses?

Well fuck that noise, EA made me buy some DLC and I didn't like the ending of one of their games. Worst company!

[Cactus Drags]

They're actually pretty progressive, there was a story last year about them supporting an employee through a gender transition. Hardly worst company behaviour.

I would like to call attention to Bioshock 2 multiplayer. Ellis and I played it the other night and it is fun. Frustrating at times, but fun. EWB should definitely buy it, plan to have a big event and then never play it.

[apsham]

I remember Bioshock 2 multi on launch, it was absolutely fun - I never saw the problem a lot of people had with it.

So yes, we should all do that.

On PS3.

[Benji]

The news of a 500 dollar 720 that needs to be always on.. is kind of worth kicking up a bit of a fuss in my mind. That certainly kills the prospect of picking one up for me.. I just can't support that direction. And I kind of feel that when it all comes out in an announced fashion it actually won't be too far off any of that, just because that seems to be the stated direction that Microsoft wants to take it. Their statements about basically making their next console into something that resembles a gaming cable box is such a turn off for me marketing wise.

Oh don't misunderstand me, I'm with you on that. It's the fact that they're jumping to Sony as some conquering hero, when just a few months ago they were saying how terrible Sony were which has amused me.

[Millsybeast]

So I got 2 games at GAME today, LOTR: War in the North for the xbox & Hunted for the PS3. atm i'm playing LOTR and it's decent, kinda reminds me of the Eragon game, but replace Saphira the dragon with an eagle. Anyone played either? Your thoughts?