Minecraft Creator Notch Says EA is Destroying Gaming

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
If enough indies wanted to get together, and crowd fund a AAA game, one that mega publishers Don't want to make so there's no immediate competition.. more power to them.

First they'd need to draw their battle lines and AAA without a publisher, would have to be defined.. can they license an engine from a mega-publisher and any physics ai or animations packages? must the AAA game reach a certain metacritic value, versus the next best game in that genre?

Or can we continue to enjoy games no matter who makes them or funds them because an original, successful, quality game, that isn't the nth version in a series of shooter, rpg, racing, clones, is still worth its weight in gold.
 
I knew some of the comments on here would be entertaining, at least the ones trying to stick up for EA's piss poor business practices and mediocre games. My only regret was not making any popcorn before I clicked the link.

Anyway, I'll admit, I have a soft spot for Indie developers, but it has sadly now become a whored out marketing term, more or less, especially with assholes like EA using it to sell their their goods as such. If you have a publisher, you are not Indie. Pretty clear cut, I.M.O.

Either way, EA's "Indie bundle" will definitely be one bundle I wont be getting, on principle alone, not that they ever had me fooled.
 
[citation][nom]dreadlokz[/nom]I blame consoles, not EA![/citation]

EA is a big part of some problems. I'd blame EA, and M$, and Sony (those two for not refreshing the consoles one or two years ago when they should have) the most with Nintendo getting a little. At least with Nintendo, we know that it's supposed to be a more simple toy that isn't necessarily designed for great graphics. The other two consoles are supposed to have decent graphics (should be better than PC at the same price even one or two years later in my opinion, but they probably don't care for mine), but they have not even been really decent for some time now if you look at even a low end PC today. We could also throw some other game *developing* companies into the hate pyre, but today seems to be EA's turn.

Throw a 4870 into a computer and you now have a card that can do FAR greater picture quality than the consoles cand AND it can do it with serious frame rates. Then compare it to an upper mid-ranged card like the 6870 (can we consider the 6870 a mid-ranged single GPU card yet? I think so, in light of the 7970 and the 680) and then you can jump up to 1680x1050 that beats the crap out of the 720p up-scaled to 1080p with poor textures and no AA/AF.

I won't blame the consoles themselves for the *crimes* of their creators. The consoles have been on, for all practical meaning of the phrase in this context, life support. They shouldn't have lasted this long, let along last even longer, as they seem to not be intended to be replaced for at least several months and at most, one to three years. I think that keeping it to a four to five year refresh cycle would be better than this.
 
All publishers are business. From stock holders to the studio itself. When a studio needs an enormous resource and money, its the publishers thats lending that money. They need to secure their assets so they usually tell the studio "hey can you add this or do this" base from their market research. Sometime this can ruin a game or make it awesome. By either Satisfying their core base or dissatisfy the majority. Naturally they rather dissatisfy the core base and please the majority for more profit.

And making games now-a-days are expensive. And something needs to be done to address this, so to compensate they are trying out all kinds of business approach like paid DLC, microtransaction, VIP, origin, etc... Yeah we are going to thru a turning point, hopefully for the better.
 
EA destroyed the Call of Duty franchise and single handily turned the FPS genre into a generically bland profit center raping it for everything that it's worth with a new game that's nothing more than the same ole game with minor tweaks, as if it's a Madden or any other sports title.

Funny thing is Epic tried that with Unreal Tournament (even went so far as to add the year to the title) seems EA and Friends were smart enough to realize Epic's mistake and simply take the year off the title nad instead follow the Chrome/Firefox route and add a new version number, alas at a slower pace, every 12 months.
 
I'm sorry but Notch thinking that the term "indie" gaming is some kind of positive moniker is hilarious. It's as pretentious as "indie" music or "indie" clothing has come to be. It's endearing until you turn 25 and can't help but roll your eyes.
 
Say that to his fat wad of cash. What was it, 13 mil USD of PERSONAL profit? If he put just 2 mil back into the game like he SHOULD then that game would have pretty decent graphics. Don't blindly defend someone that half asses their way to victory. Don't get me wrong, the game has tons of potential, but Notch is a lazy ***. 2 years and he never finished the game because he refused to cut into his profit margins. He disguises this by saying "I don't want a big studio to mess up the game," but anyone with half a brain and no fanboy tendencies can see right through that bull.
Click to expand...

You do realize there are these things called "texture packs" that allow you to change how the game looks, if you dont like the default textures. The game is pretty damn mod friendly what with all the add-ons and everything else that is user changeable. And honestly, as tiring as it is to say, graphics do not automatically equal a good game. :pfff:


[citation][nom]casualcolors[/nom]I'm sorry but Notch thinking that the term "indie" gaming is some kind of positive moniker is hilarious. It's as pretentious as "indie" music or "indie" clothing has come to be. It's endearing until you turn 25 and can't help but roll your eyes.[/citation]

While successful, he doesn't have a publisher. He handles all that on his own. So yeah, he's still technically Indie, despite what you may think is pretentious or not. :sarcastic:

[citation][nom]bison88[/nom]EA destroyed the Call of Duty franchise and single handily turned the FPS genre into a generically bland profit center raping it for everything that it's worth with a new game that's nothing more than the same ole game with minor tweaks, as if it's a Madden or any other sports title.Funny thing is Epic tried that with Unreal Tournament (even went so far as to add the year to the title) seems EA and Friends were smart enough to realize Epic's mistake and simply take the year off the title nad instead follow the Chrome/Firefox route and add a new version number, alas at a slower pace, every 12 months.[/citation]

Activision handles Call of Duty. EA handles Battlefield. Just an FYI. :)
 
[citation][nom]metro510[/nom]TL;DR: Practice what you preach, period.[/citation]

If said company has enough "donation" money available, they can simply complain to Congress that their poor sales are due to piracy and demand the government hunt down the people avoiding them. It worked for a few years for the recording industry when CD sales were down; it worked until they stopped blaming piracy and accepted a distribution shift.

In software it can be more interesting than in music, a few mandatory DRM and copy protection licensing rules, for the good of all of course, and the small indie studios may find profitability even further out. That's just old-school competition.
 
The only way "indie" and "EA" can be in the same sentence is by placing "NOT" between them.
 
EA has destroyed everything it gets its grubby hands on.

Case and point:
Westwood Studios (If you are younger you might say who? Well you can thank EA for that)
Bioware
Maxis
 
Indie games have made the PC a viable platform again. When I was a kid, and PCs where relatively new and massively under powered compared to what we have today, all games were simple. The games that were successful were the ones that were intelligently designed and implemented. They challenged your mind. It took real talent to create something as simple and addictive as some of those early games Almost all of the original PC games were simplistic graphically, and adventure games where text based. When King's Quest came out, EA was the indie game studio of their time. Another example - it took real talent to come up with something as simple and addictive as Tetris. But it was inevitable that as PCs became more powerful and game developers where able to build upon each others ideas that the simplicity of those early games would fade away. Castle Wolfenstein do me marked the watershed moment when gaming changed. That was when everyone said 'whoa' (best Keanu Reeves voice). They raised the bar so much in one release. After that, it became a game of one-upsmanship and the bells and whistled began to take precedence over everything else. Indie games today are sort of a reboot for the industry. They make games mentally challenging again instead of being about twitch reactions. (Sorry for the pretentiousness of the history lesson. I have some time on my hands this morning. I should probably load up Minecraft.)
 
A bit condescending of him don't you think? To say that 'Indies are saving the Industry.' seems bit out of line to me. I understand what he's getting at. But honestly, I've only liked 1-3 'Indie' games out of the 30 or so that have been thrown in my face. I don't see how the term 'Indie' can get any less or more recognition because some big name throws it on a bundle. If you let it get less or more recognition like that, then you're obviously just another part of the statistic.
 
Seriously, if you buy ANY game simply because of the publisher's name attached to it, then you're asking to loose your money and waste your time. I don't care if you're "Indie" or not, your game better be good, plain and simple. Indie games saving the PC game industry? As far as I'm concerned, someone seems to be thinking a little too highly of themselves. Minecraft is not that amazing a game that you should be making statements like that. It may have sold a ton, but so did Angry Birds, and I rank them about the same spot on the list of games I'd want to buy (near the bottom). Of course that's my preference. And yes, EA in my opinion makes a lot of terrible games. They make a lot more terrible games than they do good games. Even so, EA didn't magically become one of the biggest companies and most profitable companies in gaming by magic. They can offer as much money as they want to a studio, doesn't mean they have to sign up to join EA. This guy can complain all he wants about EA and proclaim the supremacy of Indie games, but in the end it's people like him who sold out to EA to get EA where it is today. And for all the complaining going on about EA, they're still selling millions upon millions of games.

I have no sympathy for Notch or EA. A fool and their money are quickly separated. They can make any games they want and try as much as they want to convince people to buy them. If all it takes to sell a game is throwing in the word "Indie" behind it, then that tells you the gaming public as a whole is looking for something no one has. They're latching on to an idea on blind faith rather than evaluation of the game based on its merits. "New and different" doesn't mean good or fun. And sometimes the "regurgitated crap" as someone earlier stated, is actually the best thing going. Not saying Notch and EA need to sing happily together in a field somewhere, but I don't see the point of making a big issue out of this. They can both sell their games and we can all just get on with out lives.
 
a good game is not exclusive to indie devs. a lot of gamers here are the perfect example of hippie gamers. I buy good games and it doesn't matter how it was made. notch comments are so full of hippie nonsense and the people supporting his idiotic statements are bigger fools.
 
[citation][nom]jalek[/nom]If said company has enough "donation" money available, they can simply complain to Congress that their poor sales are due to piracy and demand the government hunt down the people avoiding them. It worked for a few years for the recording industry when CD sales were down; it worked until they stopped blaming piracy and accepted a distribution shift. In software it can be more interesting than in music, a few mandatory DRM and copy protection licensing rules, for the good of all of course, and the small indie studios may find profitability even further out. That's just old-school competition.[/citation]

As to the very last sentence... It saddens me that this is how our competition works. Obviously corporations of any sort should not be able to wave their money at Congress and be able to pretty much arbitrarily get what they want.

That's a whole different discussion. I find it more interesting that the internet has served as the new frontier to Indie-anything (specifically content-based industries but probably small businesses in general) for getting the jump on corporations in many business aspects, especially in directly communicating and attracting customers/clientele (not just efficiency, which drives corporate structure and organization), thereby allowing a bunch more competition back into the market, whether it be games, music, movies, or anything.

Shining examples of this effect are the news/blogging, shopping, porn, games, etc. etc.

Where EA comes back to this, is where, thanks to Steam, digital distribution of a game (often at great prices, thanks Valve!) has allowed developers as small as just one person put out a game to millions of people and say "Go to Hell" to big guys who sacrifice REAL quality in the name of efficiency and profitability.

Social media plays into this more recently as well. (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, FourSquare, Reddit, Share, Google+, Email, buttons can all be found at the top of every Tom's article, and any combination on the other thousands of gaming sites.)

David v. Goliath... Who actually roots for Goliath?
 
All you guys bashing consoles, get over yourselves. Of course the quality vs cost won't match a comparable PC platform a few years down the line, the hardware in the consoles is already at LEAST 2 years old by the time they're released. And the whole deal with refreshing the line 4 years after release? XBOX and PS2 had new games released up until their 10th years on the market! They aren't designed to have top-notch graphics, that's what the PC is for! When you buy a console game, you are buying a guarentee that you can put the game in the machine and play it right away, without upgrading any hardware! I agree that the "indie" label is being raped these days, and that EA is ruining the game industry, what really irks me is that EA is backing all my favorite games and companies, and inevitably running them into the ground. While I can appreciate the fact that some people think Indie Developers should aim for AAA, not all want that; but a good example of the former is Naughty Dog, one of the few companies that came from the ground up, and while growing larger, has essentially remained a largely indie developer to this day, providing consistently excellent titles over the years.
 
scumbag EA. these kind of practices from companies that delivered cool games in the past and the epic failures with recent titles (ME3 in ruin) make me hate upper management in my company on a whole new level
 
I never thought Valve would create Steamed Poop, but they did, between that, EA security software, Microsoft Windows Live ID you have gastro-intestinal blockage and diarheea in your gaming PC. Efficiency ? Efficiency was Commodore 64 with 32K ram and 32K rom running 8bit games, diverse for any software you can think for it and adapted gaming cartridges too. Efficiency died with Microsoft Windows taking over OS market. Linux ? Cannot run most games built for windows, what's the HW requirements for the latest GUI with comparable apps. loaded ? But for gaming companies to expect you to download 1gb as an "update" is utterly ridiculous. To have to be connected to the internet to run a LOCAL game on my PC is utterly ridiculous. Internet gaming is full of cheats, exploiters and lifers to the point it makes it unenjoyable and angering, pushing players away. You want internet gaming ? Build anti-cheat apps. not anti-copyright, classify gaming groups and build better games. Translate to machine language to shrink the load size. Build less bloatware. We should be running games "cartridge" style no loading time, no installation, just saved games off USB sticks. DVDs are dead, put them in the graveyard.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom