Electronic Arts Unveils New Policy For Marking YouTube Videos As 'Supported' Or 'Advertisement'

from the huh dept

While the past few years have seen a torrent of criticism heaped on the video game journalism world, far too little of it has been focused on the cozy contractual deals being worked out between publishers and YouTube personalities that review games. With some of these arrangements having come to light, most notably concerning Nintendo and Warner Bros. games coverage, it's fairly safe to assume that many other publishers do something of this sort. These arrangements work something like this: the game publisher will offer access to the games for review by the YouTuber, so long as the YouTuber agrees to offer generally positive reviews to the product. The YouTuber benefits by being first to market with reviews, the publisher benefits from positive coverage, and the public gets spit in the eye while losing their trust in the personalities they have followed. Add to it all that some of these arrangements fail to follow FTC guidelines on marking paid-for material and you're left with the inevitable understanding that this is an arrangement that can only last for a short period of time, as the public trust in the reviewers will torpedo to the point of losing the audience completely.

It's devolved to the point where even companies from which we've come to expect the worst are trying to get out ahead of all this. Electronic Arts, for instance, best known for its annual rivalry with Comcast over the "Worst Company" award, has developed a new policy for marking YouTube videos produced under this arrangement that is actually quite good.

In a post on EA’s German news blog (translated by NeoGAF), EA announced that they’re stepping up their disclosure game by contractually requiring content creators to disclose with EA-provided hashtags and watermarks. The watermarks are pictured above. I reached out to EA in North America, and they confirmed that it’s a company-wide thing, though some rules vary by region.

“Supported by EA” is to be used in situations where EA has paid for access to the game (travel, review copies, etc), but did not influence the video/stream itself. “Advertisement,” on the other hand, is exactly what it sounds like: EA provided material or directly influenced the direction of the content’s, um, contents.

The disclosure logos themselves, seen at the link, are simple and clear. It's actually the exact kind of transparency we would hope for. No longer should potential customers wonder if a review has been influenced in any way by EA, or even if EA has taken some actions to ingratiate itself to the reviewer. It's clearly labeled.

Now, we'll have to see how this ends up working in practice. Questions remain, such as how big the logos will be, whether YouTubers will take things a step further and call attention to the disclosures, or if nefarious omissions of the disclosure logos will occur. But in concept, it's quite good, and perhaps not the kind of thing we would expect to be pioneered by EA. So good on them.

Filed Under: advertisements, sponsored content, video games, videos
Companies: ea, youtube

Appeals Court Doesn't Think Putting Historical Figures In Video Games Is Free Speech

from the historical-history dept

Everyone knew this was coming. With the expansion of publicity rights that is currently ongoing, and more specifically after the case between former NCAA players and Electronic Arts that effectively killed off college sports video games, it was only a matter of time before former professional players turned their sights on the Madden franchise. Now that a few former NFL players have filed a publicity rights suit against EA, we again will see the First Amendment go up against publicity rights. So far, for free speech advocates and champions of video games being art, it isn't going well.

Some background. In the NCAA case, former athletes successfully argued that the NCAA forcing them to sign away the rights to their likenesses in order to play their respective sports deprived those athletes of the ability to license their likeness to other game-makers. It's an important distinction, because in the case of former NFL players no longer affiliated with the players' union, no such signing away of rights ever occurred. Instead, this is a simple battle directly between Electronic Arts, a game producer, and former players over the rights to use their likeness. In the Madden franchise, for many years the games have included historical teams, such as championship winning or otherwise notable teams, which have included nameless and faceless but otherwise faithfully reproduced historical athletes from those teams. Gamers can play with those teams against other historical teams, creating something of a historical fiction episode of professional sports. Historical fiction, of course, is protected by the first amendment as art. According to a recent ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, video games are to be treated differently.

The case against EA was brought by Michael Davis and Vince Ferragamo, both retired NFL players whose likenesses were reproduced (sans name or picture) in Madden's historical teams within the games. EA sought to have the case thrown out with an anti-SLAPP motion, arguing that it would be likely to win on several grounds. Included in those grounds was that the use of historical players' likenesses was transformative, that the publication of their game was in the public interest, and that its use of likenesses was artistically relevant to the game as a whole. The court didn't buy any of those arguments, most of which I understand, although the argument that the use of historical players in the game is transformative is at least an interesting one. But it's on the final argument EA made that the court seemed to go sideways in its logic. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter:

Finally, EA argued that the avatars were merely an incidental use. If the latest case makes its mark as precedent, it might be here. The 9th Circuit weighs the value, significance, purpose and duration of the use of the former players and comes away with a sense that the players' likenesses are worth something. Judge Fisher decides that "the former players’ likenesses have unique value and contribute to the commercial value of Madden NFL" and that "the former players’ likenesses are featured prominently in a manner that is substantially related to the main purpose and subject of Madden NFL."

From the ruling:

EA advances one additional argument in this appeal – its use of former players’ likenesses is protected under the First Amendment as “incidental use.” We disagree. We hold EA’s use of the former players’ likenesses is not incidental, because it is central to EA’s main commercial purpose – to create a realistic virtual simulation of football games involving current and former NFL teams.

Except that this seems to be entirely too simplistic an approach by the court and doesn't treat the game as having artistic value. Other genres of art don't typically suffer under this kind of distinction. Historical fiction seems like the logical place to point, in which public figures of notoriety are re-imagined in fictional accounts. Why should that use be different than historical players being used to play football against teams they never played against? What makes historical fiction okay, but historical games not? In its ruling, the court never really answers this question, instead going back to the NCAA case over and over again and asserting that the questions raised by EA in this case have already been decided.

As a result, the 9th Circuit affirms the lower court's decision to deny EA's motion to strike. The opinion not only reiterates what the same appellate circuit said last year in a similar case involving college athletes — something that could be disconcerting to TV broadcasters who are now facing legal heat — but also underscores some of the ways that publicity rights can gain an edge over First Amendment rights, best illustrated up until now by No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani's victory over a game that used her avatar.

But then why should this case be different than the one brought by Manuel Noriega, where his likeness was used in Activision's Call of Duty game without his permission. In that case, in a different jurisdiction, the court ruled that the First Amendment outweighed any publicity rights Noriega may have had. If video games are art, and they most certainly are, than former NFL players objecting to the historical fiction that comes about from EA including historical teams in its games ought be outweighed as well on First Amendment grounds. The state laws are different, but the protection of the First Amendment is not. And keep in mind, the game only includes basic info about these players that are historically accurate for the time of the team represented (height, weight, age of the player at the time they were on the team). No names or pictures were included. And the court was well aware of the protection video games are supposed to have as artistic endeavors.

The plaintiffs concede that their suit arises from an act by EA in furtherance of its right of free speech under the First Amendment. Indeed, “[v]ideo games are entitled to the full protections of the First Amendment, because ‘[l]ike the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas – and even social messages.’” Keller, 724 F.3d at 1270-71

The district court denied EA’s motion, however, concluding that the plaintiffs established a reasonable probability they will prevail on their claims. “‘Reasonable probability’ . . . requires only a ‘minimum level of legal sufficiency and triability.’”

And so the court refused to dismiss the case, which will now go trial. In that trial, we will learn whether California's publicity rights law will continue to value the desires of control of public figures over their own history or matters of art.

Filed Under: 9th circuit, california, football, free speech, historical fiction, historical figures, madden football, michael davis, publicity rights, vince ferragamo
Companies: ea

EA: Complaints About On-Disc DLC Are 'Nonsense'

from the tomato,-tomahto dept

We've long discussed how game downloadable content (DLC) can be done right, but more often than not it's done very, very wrong. On the positive side you have CD Projekt Red, who recently decided to offer two free pieces of DLC for The Witcher 3 every week for months, helping to build a positive relationship with fans while keeping the game consistently in the public (and media's) eye. More often than not however you have efforts like Bungie's recent flubs with Destiny, or Ubisoft's pretty but incredibly shitty DLC approach to Assasin's Creed, Unity.

And then there's EA, whose quality control issues, treatment of employees and obsession with low-value microtransactions are now legendary in the gaming industry. The company has made nickel and diming DLC high art, at times stuffing $60 launch titles with dozens of pieces of DLC at $5 or more a pop -- already embedded on the disc. Whether you like this idea or not, there's little debate that EA has quite often pushed the idea of microtransactions too far.

But what you might call obnoxious and greedy, EA COO Peter Moore continues to call "innovative value proposition." Speaking recently to Gamespot, Moore quite-proudly proclaimed that it's "nonsense" to believe publishers sell incomplete titles in order to make money off of missing content:

"A lot of that resistance comes from the erroneous belief that somehow companies will ship a game incomplete, and then try to sell you stuff they have already made and held back. Nonsense. You come and stand where I am, next to Visceral's studio, and you see the work that is being done right now. And it's not just DLC, this is free updates and ongoing balance changes."

Well, one, things like "free updates" and "balance changes" are part of routine maintenance for a title, and since they often involve fixing bugs -- aren't really part of the conversation. Still, Moore would prefer it if gamers thought about future EA DLC as if it were "APIs," not content already on the disc that customers should have gotten with the original game:

"Think of them as APIs," he said. "Knowing down the road that something needs to sit on what you've already made, means you have to put some foundations down. What people are confused about is they think DLC is secretly on the disc, and that it's somehow unlocked when we say."

And sure, Moore's not entirely wrong. Many are quick to point out that in modern game development, DLC quite often runs parallel and separate from core game design, and the core structure of DLC developed at a later date often exists on disc to make integration easier. Few deny that, and DLC can certainly be done well. But DLC did in fact start with many developers shaving core content off of the original game to make an extra buck, and there's little doubt that many titles are left intentionally sparse so users need to acquire pricey DLC to fully flesh them out. Moore also ignores the unholy atrocity that is pre-order DLC bonuses, which involves only being able to get a vast array of content if you pre-order from select vendors.

Cumulatively, the frequency of poorly-implemented microtransactions is still annoying, and it's certainly not "nonsense" if the modern gamer feels that the value proposition of many modern titles from AAA developers has slowly been circling the toilet. On the flip side, it has been interesting to watch the resistance to poorly-implemented DLC slowly erode over the years. Back in 2011, gamer disdain for nickel and dime DLC was utterly palpable. During the first quarter of this year, "extra content" generated roughly $921 million out of EA’s total digital revenue of $2.2 billion, meaning there are plenty of people who now either think DLC offers a great value position or have more disposable income than brains. I personally ignore 99.7% of all DLC.

Granted Moore is the same guy who tried to argue that EA won Consumerist's "The Worst Company In America" poll simply because it's big. And EA is the same company that consumes talented developers and shits out broken dreams as a matter of course. As such, EA's probably the last one gamers should ask when trying to differentiate value from a heaping $5 pile of nonsensical, supplementary horse excrement.

Filed Under: dlc, downloadable content, video games
Companies: ea

EA/Origin/Something Locks Benchmarkers Out Of Battlefield Hardline After Too Many GPU Swaps

from the punishing-the-innocent dept

Origin, Electronic Arts' online store and license-check-in system is a hilarious study in how to build a platform to serve legitimate customers and identify infringing copies of the game that both inhibits legitimate customers and misidentifies what is an infringing copy of a game. Add to this the fact that the Origin platform has in the past been found to be in and of itself a massive security exploit and one wonders how the service is still around today. But around it most certainly is, and still screwing with legitimate customers, too, as a group attempting to run benchmark tests on EA's Battlefield Hardline found out.

Guru 3D writer Hilbert Hagedoorn has discovered some pernicious DRM in Battlefield Hardline while attempting to do a "VGA graphics performance" test with the game for a feature article (thanks Blue's News). Apparently the DRM monitors hardware changes - something Hagedoorn was doing a lot of when testing different cards with the game - and when it hits a certain threshold it locks the user out of the game.

"Here's what EAs DRM is doing," Hagedoorn writes. "They don't just verify the number of PCs you work on slash use, nope .. they dare to monitor hardware changes now, which I am sure is a privacy breach on many levels. So once we insert new hardware (graphics cards) the hardware id # hash changes and if that happens a couple of times they are rendering your activation invalid."

For the record, EA has already responded to Game Politics with a wonderfully silly answer: it ain't our DRM, it's the Origin DRM, yo!

"Origin authentication allows players to install a game on up to five different PCs every 24 hours," the EA spokesperson told us this morning. "Players looking to benchmark more than five hardware configurations in one 24 hour period can contact our Customer Support team who can help."

Hoo-boy, EA, that's quite a trip of a rebuttal, considering Origin is your platform and the check-in system you're describing is in fact a form of DRM. So a statement that essentially boils down to, "It wasn't our game DRM, it was our platform DRM!" is absolutely useless. Is the Origin authentication that lets customers install on five different machines in a day fairly lenient as these things go? Sure, except for a couple of things. First, it clearly doesn't work all that well, since simply swapping out a GPU suddenly counts as a whole new machine. Second, why have this restriction at all? If your platform can't be relied upon to properly determine legitimate copies of games, then ditch the platform. Don't back that failure up by annoying paying customers with restrictions designed to buttress your failed attempts.

But all of that may end up being besides the point, because Hagedoorn's early point is the key: why is EA sniffing around our hardware configurations? The company had damned well better be sure that there is something in the EULA that allows for them to sniff out hardware swaps, something quite common amongst PC gamers, nevermind benchmarkers. But even if the EULA allows for this... what the hell?

Filed Under: benchmarking, drm, locked out, origin
Companies: ea

Free Speech Champions File Amicus Brief In Hopes Of Getting Terrible 'Publicity Rights' Decision Re-Examined

from the the-most-imaginary-of-imaginary-rights dept

There's no bigger business in the entertainment field than video games. Plaintiffs and lawyers seeking large payouts tend to head to where the money is, which explains the spate of highly-dubious "publicity rights" suits filed by former athletes and the occasional deposed dictator.

Publicity rights are highly dubious themselves, with only a few states even recognizing that this supposed "right" exists. This has led to particularly lucrative estates "moving" dead celebrities to new "hometowns" in order to exploit local laws.

But there's money in video gaming, and a whole bunch of former players have filed cash grabs in courts in hopes of securing what's never been rightfully theirs. Electronic Arts -- being the wealthiest video game producer in the world -- is a frequent target of these lawsuits. EA secures these "rights" by signing contracts with players' representatives: various players associations and entities like the NCAA -- who in turn have secured signed contracts from those they represent. These suits claim the contracts don't allow for the ongoing "exploitation" of their likenesses in recreations of historical teams

But it's not as though they never had the option to not sign a contract with the NFLPA or NCAA or whoever. Various superstars have opted out of these contracts over the years. Many, many basketball video games were produced with an indescript #23 (or no one at all) standing in for Michael Jordan. Bill Belichick, the Patriots' head coach, has recused himself from EA's pro football offerings. Players of those games see nothing more than a sweatshirted dude known as "NE Coach" when controlling the current Super Bowl champions. So, there are -- and were -- options. But those options were ignored and years later, the cry of "GIVE ME MONEY" is now heard in courtrooms around America.

The Ninth Circuit Court arrived at a truly troubling conclusion in Keller v. Electronic Arts, which featured eight plaintiffs arguing that the video game giant violated their publicity rights by using their likenesses. The opinion starts out promisingly enough, stating that video games -- like movies, books and plays -- are likewise protected by the First Amendment. But then the judges proceeded to qualify that seemingly crystal clear statement.

In this case, we must balance the right of publicity of a former college football player against the asserted First Amendment right of a video game developer to use his likeness in its expressive works.

Weighing EA's "expressive" use of players' likenesses against California's expansive publicity rights law, the court found in favor of the plaintiffs.

Under California's transformative use defense, EA's use of the likenesses of college athletes like Samuel Keller in its video games is not, as a matter of law, protected by the First Amendment. We reject EA's suggestion to import the Rogers test into the right-of-publicity arena, and conclude that state law defenses for the reporting of information do not protect EA's use.

Another publicity rights case, again involving EA Sports and a handful of former athletes, is in front of the same court. Eugene Volokh (of the recently-paywalled, WaPo-relocated Volokh Conspiracy) has submitted an amicus brief on behalf of EA, along with a long list of big names in the IP-meets-free-speech field, including Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown prof and the author of the excellent 43(b) blog), Geoffrey Stone (PCLOB member and fearless free speech defender), Eric Goldman (Santa Clara Univ. prof and an excellent blogger himself), and Lawrence Lessig, who really should need no introduction at this point.

The amicus brief [pdf link] not only lays out the case for EA's protected use of players' likenesses, but also invites the court to reexamine its flawed decision in Keller v. Electronic Arts.

Keller’s conclusion that references to real players in fantasy sports video games are not protected by the First Amendment is mistaken, and dangerously so. The Keller majority begins with the sentence, “Video games are entitled to the full protections of the First Amendment, … ‘[l]ike the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them[.]’” 724 F.3d at 1270-71 (quoting Brown v. Entm’t Merchs. Ass’n, 131 S. Ct. 2729, 2733 (2011)). It therefore follows that, to the extent video games may infringe the right of publicity for depicting or referring to real people, so may books, plays, songs, and films.

Thus, under the logic of Keller, the makers of the recent film Selma might be liable for a host of right of publicity violations unless they got permission from Coretta Scott King, Andrew Young, John Lewis, Harry Belafonte, and the heirs of Martin Luther King, Jr., J. Edgar Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, and others. The Academy Award-winning Forrest Gump might also have infringed historical figures’ right of publicity unless the filmmakers got permission from the Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Abbie Hoffman estates. Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson, which asked “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?,” might have infringed Joe DiMaggio’s right of publicity.

The brief points out that the circuit court is under no obligation to defer to California's screwed-up publicity rights law. It should instead defer to the First Amendment.

Fortunately, the law does not require such results. The Ninth Circuit is, of course, not bound by a state court’s interpretation of the First Amendment; but even under the California Supreme Court’s “transformative work” test, all these works, including the fantasy football video games involved in Keller and in this case, are constitutionally protected.

[...]

The conclusion that the First Amendment does not protect depictions of real people in expressive works, whether in fictional or non-fictional settings, cannot be right. Yet this is the world that the panel decisions in Davis and Keller risk creating. Whether to preserve, reverse, or modify the circuit law created by Keller thus merits this Court’s en banc attention — especially since this Court is the “Court of Appeals for the Hollywood Circuit,” White v. Samsung Electronics Am., 989 F.2d 1512, 1521 (9th Cir. 1993) (Kozinski, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc), and for the Silicon Valley Circuit as well.

Hopefully, the court will be open to examining the earlier decision, which certainly doesn't align with the decision's opening declaration that video games are just as protected by the First Amendment as their predecessors in the entertainment field. To do otherwise is to further open Hollywood's home court to further exploitation by IP ambulance chasers and litigious tourists.

Filed Under: amicus brief, california, davis, free speech, keller, publicity rights
Companies: ea

EA's Latest Attempt To Destroy SimCity Franchise: Micropayments For Hammers And Nails And Supplies

from the reticulating-splines dept

Let me tell you a story. Two years ago, the world's most hated video game company, Electronic Arts, decided to lay waste to one of the greatest franchises in history: SimCity. It did this in multiple ways. First, it pretended like the game's structure required an always-on internet connection, even though that wasn't true. Then EA failed to properly plan for the launch-day success it somehow managed to have, which meant that the required but not necessary internet connection was causing game servers to fail all over the place and rendering customers into would-be-game-players. The company was then voted as the "Worst Company In America" in a Consumerist poll. As a result of all that backlash, EA reformed its ways and released a mobile version of SimCity that is both customer friendly and stays true to the franchise's roots as a thank you to all of its loyal fans.

Haha, just kidding, EA totally fucked it up again. Their mobile game breaks the SimCity game mechanics and models entirely in favor of timer- or micropayment-based resource collection. And when I say resource collection, I mean on a level that's absolutely ridiculous.

SimCity fans, how much do you love timer-based resource-production as the primary means for growing your city? Let's say that you zone some plots of land for houses. In most SimCity games, you tweak the tax code, improve the roads, maybe build a police station nearby and, bit by bit, those homes improve. In SimCity Buildit? You can do some of that, but the main way you improve the residential areas you've zoned is by dragging resources to them.

What kind of resources are we talking about? Well, you need nails, which you make out of steel at a supply shop and it takes five minutes for the game to create them...or you can just buy them for real-world cash. But where do you get that steel to begin with? Well, it's made at the factory you built, and it takes minutes for that factory to replenish the steel girders you've already used...or you can just buy them for real-world cash. You can only develop your zones if you have enough -- wait for it-- hammers, which take 14 minutes to create for some reason, and only then if you have enough wood to make those goddamned hammers and now I'm starting to get frustrated...or you can just buy all this stuff for real-world cash. Getting the point? More importantly, does this remotely sound like any kind of SimCity game you've played in the past?

As the post points out, you can play the game without spending real-world money, but only in laughably truncated spurts that feel less like SimCity and more like CIA torture. From one review in the app store:

"They call you a 'Mayor' but a mayor doesn't have to work in the factories and ask for more stock every 2-5 minutes, and have to collect it personally in each factory."

Now, Kotaku goes on to declare that because Electronic Arts is the Dr. Evil of gaming companies, this means that all free-to-play is a scam and is destroying all of humanity. But that's just because Kotaku gets kind of stupid with some of this stuff. The real lesson here is that if you design your game with the "extract the most money as possible" frame of mind first and the wants/needs of your fans second, you're going to generate pissed off reviews. After all, it's not as though free to play hasn't worked wonderfully in the past.

But, you know, Electronic Arts.

Filed Under: annoyance, annoyances, free to play, in app payments, in game payments, micropayments, simcity
Companies: ea

Court Ruling: EA's Anti-Piracy Software Is Patent Infringing

from the live-by-IP,-die-by-IP dept

Between the company's general disposition and the incredible failure of the SimCity launch, Electronic Arts is becoming a name associated directly with digital rights management. The most infamous DRM platform the company has used is probably SecuROM, which was noteworthy for being equal parts mega-annoying to paying customers, as well as being so massively ineffective that games employing SecuROM later became amongst the most pirated video games of all time. But, results aside, EA would tell you that it needed to use DRM to protect the company from piracy. Even if SecuROM failed, the company had to at least try, or else the freeloaders that live the highlife getting around intellectual property laws would win. Violating IP laws is wrong, damn it, and EA was going to do everything in its power to right that wrong.

Including violating a notorious patent troll's intellectual property to do so, apparently -- at least, according to an East Texas court, which awarded Uniloc nearly $5 million after determining that EA violated the patent troll's patent with the SecuROM platform.

Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. sued in 2013, claiming EA's SecuROM video game activation system infringes on U.S. Patent No. 5,490,216. The system allows EA customers to activate and register their video games and is aimed at reducing piracy and "casual copying," Uniloc alleged. SecuROM restricts the number of devices a customer can simultaneously activate a game on with the same key. EA games that use the system include "Alice: Madness Returns," "Dragon Age II" and "Darkspore: Limited Edition," the complaint stated. Uniloc asked the court to for compensatory damages and "a reasonable, on-going, post judgment royalty." A federal jury agreed with Uniloc and awarded over $4.86 million in compensatory damages on Friday.

I have to admit, I feel a bit like the characters at the end of the original Jurassic Park movie, who were being attacked by velociraptors only to be saved at the last moment by the tyrannosaurus rex that had nearly murdered them all earlier. You don't really root for either side; you can only pray they tear each other apart. That said, schadenfreude is one of my failings, and enjoying it with the healthy dose of irony that comes along with EA infringing on a patent with its anti-piracy software is so good, it's likely fattening.

But, hey, live the IP sword, die by the IP sword, right?

Filed Under: anti-piracy, drm, patents, securom
Companies: ea

EA Admits That Gobbling Up Talented Studios Then Ruining Them Isn't Working Out So Well

from the now-witness-the-firepower-of-this-fully-armed-and-operational-battle-station dept

EA, a company right up there with Comcast in terms of consumer disdain, has a long and proud history of gobbling up talented developers, then either obliterating them outright, or homogenizing them until the products are the very pinnacle of bland. Studios like Bullfrog, Westwood Studios, and Origin were all near legendary game developers when acquired, but are now little more than fond memories after ham-fisted attempts to cash in on the catalogs (Ultima IX, anyone?). Other studios like Maxis were similarly legendary, but now struggle to put out rushed, highly-flawed simulacrum under the EA banner.

After twenty years of such stumbling, scorched-earth acquisitions, EA's bloated belly appears to be full, and the company has finally decided that perhaps it should focus on developing content with the acquired talent army it already has. Company CFO Blake Jorgensen would even go so far as to admit EA's history with such acquisitions is "marginal" at best:

"I think our history with acquisitions is somewhat marginal in performance," Jorgensen said when asked if EA has identified any acquisition targets in the industry. "We have some that are spectacular, and some that didn't do so well. It's a headcount business, right? You're buying headcount, and that's always difficult to manage in acquisitions. It doesn't mean we won't do them, but I think where we've been most successful is in smaller acquisitions that we've integrated very quickly."

In other words, EA finally has all the talent it needs to keep rolling out barely-interesting Madden after Madden updates (shielded from competition via their exclusive NFL arrangement) and a decade of new, semi-interesting Star Wars games courtesy of its deal with Disney. If EA's stock is any indication, investors think EA has learned a thing or two about making friends with consumers, and the company claims it's working hard to change its customer reputation in the market (EA gave away several free games as a promotional effort over the weekend). Though dysfunction may just be grafted to EA's genetic code, 2015 might be the year that Ubisoft steals EA's consumer annoyance crown.

Filed Under: acquisitions, studios, video games
Companies: ea

Creating Controversy: No, An Upcoming EA Game About Militarized Police Doesn't Need To React To Ferguson, MO

from the imitating-life dept

As the Ferguson, MO saga continues to unfold, there are certainly lessons to be learned. An overly-militarized police force coupled with the oppression of free speech and the press aren't good ways for managing an angry population, for instance. Conversely, a police force that actually connects and serves with the community they're tasked with policing produces far better results. And, of course, we're all forced to have yet another discussion about race-relations in this ostensibly free and equal country of ours. These are good conversations to have.

Strange calls to video game companies that will be releasing a long-produced game featuring militarized police, insinuating that they must somehow be cognizant of Ferguson now that it's happened, are not useful in any way. That link serves as the kind of Kotaku article that features the gaming website occasionally going completely off the rails and twisting itself into angsty-wrong for reasons unknown to this writer. The piece starts with some of the frightening images we've all seen from Ferguson and then tailspins into this:

Into a world where Ferguson has now happened, where people around the world are confused and outraged at this type of police appearance and presence, EA is going to release a video game about heavily-armed police blowin' shit up on the streets of the USA. Nathan wrote about people's concerns (and EA's responses) with Battlefield Hardline's subject matter earlier this year, but that was a piece inhabiting a vacant plot of the media and cultural landscape, where the only thing present were those concerns. Now, we have some reality to sit alongside them.

Ah, yes, fantastic point. The company that made a fictional game set in real-world American locales must now be concerned because said game features aggressive and militarized police and Ferguson just happened! Because prior to Ferguson, police were never militarized. Before Ferguson, a militarized police forces had never scared the shit out of everyone. That whole thing after the Boston Marathon bombing where the police shut down a major city and rolled SWAT tanks through the streets? Never happened, yo. Police brutalizing civilians wasn't a thing until Missouri.

Except that none of that is true. The game is a work of fictionalized entertainment and, just because the subject matter might somehow remind some folks of a police issue this country is facing, there isn't a whole lot to do from EA's standpoint. As this article admits, before then wishing upon a rainbow that somehow EA would treat their game product like not-a-game product.

So what are EA to do? Well, there's not much they can do, or to be honest anyone should ask them to with regards to Hardline. The game was announced months ago and is well on its way to being completed...What I'd hope EA do, however, and this goes for all video game publishers, is to take the subject matter a little more seriously next time they want to approach it. There's a deeply unsavory element to casting police as assault rifle-toting warriors, one that in the wake of Ferguson - and its inevitable successors - video game companies would do well to remember and be a little more careful with.

I mean, you can say that if you want, but then you had damned well better be calling for the same thing when it comes to the issue of crime in this country and Grand Theft Auto, the issue of war in this country and something like a third of the games ever produced, the issue of animal cruelty and trades-workers in this country and the Mario Bros. franchise. Or, instead, we could realize that slamming makers of entertainment and art for not flinch-reacting to the news of the day, even really important news, is probably a silly thing to do.

Filed Under: battlefield hardline, ferguson, militarized police, missouri, police, video games
Companies: ea

UK Advertising Regulator Nixes EA's Dungeon Keeper Advertisement Due To Microtransactions

from the freedom-isn't-free dept

Electronic Arts, fresh from being upset in the most recent "Worst Company" contest, isn't taking the defeat lying down. In fact, they're in full rebuilding mode, acquiring as much news about pissing people off as possible. Recently, for instance, you may have heard that the next Sims game will be published without the much-loved toddler children sims or the ability to create swimming pools in players' homes. The response from EA essentially states that they don't think that stuff is important, despite the public outcry. With an eerily similar recent history in the form of the SimCity debacle still fresh in everyone's mind, people aren't too happy.

But the real trump card the company has rolled out recently is the Dungeon Keeper mobile game which pissed off roughly everyone. And I don't just mean the critics, who essentially look upon this reboot of a beloved franchise as blasphemy, but even consumer rights groups are getting involved due to the cynical attempt in the game to extract microtransactions out of players through in-app purchases while claiming to be a free game. The UK's Advertising Standards Authority disallowed EA advertising Dungeon Keeper as a free game and describes the ad this way:

A direct e-mail for the mobile app game Dungeon Keeper stated "GET DUNGEON KEEPER ON MOBILE FOR FREE! ... DIG. DEVISE. DOMINATE. Build the most badass dungeon ever! Raise an army of diabolical minions and lay twisted traps to destroy any opponents foolish enough to set foot in your lair. MASTER THE HAND OF EVIL Cast powerful spells, pillage and plunder other players’ dungeons, and slap your imps around to make them work harder. A world of wicked fun is right at your fingertips. What are you waiting for, Keeper? Get it for FREE!" A footnote stated "WIRELESS FEES MAY APPLY". The ad also featured a screenshot of the game which appeared to show a well-developed dungeon, and was accompanied by artwork depicting characters from the game.

The problem? Well, by most objective estimations, you can barely play the game without shelling out for in-app purchases. See, the game uses two kinds of currency in order to construct dungeons, which is the gameplay within the app. There's stone and gold, which replenish and accrue over time, and there are gems which are paid for with real-life money or some very limited in-game actions. EA argued that everything that appeared in their ad, including depictions of a created dungeon, could be achieved without spending any real-world money and just playing the game. And they're technically right, but they forgot to mention that the amount of time we're talking about to do so makes the game unplayable. Also, they forgot to mention how, in a departure from games like Candy Crush, the time players are made to wait gets longer as they progress in the game.

We noted that, although some of these actions could be done simultaneously, there was a limit to how many actions could happen at the same time and that the length of the countdown timers increased according to how far the player had progressed in aspects of the game. We therefore regarded it as extremely likely that players would reach a position where they would be unable to take any further meaningful or progressive action in the game until a timer had finished or been skipped, and that these periods would become longer and more significant, and the cost of skipping increasingly higher, as the player progressed. Although some of the features in the ad did not require waiting for a timer, we noted that these were either incidental or brief (such as ‘slapping’ the imp characters) or were dependent on other actions that were gated by a timer. We acknowledged that the Gem currency, through which the timers could be skipped, could be obtained for free through normal gameplay and that the game could therefore be played without spending currency to bypass the countdown. However, we understood that the rate at which they could be accrued was slow in comparison to the amount needed to play the game at a reasonable rate, where the delays did not significantly impact on the ability to continue playing.

In other words, the ad said the game was free and didn't mention in-app purchases, but the game is essentially unplayable without such purchases. In addition, progress in the game is specifically met with a mechanic designed solely to extract in-app purchases in the form of an increasingly long countdown timer. It's a scummy way to make a game, to advertise a game, and to treat customers, particularly within a game that is universally considered to be garbage.

The end result is the ASA nixed the ads that depicted the game as free and ordered them to make future ads clear about in-app purchases and the limitations on free gameplay. If EA wants to keep on making this money-extracting drivel, they certainly can, but they can't pretend they aren't. Consumer protection done right, in other words.

Filed Under: advertising, dungeon keeper, free, in-app purchases, microtransactions, uk
Companies: ea