I have said this before, EA has lost it's way. Online gaming is all well and good but for me at least, I will always enjoy a well made single player experience which is free from online greifters and other assorted idiots who feel it's their "job" to ruin the gameplay experience of everyone around them. I feel sorry for EA, but at least I still have most of their back catalogue of games from the days when I loved what they were doing.

I agree. They should always keep the option open that is fine. But they should never make you have to play online. For instance I will take a great game like Red Dead Redeption (which I recommend highly) and it has a great SP experience and it also has the MP/Open World experience. I have spent about 95% of my time in the SP game and debating on whether to even play MP at all. I haven't bought any DLC because none of it was SP related, the new one with the undead in it is out and gives you about 10hrs of playtime in SP mode.

So how will they address the situation of a 5-10yr old game they you may still love to play but EA is no longer making money off the game so they pull the plug on the server(s)? EA and other companies have shutdown servers before and left the community with a game you cannot play. it will be interesting going forward in how they address the aging game issues.

So this either a move to:

[*:2f0z56el]Combat piracy

[*:2f0z56el]Come up with even more ridiculous micro-transactions

[*:2f0z56el]Anger me, because I'm very important to me (but sadly not EA)

Or all of the above. Probably.

EA: "screw making cool games, we're going to find ways to print money with crap."

This is probably the #1 reason.

I think we are already starting to see that with games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, RDR and others with DLC all the time. I remember when game companies would either make expansions or just patch the game with the content. With all the games I listed if you purchased all of the DLC you paid for a least another copy of the game.

DLC is such a pain. Know what else is a pain? Pre-release bonuses. Oh, and retailer-specific bonuses.

I buy with Steam, I get a fancy hat and a cool shotgun. I buy through Amazon, I get nice boots and a unique pistol. I buy with -- well, you guys see what I mean.

I miss the old days. You bought a game, you had everything in the game. You weren't missing quests, maps, guns, clothes, or cars or whatever like today. Why can't I just have the whole package?

We've come a long way since Horse Armor. Now we've got, as you said Darkone, a situation where we end up paying for some games twice if we want to have most of the content. And even then we miss out on some retailer bonuses. 😕

My hope lies in smaller developers and publishers. That's where my money, what little I have, is going to go.

Yep! Agree with that, funny thing is though, if we all start doing this, those small developers will turn into big ones 😉 If they do I hope they remember who put them there and more importantly, why.

I can remember EA way back in the 80s. They too were once a very small outfit making fantastic self contained games like Birds Of Prey on the Amiga, but somehow they have either forgot their design philosophy or just don't care anymore about creating games with a shelf life of more than a few years. Sad, sad, sad 🙁