Epic picture.  Love the Borg.

Anyway I am getting to dislike EA, I recently played the Sims 3, found that I hated it.  After awhile I tried to uninstall it... and as it turns out EA didn't think that anyone could possible want to uninstall their game for any reason (the best uninstall they offered was a temporary one for transferring data).  So I had to go all uber haxxor on the game and uninstall it through other means than the noexistant approved method.

So many smurfs died in the sacrifice to the dark god of the system clean up.

Yes, but that's not evidence that EA had little say in the matter. The bottom line is the DRM used on the game is ultimately EA's decision.  If they wanted to, they could have easily told Ray to walk. They'd have still had the game to release.

Well, that turned out for the best, actually. Due to the delay, we're going to get a more polished game and one of the BioWare devs stated the delay has allowed them to add in (or finish) no less than several dozen quests in the game. If you ask me, that's worth a delay.

I don't hate EA, but I do think it's harmful to the industry for so much of the games publishing market (and by extension funding for development) to be concentrated in just a few huge companies.

Then there is obviously the whole ea_spouse thing and their overwork practices. Not much more to say on that.

And digesting Bullfrog, who made so much awesome, is pretty unforgiveable. So many unique game series ended: no more Dungeon Keeper, no more Magic Carpet. What if I never get to play another game like Magic Carpet? Can you imagine how great the build up castle/attack enemy castle/gather mana mechanic could be with some proper multiplayer support.

But some good things about EA: at least someone there seems to have good taste; they've been trying to brings out different and interesting things; Archon.

I agree Shift seems a good game. Now I just have to get a steering wheel, because with a keyboard it's too difficult and less fun.

Best photoshop EVAR!!

this. gone are the good old EA days!

The thing I don't like about Ubisoft is you need to upgrade your graphics card frequently. Played Splinter Cell then had to upgrade to play Pandora Tomorrow. Chaos Theory worked okay (Thanks for the Star Force malware by the way) Then went to load the demo for Double Agent and it warned me I didn't have pixel shader 3.0. Remember back in the day when you could play a game no matter what you had for a video card? It might have looked like crap but it worked.

Nobody but hard core gamers are going to upgrade their hardware every two years. Maybe that's why you're losing money and it's not the pirates.

I've only really experienced problems with SPORE's DRM software, however for me it's not so much the damage the software can do, it's the point of it that rubs me the wrong way; to ensure paying customers have less access to the purchased product than pirates have to the illegally copied product. EA Games seems to live in a bubble where they are the only programmers on the planet, and their software, even 3rd party software, is unable to broken.
Well, I've seen an illegally pirated and running content sharing server for a cracked version of SPORE - and it works just like the real deal - so I think they really need to understand that the people pirating their games are smarter, work harder and faster, than the people they employ to prevent it and develop a new strategy because their current one isn't working and is going to eventually cost them dearly.

Now, to be fair, they've shown recent improvements in their strategies, like Dragon Age Origins' now shipping with no DRM besides a Disk Check. However, the damage has been done - EA Games is now referenced as the prime example of corporate greed in the games industry due to their love of DRM software, their love of over priced DLC (The Sims 3 Online Store is a fucking joke), the constant release of horrible entries in their franchises (Need for Speed: Undercover, anyone?) and the constant dumbing down of most of their titles, and it'll take a lot more than a few games with no DRM to make amends to the now angry gamers. Releasing patches to remove DRM from previous games would go a long, long way - but that would require them to apologise to their fans and admit they tried something and it failed, which they will never do. And so I look forward to their new, DRM free titles and hope they realise that companies like Stardock are so loved by their fans because they don't release digital chairs for US$15.00 each, GalCiv II Expansion Pack #19: Attack of the Killer Clone People hasn't been released yet and I don't have provide a DNA sample to the company when ever I want to play my games.

That 'pay for DLC'  on day 1 is only the Warden's Keep, which costs only $7. Note that you get that free if you buy the DD CE. All other DLC (the major one being The Stone Prisoner) is free for newly bought copies. You only have to pay for TSP if you've bought a used copy of the game.

The MMO market and the success of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft has shown companies there is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of money to be made from continual revenue streams such as DLC. EA would have also learnt from it's Madden franchise and The Sims, of course, that if people want something bad enough or have enough love for the original base game, they'll pay for it. Combine the two and you arrive at over-priced digital content. Again, to be fair, they've shown improvement - so I will reserve judgement for their future products.

EA deserve to be condemned.  Their games offer terrible value for money unless you're buying from the bargain bin or second-hand.  They have killed off innovation in favour of re-invention.  These are the guys who have an entire sports division shovelling stuff off the conveyer belt every year.

But most of their target demographic either doesn't comprehend that they have bought a substandard product, or is entertained by the substandard product and doesn't complain.  Parents and kiddies, if you keep buying the same old stuff because of a brand name and then don't take the time to check whether you're getting your money's worth, you perpetuate a whole new generation of stuff which should not have made it to the shelf of any game store.