EA Giving Out Reasons To Buy: Tries Deluxe Box Set Versions Of Games

from the neat dept

Someone submitted the following anonymously, suggesting that it was a bad idea, but it seems like a worthwhile experiment to me. EA announced a pre-order offering for a special "Collector's Edition" version of its game Dragon Age, which includes a fancy steel case, a cloth map of the world, a "making-of" documentary, a soundtrack of the game and a bunch of other extras. It basically sounds just like what many musicians are now doing by offering special deluxe packages for serious fans. It's a way to segment customers, so some can buy the cheaper regular version, and others, who really, really like the game, can go all out and get the deluxe set -- including all sorts of scarce goods that can't be "pirated."

Filed Under: collector's edition, deluxe box set, dragon age, video games
Companies: ea

EA To Require Internet Connection For Command & Conquer

from the but-why? dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in this story that EA has said that, while it won't have DRM, on Command and Conquer 4, it will require an internet connection to play, and this already has people up in arms. The company is quick to say that this is so it can include certain useful features, but it still is upsetting people. It's hard to believe that EA wouldn't realize this would be an issue. Why not offer an "offline" version with limited features then? While, yes, we have reached an online world where most people are online most of the time, not everyone is online all of the time, and some of that offline time is time when people might like playing a video game...

Filed Under: command and conquer, drm, internet connection, video games
Companies: ea

Is EA Figuring Things Out? Says 'Please Pirate Our Games' And Has A Business Model For It

from the could-it-be? dept

Could it be that EA is actually figuring this stuff out? It's been one of the most maligned video game companies when it came to mistreating fans with things like draconian DRM -- but perhaps that's changing. Earlier this month we quoted EA's CEO, John Riccitiello, putting a positive spin on the fact that people had downloaded and shared unauthorized copies of The Sims 3, finally recognizing that it was like a demo version of the game. Reader Jim alerts us to the news that Riccitiello was apparently so happy with the response to The Sims 3 sharing, he's now going even further, telling people to "please pirate our games":

"By the way, if there are any pirates you're writing for, please encourage them to pirate FIFA Online, NBA Street Online, Battleforge, Battlefield Heroes... if they would just pirate lots of it I'd love them."

It's not clear Riccitiello is totally comfortable saying these things. As with the quotes earlier this month, you sorta get the feeling that there's a lot of nervous laughter around the quotes -- but at least he's trying. And part of it is because EA is, in fact, putting in place smarter business models, such that unauthorized downloads can actually lead to more sales:

"Because what's in the middle of the game is an opportunity to buy stuff. I increasingly believe that's the way the market's going because that's how the consumer wants to consume. And by the way, [regarding] my competitor, do you think Blizzard gets upset when someone pirates a disc of one of their online games? While we don't want to see people pirate Warhammer Online, if they're going to give us a year's subscription it's not exactly a total loss."

Indeed. He's getting there. If the real opportunities to make money are from buying stuff within the game, then you want the game itself to be as widely spread as possible...

Filed Under: business models, john riccitiello, piracy, video games
Companies: ea

Electronic Arts Stages Protest of Dante's Inferno at E3

from the it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time dept

At the E3 Expo a few weeks ago, Electronic Arts showcased an upcoming game, Dante's Inferno, to awkward protests from a group of concerned Christians going under the name, "Salvationists Against Virtual and Eternal Damnation." They had signs like "Trade in your PlayStation for a PrayStation," "Cheat codes won't save your soul," and "Hell is not a game," as well as a 1996-esque website complete with animated GIFs and multi-colored all-caps text. The protest was covered by the LA Times, the San Jose Mercury News and many gaming blogs. That sort of controversy might make the game more appealing to some... except, EA admitted that the protest was entirely staged by the viral marketing firm that they hired (though, it didn't fool everyone).

As the popular gaming blog Joystiq puts it, there's got to be a better way to promote the game. A faux controversy might seem like a clever idea, until people realize it's just a publicity stunt. Plus, it doesn't seem very smart to alienate Christians when you could be selling them the game instead (as Thomas Peters from AmericanPapist.com writes, "getting to play Dante as he slashes his way through hell? It sure beats Tetris."). Electronic Arts recently landed in some hot water for another clever viral marketing idea, which involved shipping brass knuckles with the Godfather II press kit, despite mere possession being a first-degree misdemeanor in some states to which they were shipped. They get points for creativity, but they might want to think twice before acting on some of these ideas...

Filed Under: dante's inferno, publicity stunt, religion, video games
Companies: ea

Is EA Realizing That Pirates Are Just Underserved Customers?

from the that-would-be-nice dept

Perhaps no video gaming company has had more trouble with the gaming community when it comes to things like DRM than EA. The company received tons of negative publicity for its aggressive and annoying DRM found in the release of Spore (which did little to nothing in actually slowing the unauthorized spread of the game). More recently, the company went with a much less troubling DRM solution on its latest version of The Sims (though, despite its attempt to call it something other than DRM, it is still DRM -- and, I should note, we've received a bunch of submissions from people who have found the DRM to be cumbersome).

However, the biggest change may be (possibly?) in the attitude of execs at the company -- who at least appear to be trying to become more accepting of the fact that some people will always download and/or share unauthorized versions of games. In an interview with Kotaku (thanks William for sending this in), the CEO of EA tries to put a positive spin on things:

And speaking of pirates, no matter what EA charges for a game, there will be people who want to make EA's games free-to-play on their own terms. That's the nice way of saying what happened to The Sims 3 recently. "We got pirated three weeks before the game launched," Riccitiello said. "And we were really quite nervous about it. We had a lot of telemetry about what the pirates were doing because the launcher was in the version of the disc [that got out.]... There's a lot of Chinese and Polish among those consumers. We know what they're doing. And we finally concluded that we were very happy that almost a million people downloaded the Fight Night demo in the first couple of days we put it out. And in a weird sort of way, the behavior we're starting to see based on sell-through and registration [with the Sims 3] is that we really might have just put out a really good demo."

Riccitiello laughed at his own remark, because he doesn't quite mean it seriously. I pointed out that he might not want to hold his breath waiting for all those Sims 3 pirates to convert to paying customers. "I don't think they will, based on their geography," he said. The point he was making, he said, is that EA's concern over being pirated gave way to a new, more constructive thought: "We were like, 'I think they've demoed the game.' That's probably good. We probably should have posted it on our website."

It's clear he's not entirely comfortable with this position, but perhaps that will come over time. It seems like he's beginning to recognize what folks at Valve had said for a while: "pirates" are just underserved customers. Focusing on giving those underserved customers more reasons to buy seems like a much better strategy than punishing all of the legitimate customers.

Filed Under: drm, underserved customers, video games
Companies: ea

Atari Apparently Learns Nothing From EA's Bad Experience With DRM

from the head-in-the-sand dept

Last September, (despite warnings to avoid overly cumbersome DRM), EA discovered just what sort of backlash annoying DRM could have when thousands of reviewers on Amazon slammed the game Spore for its overly limiting DRM from Securom. EA eventually backed down (somewhat), and on newer games seems a lot more sensitive to community concerns about DRM (though, many would argue not sensitive enough). Apparently, some of EA's competitors, however, haven't been paying much attention. Reader Tyler Hipwell sends in the news that Atari recently released the game Chronicles of Riddick with similarly awful DRM (requires online activation, limited to three total activations) and a ton of negative reviews are flowing to the Amazon listing. Either Atari didn't pay attention to EA's experience with Spore... or it somehow thought that the same thing wouldn't happen to its game as well. Neither one of those options says anything good about Atari.

Filed Under: chronicles of riddick, drm, reviews, video games
Companies: atari, ea

Sleight Of Hand: If We Don't Call It DRM, We Can Pretend That DRM Is Gone

from the poof dept

I was upset that I had to miss the FTC's workshop on DRM earlier this week. I had been invited to speak at the event, but had already committed to speaking at the Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville, so had to decline. But, from the writeups about the event, it's quite clear that many in the content industry still believe DRM is a good idea (or, rather a "necessary" idea), despite the fact that it doesn't work. DRM, despite what they might say, does not "enable new business models" at all. It simply gives the content holders the illusion that they can somehow control the content. But, it never stops any copying at all. So, it actually tends to just annoy those who are trying to legitimately purchase and/or access the content. Because those who are going to access it in an unauthorized manner will do so separately.

That said, a bunch of folks have sent in a series of stories this week that are somewhat amusing. Basically, it seems that video game companies have decided to stop calling DRM "DRM." This follows a series of horrific PR nightmares, where firms made use of DRM in ways that significantly limited the value of certain games, and players (or potential customers) of those games struck back in trashing those gaming companies for treating them as criminals. So, now, we have stories about Valve launching a new DRM that "makes DRM obsolete" even though it's still DRM. Then there's EA -- who received the biggest brunt of consumer backlash for its DRM choices. It's releasing the new Sims "without DRM methods that feel overly invasive." But, of course, it will still have DRM.

It's really difficult to understand what these execs think they're doing that benefits them in any way. It's not about enabling new business models. Any business model they're talking about can work just fine without DRM. It's not about "keeping honest people honest," because you don't have to keep honest people honest -- that's why they're honest. It's not about stopping unauthorized file sharing or "piracy," because no DRM has yet been shown to do that at all. It's not about "slowing down" unauthorized file sharing, because once an unauthorized copy is out there, it gets pretty quickly copied everywhere. One copy is all it takes and then nothing is "slowed down" at all. The only thing DRM serves to do is get in the way of legitimate customers trying to do what they want with content they thought they had legally purchased. In other words, it destroys value for legitimate customers -- and it's difficult to see any business rationale where that's an intelligent move.

Filed Under: business models, drm
Companies: ea, ftc

Activision Threatens EA For Agreeing To Publish Game Activision Dropped

from the once-it's-dropped,-it-stays-dropped,-dammit dept

Reader Nick sends in the news of a story that reminds us of The Watchmen saga, whereby Fox got paid for doing nothing, while Warner Bros., who made the movie and took on all the risk, had to pay out. In this case, it involves a video game, Brutal Legend. The game was developed by a development studio named Double Fine, with an agreement by Vivendi Games to publish it. However, after Vivendi Games and Activision merged, the combined company decided to drop a bunch of projects, including Brutal Legend. So, Double Fine did what any development house would have done: went in search of another company to publish it. And it found one, in gaming giant EA.

Except, now, Activision has sent a nastygram to EA saying that it still owns the rights to publish Brutal Legend, and EA is infringing on those rights. Of course, Activision has still made it clear that it actually has no intention of releasing the game, which doesn't match with its current focus. Instead, this is a pretty clear money grab -- trying to get EA to pay up. EA seems to have a good response, though:

We doubt that Activision would try to sue. That would be like a husband abandoning his family and then suing after his wife meets a better looking guy.

Filed Under: brutal legend, publishing, rights, video games
Companies: activision, double fine, ea

Spore's DRM So Effective It Was The Most Downloaded Game Of The Year

from the nice-work,-EA dept

It never really made sense for EA to be so insistent on having draconian DRM on games. Before the company even launched Spore people made it quite clear the plan would backfire, but EA went forward with it anyway, creating a PR nightmare. And all for what? Turns out (not surprisingly) the DRM didn't do squat to stop unauthorized file sharing. Spore has now been declared the most downloaded video game of the year. And, even though the year's not over, no other game is going to catch up. And, it's worth noting, the game only launched in October, so this is only over a couple of months. In other words, EA's "antipiracy strategy" backfired almost completely. The company got a huge PR blackeye which probably only encouraged more people to download the game via file sharing. Can someone explain, again, why any company thinks DRM works?

Filed Under: downloads, drm, piracy, securom, spore, video games
Companies: ea

EA Sued Repeatedly Over DRM

from the don't-piss-off-your-customers dept

We had already pointed out one class action lawsuit filed against EA for its use of SecuROM DRM on the game Spore, but it appears that others are getting in on the act as well. GamePolitics has news of two more class action lawsuits filed against EA over its DRM choices. At some point, you have to wonder if this is just people piling on and hoping to win a cash settlement out of EA -- but again it does demonstrate how short-sighted the DRM decision was on the part of EA.

Considering that the game is available to download as an unauthorized file on various file sharing systems, it's pretty clear that the DRM did absolutely nothing to prevent any piracy on the game. However, it did significantly harm the company's reputation, and now they have to spend time and money fending off lawsuits. My guess is that the money spent on these lawsuits, combined with the revenue not recognized from folks who planned to buy the game but didn't because of all this, will actually greatly outweigh any real "losses" from piracy.

Filed Under: class action, drm, lawsuits, securom, spore
Companies: ea