EA Origin forcing always-online DRM

[quote=caucheka][quote]EA is turning all of its brands into what it calls "online universes". At EA's UK showcase this week, EA's Northern Europe boss Keith Ramsdale said all of EA's game franchises, including FIFA, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Star Wars, The Sims and Need for Speed, were being transformed in this way. This means more than simple online play, Ramsdale explained. It involves being able to play a "brand" across multiple devices, each one contributing to a singular goal - and profile. Ramsdale used FIFA by way of an example. "Imagine a player gets up in the morning, plays an online match on his 360 before going to work," he said. "On the bus, on his way to work, he practices his free kicks on his tablet. At lunch he looks at the transfer window on his PC. On the way home he chooses his kit on his smartphone. "Here's the thing: when he gets home to play again on his 360 that evening, all those achievements and upgrades will be alive in his game." Ramsdale said online universes allow the consumer to play "how he wants, when he wants and on the device he wants". "We're very focused on transforming all of our brands into these online universes. That gives the consumer full control of how and when they play in a rich world of content."[/quote] more jargon for saying that all of their games are going to force you to be online to play them. in other news, 14 titles had their servers shut down, several of which required eas online pass. ea originally spouted that the online pass bullshit was keeping the servers running longer, but when the game hasn't even been out for 2 years (18 months to be exact) and they're pulling the plug, something isn't right. another of those 14 games is single player only, which means that those who don't own the dlc will not be able to acquire it, or activate it as well if they havn't already done so. by forcing always online, ea then has the ability to pull the plug on any game servers and keep you from playing them. 'reasonable' examples for pulling server plugs would be a) not enough people are logging in to play the game b) the game isnt making enough money at all c) fifa 2013 came out! better pull the plug on fifa 2012 and make everyone buy 2013. you know how you can still play games that are 10 years old? well 10 years from now, any games that are always-online drm will most likely be unplayable, because they axed the servers.[/quote]

[quote=Xaioli]rararararararara we hate ea go steam karmakarmakarmakarma Oops this isn't reddit sorry :p[/quote]

[quote=caucheka]theres a reason ea won worst company of the year 2012. they continue to blame all their problems on the consumer while continuing to shit down the consumers throats. and no, not buying ea products is not enough.[/quote]

[quote=Toshabi]YEAH! EA IS THE DEVIL! YEAH YEAH YEAH! DOWN WITH EVIL EA! ROW ROW FIGHT THA POWA! DOWN WITH EVIL CORPORATE FAGGOTS! - Caucheka thread summed up. Meanwhile, blizzard is doing some bullshit and Caucheka seems to have turned a blind eye towards it. Weird.[/quote]

[quote=caucheka]i didnt turn a blind eye, i mentioned what i thought in the other thread. always-online drm is bad. no matter what brand or company does it. as theres nothing more than just saying 'always online drm is bad' for d3 i didnt make a thread for it.[/quote]

[quote=Canoas]First of all, you mentioned after I asked you about it. If I didn't you wouldn't have said anything. Also, there's as much more to say regarding Blizzard than there is about EA, so the only reason for you to create a topic about EA is you being biased. Blizzard did it before EA and since no one gave a shit Blizzard got away with it. EA decided to mimick them and now you are whining. What's the difference between what blizzard did and what EA did? None whatsoever except the fact that Blizzard did it on a much larger scale.[/quote]

[quote=caucheka]what? ea said this months before d3 was confirmed as always online. just because i didnt bring it to your attention then doesnt mean that 'blizzard came up with it'. in fact, ubisoft has been doing always online drm for a longer time than that. i've ranted enough about always-online drm that i didnt feel like ranting about it now would do anything. my point has mostly been proven correct so far as everyone simply dismisses 'the buttmad troll ea-hater'. my only gripe with d3 is always online and thats not enough to just say hurr durr always online. before you comment, i started this thread because ea is making all of their games always-online, mentioning it relatively close to the time they shut down servers for their other games, effectively stating that they can and will decide to pull the plug on one of their games when they feel like not enough people are playing/buying it, etc.. also going hand in hand with ea claiming the online pass was to help elongate the lifetime of its game servers and then closing the servers 18 months after the games release.[/quote]

[quote=Searz][quote=caucheka] i started this thread because ea is making all of their games always-online, mentioning it relatively close to the time they shut down servers for their other games, effectively stating that they can and will decide to pull the plug on one of their games when they feel like not enough people are playing/buying it, etc.. also going hand in hand with ea claiming the online pass was to help elongate the lifetime of its game servers and then closing the servers 18 months after the games release.[/quote] I must agree that that's a teeeny, tiny, tad, itty, bitty, bit worse than making one game always online. Besides, Blizzard don't pull the plug on their servers for a loooooooong while. Just look at WC3/Diablo. 10+years and still running. WC2 might even still be up, but I don't play that game. Those servers would have been up for 17years by now. Blizzard don't shit over their own games.[/quote]

[quote=Canoas]the problem is the reason for why blizzard is making the game always online, it's not about stopping piracy, it's about forcing everyone to play online so they can use the auction house which will in turn make blizzard tons of money. Blizzard never had a problem with pirated games and it wouldn't start now either just because the allowed offline D3. However, what could have happened is people preferring to play offline/LAN using hamachi, specially with such big problems during launch, which would make some people not care for online play at all and in turn not use the real money AH.[/quote]

[quote=caucheka]what? they aren't forcing anyone to use the auction house. the rmah is only there to stop chinese farmers and scammers like in d2, because we know there are people out there that will buy and sell items regardless. im not saying everyone who sold items in d2 were scammers or farmers, but a lot were. not only that but the always online keeps people from duping items or hacking items in. the only thing i ask for though besides offline single player only characters is an option to keep people who bought items on the rmah out of your game if you open it to the public. i dont care if you buy shit but i dont want someone coming in my game and speeding through everything because they're overpowered. and searz, don't forget starcraft. sc1/d2/wc2/wc3 all use the same servers afaik. i know they at least use the same chat channels.[/quote]