E3 2014 Roast Beef Round Up: EA

EA decided to change the conference hall set up by having what could only be described as a wedding reception. I’m not sure how to feel about this set up but then again that’s not what we came for, we want games and EA is a publisher so will provide. I say provide, but in all fairness EA opened with a documentary which I’ll get on to in a moment. The man EA sent out on stage to quote Jim Sterling, looked like an evil wax figure brought to life. What made this even more surreal is that it said EA was putting the gamers first, which as well as being another check on the E3 bingo card is laughable.

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The ‘freemium’ debate

From hells heart I stab at thee

Every so often the world of gaming comes to a crossroads, a point where the industry can continue as it is or change and opt for something else. It is such a crossroad we stand at right now and the decision made here may well determine the shape of the games industry for the foreseeable future. the problems surrounding free to play payment models is one that is becoming a more prominent problem for all platforms in the wake of the new generation of consoles and the push for always online functionality causing a rise in concern for the industry as a whole. Free to play is nothing new, the PC has several examples of good F2P models, so the question remains why are the other platforms struggling with it when we have examples of how to do it right?

A Look Back At: Burnout 3 Takedown

A look back at, is a feature series where we go back and remember the games that defined our gaming lives for the better or worse, reminiscing about the halcyon days of gaming and the effects they had on us.

If you were to ask me what my top three games of all time were, Burnout 3 Takedown would be up there. When I started gaming, racing games were my preferred genre and whilst the Gran Turismo games were the flagship racing Series at the time, Burnout offered something for those who didn’t want that simulator style of driving and oh did it provide.

The Nine Circles: Dungeon Keeper

The Nine Circles is a series where I take apart the games that are a general pain to play. Whether it is due to something major like bad mechanics or something as small as FOV sliders. Either way they have caused some ire in the world and as such we shall be sending them to the deepest depths of hell for their crimes against the gaming world.

Well it is only February and from the looks of things an angry mob is already heading towards EA’s offices with murderous intent. So what is the latest reason for the forming of yet another mob and why has it landed them in the realms of fire and brimstone? Well continuing EA’s strategy of rebooting franchises, we have their latest attempt in the form of Dungeon Keeper for that much loathed mobile market

A Cynical View Awards 2013

The end of 2013 may comes as a relief to some in the games industry, the chance to start again with a clean slate and put the past years mishaps behind them. But before we gain any momentum in this new year let us host the customary award ceremony that not only awards games and developers for their achievements in the past year, but also their mishaps, in this regard we shall present the awards in the sandwich method so as to cushion the the blow of those who receive their just desserts and finish off with the usual coveted awards of worst and best game of the year.

A Year of Cynicism

We never actually talked about Minecraft

If it wasn’t for WordPress notifying me about the fact, I would have completely forgotten that it has been a year since I started A Cynical View, a year filled with EA creating a PR nightmare for themselves, a year where having a press conference for the sake of having a press conference was all the rage and a year where Borderlands 2 finally tipped me over the edge. Yes it has been an interesting time.

Roast Beef Round-up Part 2 EA

The EA press conference can be considered a fresh start for EA. They had to do a similar job to Microsoft this year, which was to recover from a PR nightmare from earlier in the year. Yes, just because you decided to be quiet about the whole fiasco, doesn’t mean we forgot about it. Whilst I do consider EA to be somewhat evil they do have some good IP in their library and that showed this year with the announcement of some good games to look forward to in 2014.

The beginning of the end?

I’m not surprised, at how Microsoft’s little reveal conference played out, as well as being cynical I’m also somewhat pessimistic and after Sony’s reveal my expectations were in negative figures. I’m somewhat concerned how far Microsoft intends to go down this road they have chosen.

It started off well enough, we actually got to see the new console, which was a pleasant surprise after Sony’s mystery box, but then they told us the name, a name so stupid I thought they were joking. They weren’t. The Xbox one as they have called it is apparently the ultimate gaming platform, an EA executive has even been so bold as to claim that both the new Xbox and the PS4 are a generation ahead of the PC, at this point I can’t help but laugh. So how does Microsoft showcase the supposedly amazing abilities of this next-gen power house? with live streaming features and Kinect functionality of course, oh and don’t forget Internet Explorer and Bing, because you know, most people don’t just install Chrome or Firefox rather than use that disaster of a browser combo.If you draw your mind back to E3 last year you may remember some similarities in Microsoft’s objectives during their press conference, a conference where the focus seemed more on Kinect and features then it did on games. Talk about misunderstanding your audience.

It’s getting crowded down here in hell

It seems the world of triple A gaming has become a lot like the world portrayed in the original ‘Syndicate’ game. We have several giant corporations fighting for outright control leaving no moral depths plundered to achieve this goal. As such it is fair to say that some envisage the giants of the gaming world as inherently evil.

Cast your minds back a few years and you should remember that many people claimed that the CEO of Activision, Bobby Kotick, was the reincarnation of Satan, and for good reason. Activision’s policy of acquire infinite money at the cost of quality and actual development wasn’t getting them any positive press, yet it was getting them the money to the point where I imagined Kotick swimming in a vault of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. Selling overpriced DLC and releasing a new Call of Duty game every year worked wonders for their revenue and cemented Activision as the demonic monolith of gaming, yet as of late we haven’t really heard anything from them and as such their throne is at risk.

Your order will take 365 days to be delivered

Last week I decided to play Battlefield 3 and of course that meant I had to load up Origin. Usually Origin loads onto the library page but now defaults to the store page, okay you want to showcase that Origin is a digital store, but then pop-ups, “Pre-order Battlefield 4 NOW!” haa, no. I think the EA hate train is departing the station and yes the catering car is, as always, shut.

This pop-up made me pause for thought. If we cast our minds back a couple of weeks ago we can remember a certain EA conference where a certain announcement was made, I even did a blog post on it. Yes Battlefield 4 has only just appeared on the public stage and we’re already marketing the hell out of it. I feel that EA’s marketing department has jumped the gun on this one, either that or someone should take their caffeinated and sugar filled beverages away. The thing is the hate doesn’t have to be focused on EA this week. If we look back even further we can remember the Project Destiny press conference, which was a similar case, the tile was announced, some pictures were shown and some pre rendered footage was seen, not enough for me to throw my wallet at them, but it was food for thought.