EA stabs at me from beyond the grave.

Today was the day I realized that my copy of MASS EFFECT: LEGENDARY EDITION was still taking up space on my boot drive. I haven’t played it in a while, I didn’t get that far to begin with, so I figured I’d just uninstall it and put it on the D drive. …It’s still there. All 110 gigs of it. My computer will still boot up fine, and I have plenty of space available on the D drive, but I don’t know how to clear out that valuable boot drive space. And EA is not being helpful. I know, I know: shocking.

Thoughts? I’m not formatting the drive, by the way. Cure worse than the disease.

The STAR WARS: SQUADRONS reveal trailer.

…Get thee behind me, EA.

I’d need a controller for that for the PC, right? Yeah, I’d need a controller for that. So no can do wait if I had the right controller I could play the old X-WING and TIE FIGHTER games Gog.com has them on its site for cheap NO NO NO MUST RESIST MUST RESIST

…Yeah. October 2nd: time to save vs. shiny.

Quote of the Day, EA Killed, Gutted, And Wore Shame As A Face Mask edition.

I’d like to think that, underneath the ambient sounds in the panel room, a keen-eared observer could maybe hear the flack’s soul dying a little.

“That is what we look at as ‘surprise mechanics,'” EA Legal and Government Affairs VP Kerry Hopkins told the panel when asked about the ethics of loot boxes. “It is important to look at this. If you go to—I don’t know what your version of Target is—a store that sells a lot of toys and you do a search for surprise toys, you will find that this is something people enjoy. They enjoy surprises. It is something that has been part of toys for years, whether it is Kinder eggs or Hatchimals or LOL Surprise!”

Continue reading Quote of the Day, EA Killed, Gutted, And Wore Shame As A Face Mask edition.

EA discards the withered husk of the Star Wars open-world game.

I’m with Penny Arcade on this: better for it to have never been.

Kotaku is reporting that Electronic Arts has cancelled its planned open-world Star Wars game, citing three sources close to the company. The game had been in development at EA Vancouver, the studio responsible for games such as FIFA and Battlefront, since 2017. The site reports that EA canned the game in favor of a different Star Wars title that had a shorter timeline of development.

Continue reading EA discards the withered husk of the Star Wars open-world game.

So, hey, the trick with EA is to actually CALL them.

EA’s online emergency support — as in, Russians have hacked my damn account — is worse than useless.  But call them, and you get a call back in less than a minute with a human being who knew what the hell she was doing and actually, you know, helped and everything.  I don’t know whether to be more charitable to EA in the future, or to call her back and warn her to flee that place before they come to feast upon her soul.

Moe Lane

PS: They’re gonna be passing THAT customer evaluation around the cubicles, let me tell you.

Bioware suddenly realizes that they set their fan base on fire.

(Via Gametyrant) I feel for Bioware GM Casey Hudson. I really do.  He’s not the one who defecated in Bioware’s bed with Mass Effect: Andromeda — that would be EA. He’s just the guy who has to flip the sheets and pretend that EA’s washed them.  It’s gonna be a cold day in Hell before I spend full price on Anthem, though. “[D]esigned to continue delivering new stories and experiences” or not.  I just don’t believe that EA cares enough about the actual games and IP involved to do more than the absolute bare minimum here. Continue reading Bioware suddenly realizes that they set their fan base on fire.

EA finally feasts upon Visceral Games’ entrails, casts husk aside.

I am paraphrasing.

EA has announced today they will be closing down their Visceral Games studio, the creators of the Dead Space series, Battlefield Hardline, and several licensed titles ranging from James Bond to The Godfather. The studio was currently in development on an untitled Star Wars video game with Amy Hennig (Uncharted series) directing the title. As a result of the studio shuttering, however, the game will be retooled by a different development team moving forward.

Continue reading EA finally feasts upon Visceral Games’ entrails, casts husk aside.

It’s a shame that I don’t know anybody at Bioware/EA.

They’d probably want to talk to my wife: she’s a long-time paper-and-paper roleplayer who does not play video games, but who has spent 100+ hours playing Dragon Age: Origins, with no regrets; and who would be going out and playing their other games if only we didn’t have two kids. I imagine that there’s at least three demographic sub-groups there that Bioware would like to target. I mean, sure, they know how to get me, but it’s not precisely hard