The game industry, at large, are full of liars.
Blizzard only pulled the auction house, not after player complaints, but after they'd made an arbitrary amount of money from it.
Ubisoft insist that uPlay is stopping piracy whilst other reports suggest that it causes an increase in pirating because gamers flat out hate uPlay due to the service requiring you to log in every session. The entire team at Microsoft made a console that didn't run on discs that they suddenly got rid of and redesigned multiple times in the biggest PR meltdown/save in the history of video games and pretended that every member talking on behalf of the company took to the E3 2013 stage on hallucinogenic mushrooms.
This was after they saw that the silence in the packed stadium wasn't because of the audience's shock and awe. They literally couldn't find anything to applaud about the Xbox One when it was unveiled.
But nobody. Nobody. Are as bad as EA.
I saw this article on The Escapist yesterday.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136011-EA-Dungeon-Keeper-Failed-by-Innovating-Too-Much
Now Dungeon Keeper Mobile was not a good game by any stretch of the mind or imagination. You had to pay to do literally anything. If you wanted to amass an army of minions and start making a dungeon, you had to wait two hours to clear two blocks unless you paid real-life money.
It flat-out killed Mythic, a vet studio and has forever shamed Bullfrog. Peter Molyneux, the creator of the original Dungeon Keeper, a PC classic staple, had a go and utterly despised it. The UK advertising agency had to ban an ad describing the game as free because it was so grossly misleading and unplayable without zipping open your wallet. Jim Sterling, a man I've crossed swords with before on this blog, called the game "a cynical skeleton of a non-game." and "a scam." I'm inclined to agree.
Last week, Andrew Wilson, CEO of EA described Dungeon Keeper as "a shame." and "admitted that it missed the idea of value."
In the article yesterday, he claims that people simply weren't ready for Dungeon Keeper and the innovation it brought.
Ok, give me a second here.
There. The biggest insult to anyone American. Save it to your hard-drive. You won't regret it.
We've seen EA's behaviour in the past in SimCity being always online. The execs scoffed and said that it HAD to be online and that it wouldn't work ANY OTHER WAY.
Then when gamers didn't quiet down like good little blind consumers they MADE AN OFFLINE MODE THAT WAS THEY COULD HAVE MADE AVAILABLE AT ANY POINT. But that's all in the past, right? They've learned their lessons, right?
Moving on from this, towards the future, EA floored Battlefield 4's release, making it glitchy and struggling to cope. Theme Park Mobile was just released under the exact same principals as Dungeon Keeper, missed just in time by the UK's advertising board.
Finally, here is a list, courtesy of 4chan's /v/ board, dictating the things left out of The Sims 4 that were available in previous games, most of them for free.
Confirmed as cut
=============
-No Create-A-Style [Confirmed cannot be added back later]
-No Colour Wheel [Confirmed cannot be added back later]
-No Swimming Pools
-No swimming in the sea/rivers, etc.
-No swimwear
-No Toddlers age stage
-No skin tone slider
-No opacity slider for makeup
-No shopping (Clothes, groceries, etc.)
-No Favourites (food, music, and color)
-No Left handed or right handed sims
-No Dinner proposals
-No Hireable gardeners
-No WooHoo Skill
-No Tragic clown
-No Hot tubs
-No Social bunny
-No Private schools
-No Adoption though townies and NPCs
-No Random deaths
-No Basements
-No Sitting on the arms of chairs, couches etc.
-No 64bit version of the game
-No Storey Progression other than aging, dying and move in/out
-No Rabbit-holes [No Work, Schools, Shops - Sims just vanish from Lot]
-No Trams (They are decor only)
-No Steamboats (They are decor only)
-No Garages
-No Bicycles
-Maximum Lot size now limited to just 50x50
-Loading Screens for Worlds
-Loading Screens Hoods
-Loading Screens for individual Lots/Families
-Only 5 Hoods per World
-Only 1 to 5 lots per Hoods
-So only 9 to 21 lots per World (Most likely 14)
-Only 1 World supplied in Base Game
-All buildings on a Lot get the same foundation (no choice)
-Buildings can only have 3 floors (plus a foundation and a roof)
-Teens, Young Adults, Adults and Elders are all the same height.
-Hair isn't as realistic as TS3
-Textures are blurry and lack bump mapping
-Lots of so called new features are already in The Sims 3
Multi-tasking Sims (The Sims 3 can read and relax in bed, watch TV while chatting, chat in groups, etc)
Emotional moods (currently in the form of Moodlets in The Sims 3)
Unconfirmed but believed to be true
===================================
-No terrain sculpting
-No user creatable ponds
-No split-level homes
-No Cars (They are decor only)
-No Ghosts or any other Supernatural creatures
The Sims 4 also explained that an entire life stage (Toddlers) and Pools, one of the main features of The Sims, cannot be supported by the game at this point.
This list is here for a reason. I bet you all my earthly possessions that EA will put in at least 75% of this stuff as downloadable content that you have to pay for, totalling anywhere from 200/500 quid by my rough estimations with the Sims 3 and a calculator as a reference point.
I will be checking this list two months after the release of The Sims 4 and will do a special episode calling out EA on their bullshit before the mainstream gaming press if they've implemented anything on the list.
Finally,
Do not buy EA games. Do not support EA games.
You've all been warned.
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