Electronic Arts Message Board older than one year ago

The latest Army of Two bros do their shooty thing in this "Overkill" trailer for The Devil's Cartel. The game is set to launch March 26. Pre-order at GameStop and receive a free fist bump. If the clerk acts like he doesn't understand, just hold it there until he recognizes.

There isn’t a lot to this SimCity trailer, which EA are bafflingly calling in an “Introduction”, as if we hadn’t already been talking about the game for a year already. Or did I just imagine all that? I could check, but I like to live life on the edge. For example: I’m writing this article directly into the CMS. This is internet without a safety net. All I have are my wits, the inbuilt spellchecker in Firefox (Chrome and WordPress do not get along), and a desire to crank things up a notch. Who’s with me? Let’s gooooo…(more…)

The Sims 2 held on longer than most, but as with all games from EA the moment they’re launched they’re on the road to having all support sliced off. In this case, EA are giving the game that once ruled every PC sales chart a viking burial, without the viking part. They’re cutting off the online services of The Sims 2 and TheSims2.com on January 14th, which is my birthday. Way to ruin the global celebrations, EA!(more…)

#ea The company's share price dropped by a third in the past year, and expensive incursions into mobile and social games development haven't yet panned out. Adding insult to injury, Electronic Arts was booted out of the NASDAQ-100 Index for poor performance. Figure in the continuing decline of video game sales on traditional platforms, and John Riccitiello, EA's CEO, could find himself sitting at a long conference table as someone from HR explains his COBRA options. More »

#simcity A couple weeks ago, the SimCity gang at Maxis held an AMA at Reddit. That may not have been such a smart idea. They don't like DRM over there, for any reason, and SimCity's gonna require an always-on Internet connection to play it, in any mode. It's no surprise that this comment, a compendium of anti-DRM remarks, was the most upvoted question of the entire AMA. Or that it went completely unaddressed. More »

More information has been released regarding the contents of Battlefield 3's final DLC pack "End Game," which is still slated for March 2013. Specifically, End Game will include four new maps "designed for high speed combat and action," according to the announcement, as well as three new vehicles, a support dropship with the ability to deliver vehicles and the addition of Capture the Flag as a playable mode.

As always, End Game will be available for "free" to anyone with a Battlefield Premium membership/subscription/dark pact, though normal folk will need to pony up some cash for the right to ride a dirt bike into a hail of bullets, which doesn't really sound like the best idea if we're being honest.

First those ding dang dern Triads and now Hutts? Jeez, what won’t rise these days? I mean, at this rate, everyone and everything’s going to start rising, and then that’ll just be the new normal, non-risen plane of existence. Where’s the fun in that? Oh well, though. Star Wars: The Old Republic: Rise of the Hutt Cartel: The Subtitling is now officially a thing, and it’s coming soon to a galaxy near (read: far, far away from) you. But what will it entail? Am I finally about to get the Hutt crime empire management sim of my dreams? Cross your slimy slug fingers and head past the break for details.

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#yearinreview The year is winding down and, if we simply asked Activision boss Bobby Kotick what the smartest thing Activision did was this year, he might say it was the making of gobs of money. Yes, Activision is doing fairly well. More »

#yearinreview The calendar year is coming to a close for the recently crowned Worst Company In America (doesn't that polished turd look so nice on the mantle), and I don't think anyone would claim 2012 was the finest outing for Electronic Arts. Sure, their Madden and NHL franchises might have broken personal sales bests (after all, NHL 13 was the only place to find hockey this winter), but beyond one non-sports bang in March's Mass Effect 3, things looked a bit dire. More »

Star Wars takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and Star Wars: The Old Republic is set an even longer time ago than that. Thus, this Hypergate – which is positively ancient, even by SWTOR’s musty standards – must be older than time itself. Naturally, then, people (and blue not-people and green not-people and spiky faced not-people) must risk reducing the precious relic to ash by waging brutal, ceaseless wars over it. That’s just how these things work. And now you can join in on the ill-advised carnage for absolutely no money*. No strings attached**. Nope, none ***. Seriously****!

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One of the most exciting ideas in the new SimCity is the "multi-city play" feature, which is showcased in this latest trailer. Around the 2:50 mark is where the co-op features start to really get shown off. Build a better city with friends starting March 5, 2013.

The hideous, multi-limbed beast shambles on, and we're not talking about Necromorphs. No, we're talking about retailer specific pre-order items for Dead Space 3. Those who plunk down their cash early will receive an in-game gun. GameStop pre-orders get the EG-900 SMG, a "compact but deadly" firearm. Amazon pre-orders, meanwhile, will pick up the Tesla Enervator, which "delivers a precision blast causing instantaneous electrocution and molecular destabilization in the target." We try not to pick favorites when it comes to guns - we love our death-dealers equally - but the Enervator sounds just a tad more interesting.

These bonuses come in addition to the content included with the Dead Space 3 limited edition. Those who pre-order Dead Space 3 automatically receive the limited edition, which features two bonus suits and two bonus guns.

SimCity creative director Ocean Quigley (rockin' a badass mustache) shows off the game's intuitive visual presentation, which we praised back at Gamescom. The trailer features nice examples of the immediate impact of civic structures and parks. SimCity will be out the first full week of March 2013.

Battlefield 3's "Aftermath" DLC pack will be available later today for those with a PlayStation 3. The DLC includes four earthquake ravaged maps and a crossbow. There's also a new game mode called "Scavenger," which tasks players armed only with pistols to search for more powerful weapons.

Would you want to see SimCity‘s creative director showing you some of what the latest city-tinkering sandbox can do? No? Oh. Well, for you I’ve posted an alternative viewing material beneath the click. For me, though, with my keen interest in the ways of the simulated metropolis, there’s a video of best-named-developer, Ocean Quigley, doing his thing in the “ultimate construction set” of options that SimCity provides.

Clearly the ultimatest thing about it is the “clumph” noise on placing a building. Everything else in the game rests on that effect.(more…)

I’m not the sort of person who usually watches the deleted/extended scenes of movie special editions. I mean, I’m sure they’re fascinating – and I’ll definitely go for a swim in the deep end if I’m really, really into something – but odds are, I’ve already gotten the point. I’ve seen the credits roll on the vanilla version. I’ve taken the journey, and – unless it’s been a while – I’m not super interested in trying the scenic route. That’s pretty much my dilemma with Mass Effect 3‘s DLC as well. Omega, for instance, looks like a bombastic jaunt off the beaten space-path, but I already know where it ultimately leads. Still though, a new trailer makes a compelling argument for me to play it sooner rather than later – if only because it looks like a fairly robust self-contained tale. Also, Aria’s finally doing things. Explode-y things. I bet her faithful couch is terribly lonely.

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As the decidedly not very good Medal Of Honor: WARFACEFIGHTER received its critical pannings, one refrain was repeated again and again: they’re the games EA puts out on the year’s DICE don’t have a new Battlefield ready. That may well be true, but EA are now at pains to point out (not necessarily in reaction, I should say) that DICE are not “a Battlefield factory”. (Imagine a non-gamer reading those words. “Dice are not battlefield factories? And you say FPS games HELP your minds?”) There’s more to the Swedish team, they insist to OXM today. And in response rumours that Mirror’s Edge 2 is in development have once more bubbled to the surface.

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#ncaafootball Five years ago, an NCAA executive said EA Sports should be allowed to use actual names of its amateur athletes—commanding a higher licensing fee as a result—because players' likenesses were "rigged into the games now by illegal means." Permitting their use would clear up the matter and bring more money to the NCAA, he said. More »

Uh-oh. Eurogamer are reporting that a number of people have woken up this morning to find that their EA Origin account has been hacked. Receiving emails telling them that changes have successfully been made, recipients are not too delighted since they never asked for any. And then of course getting control of their accounts back again is a great big palava. It’s even happened to one of Eurogamer’s own.

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The Dead Space franchise was founded on the core tenet of isolation - a single-player survival adventure against horrific necromorphs. In Dead Space 2, the franchise shifted its focus toward the growing blend of action and horror, a direction the Resident Evil franchise has been firmly set on in its last few releases.

With Dead Space 3 Visceral looks to offer more of a balance betwem action and horror. Though the series is still planted within the action-horror sub-genre, Dead Space 3 will attempt to match the level of scares seen in previous entries while ramping up the action as the story progresses.

"We don't want to ever just be only action," Chuck Beaver, Dead Space 3 story producer, told Joystiq. "I think survival horror is morphing into something else."

There comes a time in every young MMO’s life when it has to start facing facts and accepting the horrible, domino-like deterministic path cruel fate has set all of us on. Primarily, this means coping with the fact that World of Warcraft looms over its genre compatriots like an imploding sun, and its black-hole-like pull will devour all subscriber money from now until the end of time. Not even Star Wars: The Old Republic – the last great white hope for subs in a post-WoW world – could change that. And so, not even a year after launch, it’ll be flipping the F2P switch on November 15th. But, of course, there are some strings attached.

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Mythic have been through more name changes than Prince. The team who first came to attention through their MMO Dark Age Of Camelot as Mythic Entertainment saw their first change when they were snapped up by EA. Their development on the not-so-successful Warhammer: Age Of Reckoning had caught the attention of the big publisher in 2006, and was eventually branded with the name “EA Mythic”. Then come 2008 they changed their married name back to Mythic Entertainment, but only for a year, when EA attempted to splice them with BioWare. Thus BioWare Mythic was born, with the studio helping out on Star Wars: The Old Republic, alongside their own projects. And now, three years on, that seems to be over. While still owned by EA, they’re on their own once more, and from today going by the far more enigmatic: Mythic.

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Disney owns Star Wars now, so what better way to celebrate than with the most un-Disney character in the entire Star Wars universe? In fairness, Hk-51 isn’t HK-47 (who has already appeared elsewhere in Star Wars: The Old Republic), but they’re quite obviously cut from the same organic-life-loathing cloth. They probably also both loathe cloth, for that matter. Point is, don’t go into a frothy mouthed state of paralytic shock if your new companion combines the words “meat” and “bag” to form a phrase of a far more sinister nature. But the galaxy-spanning quest to secure an adorable HK-51 of your very own is only a small part of SWTOR’s upcoming update 1.5. The rest appears in a hyper-advanced eyeball stimulating holocron after the break.

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Battlefield 1942 is currently free on Electronic Arts' Origin digital distribution system. The gratis download is in celebration of the Battlefield series' 10 year anniversary and Battlefield 3 Premium's 2 million members making bank for the publisher.

According to EA, Battlefield 3 has sold over 17 million copies so far. The game's latest expansion, Aftermath, begins its month-long release campaign at the end of the month.

Blue draws my attention to a blogpost over at the Command & Conquer website. The game, which is free to play and seemingly distanced from the Generals 2 subtitle, is set to have “the longest running beta phase in franchise history”, beginning in the first half of 2013. I don’t think that “longest running” C&C beta means a great deal, it’d be surprising if the first free to play release didn’t have a lengthy beta. The post doesn’t contain much information about how the free to play model will be implemented, but it does come right out and admit the problems of previous games and then says it’ll all be ‘different’ this time

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Rather oddly not we haven’t been given review code by EA, even after it was released in America, but we’ve finally been able to get our hands on Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Criterion’s latest take on the long-running series is a thinly veiled sequel to their classic Burnout: Paradise. Does the arrival of the police make things a riot? Here’s wot I think:

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Alongside the announcement of Google's new Nexus 10 tablet and its Nexus 4 smartphone, EA has revealed plans to release several new games compatible with the Nexus line (including the Nexus 7). 13 games are planned, though EA has only announced Need for Speed: Most Wanted, The Sims FreePlay, World Series of Poker and Theme Park and Tetris Free so far. The new games should be available in time for the Nexus 10 and Nexus 4 launches on November 13.

Obviously, it's nice to know there will be some more entertainment options for new Nexus owners. Not that they'll need it once they have immediate, portable access to all the funny cat videos they could ever want.

Electronic Arts announced massive sales for its Battlefield and FIFA franchises as part of its second quarter earnings today. Battlefield 3 Premium, which had over 1.3 million subscribers in late July, now has surpassed 2 million.

The publisher also announced that FIFA 13 has gone on to sell 7.4 million units (excluding mobile downloads) during its first four weeks on the retail field. This makes the latest installment in the footie franchise the "biggest sports launch of all time" for the company.

Oh, and don't you fret none about the legacy versions of those two franchises. Battlefield 3 and FIFA 12 together sold "nearly 4 million units" since April, the beginning of EA's current fiscal year.

Soon, everyone will be able to play Star Wars: The Old Republic*. Oh, that asterisk? Sorry, my entire-one-to-one-scale-replica-of-The-Death-Star key is broken. Still though, the point remains: SWTOR’s gearing up for a F2P relaunch, but there are some nearly moon-sized restrictions keeping it grounded. Fortunately, after initial complaints and some time on test servers, BioWare’s seen fit to scale them back – if only just a bit.

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I lived with John for four years, which makes me an expert on sexy. So when I say that there’s something damn sexy about SimCity‘s data layers, then you have to believe me. Maxis’s reworking of their city simulation is getting a lot of attention for the way they’re attempting to display the graphs and percentages of the working of a city as part of the living, breathing world. You want to see if there’s a traffic problem? Follow a car and see where it gets stuck, then build bypass routes to clear the clog. It’s an idea that creates a startling looking game, but it can’t do everything. At a recent EA event I was demonstrated that to really peek at the population or divine the water, you’ll need to switch on the data.(more…)