Battlefield 3, The Final Cut

I’ve cut my losses and pulled my horse out of this race.

EA does not respect me. They don’t respect us. I’ve given a lot of money to Electronic Arts during my lifetime. Customers like me made EA the power house it is today. Are we owed something? Hell yes we are. We are owed respect. We are owed honesty.

No other industry can treat its extremely loyal customer base so poorly as the gaming industry does and still retain its customers. No other customer base in the world is as willing to roll over and die as gamers. Gamers are appeased so appallingly easy it’s pathetic.

Is it entitlement to expect the best customer service possible? The best quality product possible? The best bang for our buck possible? Is it entitlement to expect a company honor the original terms of the (implied) contract and purchase? Hardly. If you believe that, you need to turn off Faux Newz for a bit. People spend their hard earned cash on these games, just because it’s entertainment does not make it any less important than any other household expense. I’ll blog more about this entitled gamer bullshit at a later date. For now, lets stay focused.

I honestly expected better from DICE. They have lost my trust. I honestly expected more from the BF3 YouTube community. Seeing that all of them are using rental servers as advertisements for their YouTube ventures it only benefits them if official servers disappear, forcing people to use their servers. Not really a problem with the YouTubers that produce quality content. It’s really annoying when Johnny Dickwad pesters you every few minutes to go check out his awesome montages of which you will undoubtedly be starring in in the most demeaning manner possible.

You change your business model for a product at the beginning of the products cycle, not in the middle of it. That’s what CoD did. They didn’t release MW3 and then, 6 months after the fact, say “oh, here’s ELITE, you really need to purchase this if you want to play.”

You have to ask yourselves where is EA taking BF3. To find the answer to this all you need to do is consider their sports titles. In order to compete on-line in an EA sports title you pretty much have to sink more money into the game (on top of your $60 investment) to purchase the unlocks that have very drastic affects on your virtual sport persona’s abilities. The only good thing about EA Sports titles is they still have solid single player gameplay.

Did anyone really enjoy the single player campaign in BF3? Did anyone buy BF3 for the single player campaign? No. You bought it for the multiplayer as did I. And it’s a wonderful multiplayer experience. One of the best games I have ever played. Hands down a far better game than MW3 (currently.)

But for how long? EA started selling unlocks that have an affect on gameplay as far back as BF2 (something I was not aware of when I purchased BF3.) They sold BF3 on the consoles under the precedent that official, dependable and balanced servers would be provided for the life of the game. Six months later they pass this cost onto the consumer in the form of rental servers. Rental servers that were marketed to the community as optional, as a great addition to the BF3 experience, never as a replacement to a feature the customer paid for when they purchased the game. Should we discuss on-line passes as well? I don’t believe I need to at this point.

“It’s only business,” is the battle cry of the unscrupulous, the motto of the dishonest.

You want to know which blog piece I wrote gets the most views? It’s this one:

Can’t connect to EA Servers? SOLVED… maybe.

I published that piece on December 17, 2011. It’s had over 8,211 views and climbing. That’s over 8000 people that have had issues at one time or another with EA servers and looked elsewhere for help because EA’s customer service is appallingly lax. That’s just on my tiny little insignificant blog in the middle of nowhere.

So, I have to ask everyone including myself, all things considered, why are we still purchasing games with EA’s logo on them?

Interesting enough, when I posted this on the Battleog forums I was met with such inane comments as, “you suxxors that’s why you’re mad,” and other childish derogatory flames that only serve to solidify one of my points. Who in their right mind would want to play on servers administered by these jackasses? If you’ve got five minutes to waste, go check out the thread. The shear stupidity will not disappoint. What’s really sad is EA is after the casual gamer market with these illiterate, egotistical idiots cheering them on and now representing them as server admins… You do the math.

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