EA是不是业界毒瘤？
这个是我前段时间翻译的一个国外的视频，这个网友通过Bioware与EA的关系深入分析了EA为什么会让被收购的公司做不好的原因。我觉得这个问题和现象一定程度也可以引申到国内为什么公司再有钱也出不来好游戏上。
Consumerist 评述EA的原文，这大概是EA两次获得Golden Poo大奖的官方理由三大理由：1）产品没有从用户出发（比如单机也要始终联网太过分了，低劣赶工BUG还没搞定就忙着推市场） 2）收费太离谱了（在Paid中植入IAP甚至IAD，MY GOD，抽血的节奏）3）产品出来了没有贴心的服务（卖完就完了）。如此，两次荣获金大便奖（至于Westwood和Bullfrog这些过去式，玩家不会始终记仇吧，他们更在乎EA现有的产品线好不好玩吧）EA Makes Worst Company In America History, Wins Title For Second Year In A Row!Following last year’s surprise Worst Company In America victory by Electronic Arts, there was hope that the video game giant would get the message: Stop treating your customers like human piggy banks, and don’t put out so many incomplete and/or broken games with the intent of getting your customers to pay extra for what they should have received in the first place. And yet, here we are again, with EA becoming the first company to ever win a second Golden Poo from Consumerist readers.“去年的全美最差公司（Worst Company In America）评选多少有些出人意料地由EA胜出，我们曾指望这家游戏业巨头能够从中吸取教训：不要把你的消费者当成人肉小猪储蓄罐，不要以让消费者为他们本应从一开始就买到的东西付额外的钱为目的而推出如此之多未完成的/支离破碎的游戏。然而我们又一次迎来了相同的结局：EA成为了史上第一位连续两次获得由Consumerist读者评选的金大便奖（Golden Poo）的公司。”After an astounding number of votes, Consumerist readers .在由The Consumerist举办的2013全美年度最差公司评选活动中，EA这家游戏业巨头以获得78%投票的压倒性优势在决赛中战胜了美国银行（Bank of America），连续两年成为美国消费者心中的最差公司。LESSONS UNLEARNEDWhat did EA do (or not do) that it managed to achieve what none of the previous WCIA champs — Comcast, AIG, BP, Halliburton, RIAA, Countrywide — have ever been able to?Like many other competitors in the WCIA bracket, EA has repeatedly failed at three core requirements of running a consumer-friendly business:The Consumerist指出EA应当从自己所处的尴尬局面中意识到自己应当做到什么——它没能满足经营一份有益于消费者事业的三大核心需求：1. Provide a Product People Want and Like1、推出消费者喜闻乐见的产品Yes, EA has games that sell in the millions, a number of which are well-reviewed and some of which are genuinely loved. But the company also has a history of pumping out products, or rushing games through development, in order to cash in on a brand name. Just in recent years, there have been several notable examples. Dragon Age 2, while it has its defenders, was seen by many as an inferior cash-in that would have benefited from a longer development schedule. Likewise, the sequels for Dead Space have been been similarly derided by some fans of the original.The most obvious example was Mass Effect 3, which had the bad fortune of being released in the weeks leading up to the 2012 WCIA tournament. Fans of the first two games, who had invested large chunks of time and money, were left with an empty feeling after reaching the obviously rushed endgame. Detractors accused EA of pushing to game out too early and focusing too much of its energy on the new multiplayer side of the game, since that promised the company a revenue stream in the form of in-game microtransactions for users who want to acquire the many characters and upgrades. The reaction to ME 3 was so negative and so widely publicized, EA was compelled to release a slightly more satisfactory ending only a few months later.Similarly, the recent release of SimCity 5 came with the news that users would need to be connected to the Internet in order to simply play by one’s self. The company claims it is not a form of anti-piracy digital rights management (though not many people believe that), but instead is about “realiz[ing] a vision of players connected in regions to create a SimCity that captured the dynamism of
a global, ever-changing, social world.” Translated, that means EA wants you to always be online so you’ll be encouraged to buy things from the in-game store.This ballsy decision on EA’s part sets a precedent that the company will surely follow in future games, meaning that consumers will have to choose between the game they want to play and the company that requires them to always be online, whether it’s to monitor their use or sell them new outfits for characters.“EA has become a company that releases mediocre products created by faceless teams,”. “There is no real vision at work, no grand design. Just the idea that free-to-play games and microtransactions are the wave of the future, or at least they better be, because none of the company’s $60 boxed releases are finding much success with either critics or gamers.”《龙世纪2》（Dragon Age 2）赶工导致的低劣品质和Mass Effect 3令人发指的结局对玩家造成的伤害尚未痊愈，2013年又轮到了《模拟城市》（SimCity）系列爱好者遭受重创。强制联网措施和EA糟糕透顶的基础设施建设毁灭了百万热情玩家的游戏体验，而EA还为自己辩护说这并不是为反盗版而采用的DRM措施，而是为了“实现一个愿景：玩家可以基于区域相连，共同创造一个拥有我们所生活的现实世界那般活力的模拟城市，创造一个遍布全球的，不断发展变化的社交世界……”“我来翻译一下：EA的意思是说要让你一直联着网，藉此怂恿你从游戏的内置商店里购物” The Consumerist如此表示：“这大胆的决定为EA设立了一个先例，意味着这家公司之后肯定会在将来推出的游戏中延续这一做法，消费者将不得不在他们想玩的游戏与这家公司要求他们保持联网之间做出选择，无论EA的目的是监视玩家的游戏过程还是试图向他们推销游戏角色的服装。”2. Sell Your Product at a Reasonable Price2、以合理的价格出售自己的产品Like movies, video games require a large amount of money and the efforts of many talented individuals. And so games are going to cost an amount of money that will allow the publisher to make a profit. But the largest video game publishers, including EA, have been accused of refusing to compete on pricing, meaning that consumers pay $60 for a new game because that’s what the studios tells us it will cost. By the same token, EA’s deals with sports leagues like the NFL mean that no other competitor is free to offer a competing game that either offers more content for the same price, or similar content for a lower price.Then there are the free-to-play games that EA makes such noise about. They may be “free” to play, but EA openly admits that the goal of creating these games is to nickel-and-dime users into paying for in-game purchases. The company’s CFO recently stated that EA intends to include these microtransactions in all its free-to-play games.Beyond any possible price-fixing or consumer chiseling, EA is making money by allowing advertisers into its games — even the ones that people pay a lot of money for. Most recently, people who purchased SimCity 5 were treated to their first piece of extra content — . So EA gets paid, while its customers get to download an interactive advertisement.也许你可以接受59.99美元的游戏定价，但The Consumerist一直在反对这档标价，它强调60美元的价格是缺乏市场竞争环境下的产物，EA多年来一直在通过与NFL等大型体育联赛保持独家合作，令同行无法推出同类作品与其竞争，这意味着市场上不会有以同样的价格比EA提供更多内容的同类竞争产品存在，自然也不会有以更低价格出售相似内容的产品。即便是这档标价也无法满足EA的欲望：来自免费游戏的微交易（micro-transaction）概念已经被植入到了以《死亡空间》（Dead Space）新作为首的收费游戏中，而EA还打算将这微交易内容继续植入到旗下更多作品中。在压榨消费者钱包的同时，EA还试图将广告商引入游戏的世界中——就算玩家已经为游戏付了大笔钱，他们还是得看那些以各种手段植入到游戏中的广告，最近的例子就是《模拟城市》新作的最新DLC——哦，这可是免费的哦：尼桑Leaf汽车将进驻玩家的模拟城市，这可是无污染的绿色环保电动汽车——EA得到了一笔广告费，而玩家得到的只有一个互动广告而已。3. Support the Products You Sell3、给予自己出售的产品足够的支持EA made a royal mess of the SimCity release by failing to foresee that the people who would buy the game — and who would, per the game’s design, be required to connect to the EA servers — might actually want to play at some point in the week after making their purchase. But that’s just the latest in EA’s long history of annoying its customer base with bad support.Customers who paid full price for games, or who spent or saved huge piles of in-game cash in EA’s online products, would suddenly find a problem with their accounts, but attempts to rectify the problem — or even get a response from EA — would go unheeded.In the wake of last year’s WCIA win, EA’s head of customer service told CNET that big changes were coming for the company and that it would be improving how it responds to customers and adding call centers to better handle things. And yet, just the other day a Consumerist reader in Europe sent us his chat transcript with an EA rep that shows the company still has a long way to go.The customer had a simple question about linking an Origin account to his Xbox gamer tag, but the EA rep could only tell the customer that nothing could be done over chat and that he would need to call a customer support number to discuss the problem. Making matters worse, though the customer was in Europe, the EA rep provided him with a phone number for EA’s U.S. support office.The support issue is only going to become an even bigger concern as EA includes more ways of making in-game purchases and requires Internet access just to play games. Each transaction is a chance for an error, and one server crash could mean millions of people left with useless games until someone slaps a shoe against the side of the server.《模拟城市》新作上线后的服务器稳定性问题只是EA售后服务方面缺陷的冰山一角，EA每年都能在这方面创造大量令人哭笑不得的话题。即便是花全价购买了EA的游戏，消费者遇到的问题仍然无法得到解决，甚至无法得到EA的回应——在去年赢得金大便奖之后，EA客服部门领导曾表示他们会大幅改进客服质量，并且会成立呼叫中心以更好地解决问题，但今年一位The Consumerist读者的遭遇就相当能说明问题：这位身在欧洲的读者试图解决的问题仅仅是将自己的Origin账号与Xbox玩家标签相连，但EA的在线客服完全解决不了这个问题，消费者最终得到的答复仅仅是“请致电客服中心”——他忘了提醒这位欧洲消费者那个客服中心的电话号码是要打到美国去的。在无力的售后服务背景下，EA还在变本加厉地植入游戏内支付和强制联网措施。The Consumerist指出玩家在游戏中支付的每一笔钱都潜在着遭遇错误的可能性，而服务器瘫痪则会令数以百万计的玩家面对一个根本不可用的游戏发呆——也许EA这些年来大刀阔斧的改革措施在投资者眼中大方向是没错的（效率就是另外一回事了），但在玩家看来，EA改革的先后顺序显然存在硬伤。SEALING THE DEALPerhaps EA is secretly of the school of thought that there is no such thing as bad publicity. That’s the only way to explain the decision by Peter Moore, the company’s chief operating officer, to release one of the most .In his misguided, misinformed missive, Moore says things like “we can do better,” while at the same time attempting to put the blame for its WCIA success on a mysterious, unseen cabal of homophobic right-wing blog commenters and people who don’t like whichever football player(s) are on the cover of Madden NFL.“I have a feeling that a rather pronounced enthusiasm for nickel-and-diming might have caused a slightly more elevated level of dissatisfaction with customers,” .Moore’s note also marked the second time EA has tried to deflect criticism by pointing to previous winners of the Worst Company tournament, as if to mock consumers who dared to express their discontent with a mere video game publisher.Make no mistake: Video games are big business. A company like EA — and Activision, Ubisoft, Nintendo, and Sony, etc. — merits just as much scrutiny as any other business that plays a leading role in a multibillion-dollar industry. It’s only a fractured, antiquated public perception that video games are somehow frivolous holdovers from childhood that allows gamers to be abused and taken advantage of by the very people who supply them the games they play.“Until EA stops sucking the blood out of games in order to make uninspiring sequels, or at least until they begin caring about how much gamers hate their lack of respect for our money and intelligence, this is going to continue,” writes Penny Arcade’s Kuchera. “We don’t hate them because we’re homophobes, we hate them because they destroy companies we love. We hate them because they release poor games. We hate them because they claim our hate doesn’t matter as long as we give them our money.”Instead of deflecting, we ask the higher-ups at EA to reflect on the following question:When we live in an era marked by massive oil spills, faulty foreclosures by bad banks, and rampant consolidation in the airline and telecom industry, what does it say about EA’s business practices that so many people have — for the second year in a row — come out to hand it the title of Worst Company In America?在EA一路杀入全美年度最差公司评选决赛的同时，现任首席运营官Peter Moore出人意料地在EA官网上对此做出了回应，他的回应被The Consumerist称为“我们所见过的最能为自己开脱，最闪烁其词，最缺乏歉意的致歉之一”——Peter Moore甚至打算把全美最差公司评选描述为一场儿戏，提到“我们看到了这一样一个邮件列表：它试图说服人们去为EA投票，原因仅仅是他们不同意我们为Madden NFL游戏封面选择的运动员”。他还试图将矛头引向之前的金大便奖得主：“这一投票曾在去年判断我们比造成史上最大规模原油泄漏的公司（英国石油BP）更差。”The Consumerist指出他意在嘲弄消费者只敢对游戏发行商表示不满——“但不要搞错了：游戏是规模庞大的产业，EA、动视、育碧、任天堂和索尼这样的公司理应和其他在规模达到亿万美元的产业中占据主导地位的企业获得相同的关注和监督。”最后，The Consumerist向EA高层质问：“在我们生活的这样一个满是大规模原油泄漏、恶劣银行制定的错误的抵押品赎回权（faulty foreclosures by bad banks，指美国银行的抵押品赎回政策导致大批美国居民会因房屋贷款问题导致房屋被银行没收，自己无家可归）、电信和航空产业盛行兼并垄断的年代中，EA的商业行为还是导致了如此之多的消费者连续两年将其评为全美最差公司——这一现实到底说明了什么？”英文采用：中文采用：
我我我来答！终于有我能答的题了！作为一个在ea工作的孩子，我不得不说--ea真是一家完全以数据驱动不考虑玩家感情的公司（深沉脸...入职第一天的orientation公司的hr就特别高兴地给我们介绍了公司的盈利模式--具体就不细说了，总结起来就一句话，以任何可能的方式榨干用户的最后一个金币...值得庆幸的是我除了sims系列ea的其他作品都不怎么玩，不然我的良心肯定备受折磨-不过听小伙伴们这么回答，我想考虑跳槽怎么办....------唔，最近我们隔壁machine learning组捣鼓出一套方案，为一个游戏增加了一个百万的收入…话说到底是什么样的方案啊------最近和朋友讨论到ea的作战方式，大概就是“我打不过你，就买下你！——有钱，就是这么任性！”我也是醉了…------从ea跳槽了，感觉可以公开讨论前东家了。感觉在ea工作真是特别容易消磨我对游戏的热情…
1993年，EA收购Origin，我不说话，因为我不像雪鹰姐一样电脑有光驱，玩不到《银河飞将》，也不像软体动物一样早早就接触电脑，熟悉《创世纪》。1995年，EA收购牛蛙，我不说话，因为我接触电脑晚，没玩过《主题医院》，英文差，搞不懂《暴力辛迪加》，晕3D，不会玩《地下城守护者》。1997年，EA收购Maxis，我不说话，因为我是文盲，无法理解《模拟城市》的美丽。1998年，EA收购Westwood，我不说话，因为我RTS打得很烂，一直被小伙伴们用《命令与征服》《红警》虐。《银翼杀手》太深奥，我看不懂。《凯兰迪亚传奇》的美术我不喜欢。2000年，EA收购Dreamworks Interactive，我不说话，因为我不觉得《粘土世界》有什么幽默的。……2011年，连宝开都被收购了。如果暴雪当年被EA收购，我相信大家玩到的最后一个暴雪游戏大概就是面目全非的魔兽3，星际和WOW根本不会出现在这个世界上。作为一个玩家，你得从来不接触角色扮演，模拟，冒险，即时战略，赛车，篮球……甚至连打僵尸都不玩，才能跟EA没仇，除了“不玩游戏的游戏迷”，我还真不知道哪个玩家能做到这点？不要问丧钟为谁而鸣，它就为你而鸣。祝老师说的那个，我不太同意EA真担不上“冷酷现实”这样的称号。说它是恐怖分子还差不多。EA做的很多事情，都是损人害己的纯粹反商业行为。EA喜欢毁掉自己收来的公司，而且都是在人家已经过了磨合期，正在大放异彩的时候动手。典型如WESTWOOD，要说CNC2之后毁掉也不冤枉，可红警2之后一切都上了正规，EA马上就把它拆了。我猜测EA的逻辑是这样的：庸才易得而天才难得，我把世界上的天才都害死了，这样我依靠庞大的资金优势和随手可得的庸才就可以保证公司万世屹立不倒！哦，经戚本刚老师提醒，还忘了ORIGIN这茬我叙述一下BF3进入游戏前的工作先是重装了系统，这个不算了（推测是原本的INSTALLER出了问题，导致VC++2008的运行库装不上）安装ORIGIN，安装前ORIGIN本身先下载了升级文件，大概用了半小时吧然后ORIGIN注册，登录安装BF3安装到100%的时候又开始安VC++运行库，好在这次过去了游戏的光盘部分安装好以后，开始下载补丁，补丁大约500M，我下了4个小时，中间不时有速度降到4K的情况。游戏装好了运行游戏强制进入网页登录，莫名其妙死了几次，要求更新插件终于可以进游戏了进入游戏先是警告，显卡驱动版本过低读盘3分钟，进入游戏进入后3分钟，DX报错，把我踹出来了。很可笑对吧，最可笑的是我BF4还是买的PC正版，不出意料地又花了6小时。我已经买了一把原装正品芬兰Fiskars X系列的斧子，就等下次买EA PC正版的时候用它砍手了。有很多朋友看了这段，回复我说“这种智商就不要玩PC了”。我很负责的说，就是PC游戏厂的这种农企心态制造了上亿的游戏机市场。
EA并非业界毒瘤，而是一个冷酷又有效的业界现实。大公司用 “商业” 、 “效率” 、 “数据分析” 来驱动游戏的制作流程，并像金将军一样从一个胜利走向另一个胜利。而包括我在内的很多人则希望开发者用 “爱” 、 “梦想” 和 “疯狂” 作为游戏开发的驱动力量——当然我们接下来就看到了这些充满爱的开发小组被高效的EA收编然后干掉。如果Westwood是成龙，那么EA就是机枪；如果Origin是李连杰，那么EA就是机枪；如果Maxis是甄子丹，那么EA就是机枪；如果Bullfrog是李小龙，那么EA就是机枪……我的意思当然并不是机枪不好，只是它不够美而已。“黄师傅，咱们功夫再好，也挡不住洋枪啊” ——《黄飞鸿》
大部分时候不是。EA只是一家唯利是图的游戏公司，跟动视啊，卡普空啊，腾讯啊之类的没有本质区别。老玩家们对于EA的恨，基本集中在两件事上。1 EA拆了牛蛙2 EA拆了Westwood那个年代，牛蛙基本上就是现在Valve的地位，创意爆棚，进入游戏你能感觉到各个细节在不停地往出淌一种叫做才华的东西。牛蛙的四个大系列：暴力辛迪加、主题医院、上帝也疯狂、地下城守护者，不同的主题、不同的风格、不同的游戏类型，牛蛙都能玩弄于股掌之上。而Westwood则是商业游戏的翘楚，不但发明了RTS这个在上世纪90年代PC端占据统治地位的游戏类型并且开创了命令与征服以及衍生的红色警戒系列，而且多点开花，RPG有魔眼杀机，AVG有银翼杀手、凯兰迪亚，ARPG有救世传说（诺克斯）。有了这样的历史地位，EA不招人恨也难。其实呢，这两个工作室自己的屁股也不干净，那个时候的小团队或多或少都有些财务上的问题，能像Valve（初期）这样一直处于财务独立状态的小团队在游戏史上可谓是少之又少。他们被收购本身也是因为入不敷出，毕竟游戏制作人不能凭空印出钱来，而做好游戏又是极其烧钱的行为。牛蛙和西木由于缺钱，先是卖身给了EA，EA发现盛名之下其实难副，这些人不是下金蛋的鹅，那只好宰了吃掉好了。于是这两个里程碑式的工作室就木有了。换句话说，是EA延长了牛蛙和Westwood的生命，只是接盘的姿势不优美。至于其他一些问题，也是大部分的游戏公司都有的，比如今年BF4为了赶档期强行上市，以至于BUG满天飞的问题，在游戏史上已经出现不下上百次了。其实EA也有霸气爷们儿的时候，比如NBA Live系列的腰斩。在NBA Elite 12开发进度差不多到50%的时候，EA一位高管，差不多是个VP吧，玩了2K12，觉得实在是赶不上竞争对手，然后就直接把项目取消了，EA的篮球游戏干脆停摆了两年。（停摆回来的Live 14也是渣渣）。但是，看见了，但是，EA有两点是绝对不能被原谅的。1 Origin 屎一样的可用性。不用我多说，用过的人都知道，Origin本身就是屎，配合Battlelog是屎上加屎。2 植物大战僵尸系列的双版本。这就是缺乏商业道德，简称缺德。具体请见卡老爷的专栏
fuck up everything
绝对是远的不说就说最近的 收购popcap之前植物大战僵尸1是以前那样收购popcap以后植物大战僵尸2是现在这样而且popcap现在就再也没有出过宝石迷阵，碰碰球，疯狂水族箱那样有灵气的游戏了（各种复刻、移植不算）
不谈游戏好坏……任何公司都可能做出好游戏和坏游戏对于玩家来说……EA最大的罪是占了好多茅坑却拉不出几粒屎收购了不少公司和作品……一旦搞续作或者新游戏不太成功(甚至根本没做出来)……然后就把尚有众多拥趸的品牌给扔了……既不出售版权也不再开发续作……还顺带把原团队解散开掉……
EA游戏的问题不在品质，而在它架构的游戏社区上。事实证明游戏内部架构的社区只能破坏游戏体验，游戏，特别是单机游戏本来就是与现实完全分家的，《风之旅人》的成功之处也是处理了游戏和交流这两个矛盾：让交流符号化，这也是偏向单机的网游炉石传说所使用的方法。黑EA的，所黑的80%都是其中的游戏内置社区，当然跟风黑的不算。EA做的游戏那么多，找点黑处还是很容易的，而一般人是玩不了那么多游戏的，就我玩的游戏而说，EA的游戏算是品质保证，游戏的制作维持在一个可接受的水平上。但就社区构架这一点上，就值得把它黑出翔了。能因为社区把V社捧的那么高，当然也能因为社区把EA踩的这么低。这也是因为现在游戏的单调至极，车枪球，再加上电影化，这就是主流游戏的全部。游戏本身的比重所占很少，其他的地方才会被重视的很多。最近很多老作还被从新挖出来做。游戏发展的很快，游戏行业日趋成熟，游戏制作却没有跟进。
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