My Letter to EA...and no, its not filled with love
Dear board room full of corporate suits smoking cigars and laughing about this quarter's earnings,
Hey there, its me, the little guy, the guy who has loved Madden since he was 12 years old, just one of millions who helped pay for your gold plated toilet seat or the brand new kidney you bought from a 13 year old immigrant. I'm Writing to you (or to the cloud) with the hope that at least 3 people in their sweatpants read this while waiting for their game to reload after the daily crash. I would like to start with a little background for you, I am someone one who has many great memories with Madden, whether it was the tournaments my friends and i would organize as kids, or the old fantasy drafts in franchise, even playing the occasional online regs for shits and giggles brings back an acute sense off nostalgia. Going back a bit, roughly 16 years ago, at an age before i truly 'watched' the sport of football, I fell in love with Madden (04'),-- (and i felt it was at its best then, gee i wonder if the market competition forced the 'suits' to provide a quality experience, but who knows right?)--. In terms of hours played, and impact on my childhood Madden is unmatched by any video game in my play history. This is my first year playing MUT and it has really made things clear for me. I think many would agree that this year has been especially good at revealing the true nature of the 'decision makers' at EA. My love for analogies is equal to that of drive ending acrobat animations, so ill start with one here: the EA "decision makers" are similar to high school lunch ladies, what they're serving is rarely high in quality, but the whole school still eats it. And sure, maybe, we the children, could skip lunch, but why should we go hungry? If we complain who cares, were just angry teenagers? we don't have to eat, and they still get paid right? All they have to do is smile as we line up to eat the 3 day old "Meat Surprise" (Franchise Mode).
These lunch ladies may speak nice and smile, and maybe they'll even try to to keep you interested with the occasional Pizza Friday (LTD's) and expect you to be grateful for paying them. But in the end we have diarrhea and they go home at 2pm daily, with a paycheck. It doesn't matter if some kids pack their own lunch(sales drop), because that food isn't wasted, they can just continue re-serving the leftovers to those hungry (diehard madden players). Now this analogy falls short in that most lunch ladies are not likely to be profit-driven capitalist pigs (except for Ms. Schneider from 7th grade) with zero concern for the experience of their customers. And i am also lying when i say they don't pay attention to their users, this is incorrect. I know from experience that they sure do care. They showed me this great honor on Monday, when they notified me of my suspension from the auction house. This ban, which I've now deduced was due to my browsing history/3rd party coin purchases. Which they were able to unearth and use against me, when i foolishly downloaded the companion app, thereby allowing them to use their "anti cheat software"- that tracks third party browsing history (especially when that history includes Coin purchase sites), this software, is just one of several ethically ambiguous functions the app has at its disposal--and shows how much they do care. It also shows that they clearly aren't a group of bumbling idiots with no technical prowess. All of this was done with stunning precision and a calculated efficiency. One that is no where to be found in Madden itself or when trying to resolve bugs and issues through their "help center".
I found all of this especially humorous considering that I still haven't been able to link my Prime/EA accounts to receive my free packs, yet they were able to track my 3rd party history to block my auction house almost instantly. Glad to see something in their company is working right. I mean If they could do this, surely they could give me the packs that i am owed (i have received NONE), and will likely never receive. Guess they cant figure that out? Yet all of this is possible:
"Cannot connect to server" -a message i see several times daily, or the wonderful "clear reserved space" so i can play my game tonight, its also simple things like: Terrible pack odds, daily crashing (trade block, compare players, end of a solo battles game... just to name a few), EVERYTHING franchise mode, pack glitches, overpriced packs/random pricing increases, horrid wait times for help chat, and ZERO accountability, responsibility taken by no one. I mean this is a company that basically has free advertising (with content creators --youtube), has a guaranteed monopoly over the entire NFL gaming market, makes millions off of useless virtual currency that gets replenished annually, and a customer base that loves the sport and yearns for years past with literally no choice but the "meat surprise". If they aren't going to make any changes, then at least fine tune the product, menu crashes and UI bugs are something they had figured out in 2005, that functionality didnt just disappear Benjamin button style. This company is a fine example of monopoly capitalism, they are beholden to no one, and will continue to put out a product that can squeak by in order to meet their massive profit rates. It will only get worse as they continue to see what they can get away with. To answer any questions;; Do i have an answer... No? WIll i play next year? who knows, im a hypocrite. Do these lunch ladies deserve to get hit stuck by Bobby Wagner? yes
yours truly,
the masses
p.s. omg did you guys see the new steve smith card just came out, cant wait to play tonight...
Dear board room full of corporate suits smoking cigars and laughing about this quarter's earnings, Hey there, its me, the little guy, the guy who has loved Madden since he was 12 years old, just one of millions who helped pay for your gold plated toilet seat or the brand new kidney you bought from a 13 year old immigrant. I'm Writing to you (or to the cloud) with the hope that at least 3 people in their sweatpants read this while waiting for their game to reload after the daily crash. I would like to start with a little background for you, I am someone one who has many great memories with Madden, whether it was the tournaments my friends and i would organize as kids, or the old fantasy drafts in franchise, even playing the occasional online regs for shits and giggles brings back an acute sense off nostalgia. Going back a bit, roughly 16 years ago, at an age before i truly 'watched' the sport of football, I fell in love with Madden (04'),-- (and i felt it was at its best then, gee i wonder if the market competition forced the 'suits' to provide a quality experience, but who knows right?)--. In terms of hours played, and impact on my childhood Madden is unmatched by any video game in my play history. This is my first year playing MUT and it has really made things clear for me. I think many would agree that this year has been especially good at revealing the true nature of the 'decision makers' at EA. My love for analogies is equal to that of drive ending acrobat animations, so ill start with one here:
the EA "decision makers" are similar to high school lunch ladies, what they're serving is rarely high in quality, but the whole school still eats it. And sure, maybe, we the children, could skip lunch, but why should we go hungry? If we complain who cares, were just angry teenagers? we don't have to eat, and they still get paid right? All they have to do is smile as we line up to eat the 3 day old "Meat Surprise" (Franchise Mode).
These lunch ladies may speak nice and smile, and maybe they'll even try to to keep you interested with the occasional Pizza Friday (LTD's) and expect you to be grateful for paying them. But in the end we have diarrhea and they go home at 2pm daily, with a paycheck. It doesn't matter if some kids pack their own lunch(sales drop), because that food isn't wasted, they can just continue re-serving the leftovers to those hungry (diehard madden players). Now this analogy falls short in that most lunch ladies are not likely to be profit-driven capitalist pigs (except for Ms. Schneider from 7th grade) with zero concern for the experience of their customers.
And i am also lying when i say they don't pay attention to their users, this is incorrect. I know from experience that they sure do care. They showed me this great honor on Monday, when they notified me of my suspension from the auction house. This ban, which I've now deduced was due to my browsing history/3rd party coin purchases. Which they were able to unearth and use against me, when i foolishly downloaded the companion app, thereby allowing them to use their "anti cheat software"- that tracks third party browsing history (especially when that history includes Coin purchase sites), this software, is just one of several ethically ambiguous functions the app has at its disposal--and shows how much they do care. It also shows that they clearly aren't a group of bumbling idiots with no technical prowess. All of this was done with stunning precision and a calculated efficiency. One that is no where to be found in Madden itself or when trying to resolve bugs and issues through their "help center".
I found all of this especially humorous considering that I still haven't been able to link my Prime/EA accounts to receive my free packs, yet they were able to track my 3rd party history to block my auction house almost instantly. Glad to see something in their company is working right. I mean If they could do this, surely they could give me the packs that i am owed (i have received NONE), and will likely never receive. Guess they cant figure that out? Yet all of this is possible:
"Cannot connect to server" -a message i see several times daily, or the wonderful "clear reserved space" so i can play my game tonight, its also simple things like: Terrible pack odds, daily crashing (trade block, compare players, end of a solo battles game... just to name a few), EVERYTHING franchise mode, pack glitches, overpriced packs/random pricing increases, horrid wait times for help chat, and ZERO accountability, responsibility taken by no one. I mean this is a company that basically has free advertising (with content creators --youtube), has a guaranteed monopoly over the entire NFL gaming market, makes millions off of useless virtual currency that gets replenished annually, and a customer base that loves the sport and yearns for years past with literally no choice but the "meat surprise". If they aren't going to make any changes, then at least fine tune the product, menu crashes and UI bugs are something they had figured out in 2005, that functionality didnt just disappear Benjamin button style. This company is a fine example of monopoly capitalism, they are beholden to no one, and will continue to put out a product that can squeak by in order to meet their massive profit rates. It will only get worse as they continue to see what they can get away with. To answer any questions;; Do i have an answer... No? WIll i play next year? who knows, im a hypocrite. Do these lunch ladies deserve to get hit stuck by Bobby Wagner? yes
yours truly,
the masses
p.s. omg did you guys see the new steve smith card just came out, cant wait to play tonight...