Talk:Electronic Arts

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Deletion of Online Strategy section

EA originally decided against allowing its games on Microsoft's Xbox Live online service due to arguments between Microsoft and EA about the distribution of revenue from online play. EA finally agreed to release games on Xbox Live on the condition that Microsoft allow the games to connect to the EA servers in order to play them online.[24] EA has also received criticism from many gamers in that EA refuses to patch many of its games (usually the older ones) that are in many cases glitchy and/or imbalanced (one player side has more advantages over the other and thus the game matches are unfair).

The issue doesn't seem to be any controversial, but more of a business decision. Question is, was EA obligated (by contract, promise, or non-recalled claim) to support LIVE service to its products? If not, where's the problem? Furthermore, the "gamer criticism" relies on the weasel word, "from many gamers", as its source. The last sentence in parentheses sounds like as if some gamer got upset at the game.--BirdKr 01:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Your question lacks context. Did EA market the game in question as an "online" game? Moreover, is this game only capable of delivering real satisfaction by being played "online" by virtue of its design? For instance, would it be appropriate to market, distribute, and sell an online only game such as Team Fortress 2 - not an EA product, I know - only to pull support for that product shortly thereafter? Even after several years, at what point are the ties that bind "just business" and "ethical support" finally broken? What of the end user who still has money tied up in a produce he/she can no longer use? More than that, hasn't this topic already been hashed out in the archives? I seem to recall reading stuff similar to this in the past. Braidedheadman (talk) 08:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Desert Strike

I am not an expert in this topic but I bring this here for your attention because is suggested that this game be removed from the list of notable EA games as it is not notable. My contention is that it is notable because it has its own section here; in addition Googling "Desert Strike" game -wikipedia yields 315,000 Ghits. Even factoring out blog entries must leave a substantial case based on the first criterion of notability. The main argument against seems to be that all EA games are listed, whether great or dreadful. I don't think this is a valid criterion for notability. You might say Winston Churchill was great and Adolf Hitler dreadful, but both are undoubtedly notable. I leave it to the experts on these things, as long as WP:NPOV is borne in mind. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 16:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

'Desert Strike was a big hit for EA on the Genesis (with a SNES port) and started a franchise that lasted into the 32/64-bit era. That seems notable enough for me. Indrian (talk) 16:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

How do you define "big hit"? MobyGames accumulated scores gives it about an 80% rating--pretty average.

Let me reiterate what happened. I removed Desert Strike from the Notable games published list because I thought it wasn't all that notable. It was just one game that EA published among hundreds of others. Rodhullandemu added it back in, thinking it was notable because it has it's own section in an article. I don't see how that makes it notable. Most games have articles, even if they are obscure. I assert that Desert Strike is a pretty obscure game and doesn't deserve to be on the "Notable" list (and it is on the List of Electronic Arts games). Indrian's objection noted, does anyone else object to removing it? — Frecklefσσt | Talk 16:43, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, first of all, Desert Strike is from 1992, so your Moby Games info is pretty worthess since there are virtually no online press reviews of the game. Second, even if the review score was average, or even horrible, that would once again mean nothing on its own because plenty of awful games have become big hits. Third, anything that spawns a five game series is not "obscure" as you say even if it is not as popualr as Madden or Mario. Outside of its sports games, EA has had very few series last that long, particularly in the period of time we are talking about in the early to mid nineties. Finally, if you want to limit this list to truly notbale games that is fine with me, because I put Desert Strike somewhere between where you put it and super important games like Populous, Ultima Online, and Madden, but then please go ahead and remove Mail Order Monsters, Music Construction Set, and Racing Destruction Set from the list too, which are far more obscure than Desert Strike. Indrian (talk) 18:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Is EA still world's largest publisher?

Now that Activision and Vivendi games have merged, I don't think EA Games is the largest games publisher anymore. EA's article says EA's annual revenue is $2.9b; Activision Blizzard's press release says that Activision Blizzard expects $3.8b in 2007. Furthermore, the press release claims that Activision Blizzard is "the world's largest and most profitable pure-play game publisher". I'm no expert, but it looks as though EA's no longer top dog. Ornen 22:47, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• I believe you are correct, but until both of those companies give their annual reports, I do not think we have a reliable enough source to credit Activision Blizzard as the new top dog. I may be wrong, however. Indrian 00:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. The press release itself has a disclaimer stating that all figures are estimates and future predictions. Tentatively, I've made a slight change to the intro to make it slightly less specific. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 00:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

If it hasn't happened yet, why include speculative commentary? I move that these comments be removed until such time as the article's findings are verifiable as, for the moment at least, it's just not relevant information (as interesting as I find it to be). I cite WP:CRYSTAL. Braidedheadman 02:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I also think that is for the best, particularly after I noticed with further research that EA projects revenues of $3.8 to $4 billion this year, so chances are good EA is still (barely) on top. As you say, though, we will not know until there are sources and WP:V would seem to mandate we not touch this for now. Indrian 02:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Would like to document negative experience with EA Store

Hello Wikipedians,

I have had a very negative experience with the EA Store, which exists for the express purpose of allowing people to purchase and download EA games. I was able to complete the "purchase" part of the process, but there has been a slight problem with the "download" part: in other words, I have parted with money but have not been able to download the game to which I am entitled. EA Support have not been helpful in the least.

I have started a blog documenting my experiences. Would it be unethical to add a sub-section to the existing Criticism section on this page with a mention of EA Store unreliability, citing my blog? Annoyead (talk) 23:11, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Your single complaint would not be notable, and hence not encyclopedic, your blog would not be regarded as a reliable source, and you would be perceived to have a conflict of interest. Any one of these would get your edits deleted. Probably a better idea to persist with EA's customer support but this is not the forum for consumer complaints. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 23:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

If your blog, and your experiences contained therein gain mass coverage (as was the case with EA Spouse), then it could well be notable enough. Until that point, blogs aren't generally regarded as reliable sources, and also generally only common and notable criticisms are included, rather than sole, rare or personal occurrences. Good move coming to discuss this on the talk page first, however. :) --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 23:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

My motivation is to warn others of the potential for their purchase to "go wrong" as mine has, and also to encourage EA to get their act together. Other content in this very article would suggest they pay quite a lot of attention to what's being said here :-) In any case, I will complete my blog and try to see what happens. Thanks for the responses. Annoyead (talk) 23:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want to get the word out about your blog, try sending links out to the big blogs like Kotaku and Joystiq once you have solid evidence in there and the like. The role of Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, is to include things that are already notable, rather than include things with the intention of helping them become notable. Good luck, though. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 23:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Funny - the issue is now resolved. My purchase is accessible through EA Download Manager. This can't have been the case more than about two days ago, when I last checked. Nothing to blog about now! :-) Annoyead (talk) 16:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Deleting The "Editing of Wikipedia" Section and Accusations of Personal Bias?

In a recent series of reverts, one wikipedian made the claim that Braidedheadman (talk) (me) is personally biased against EA in an attempt to invalidate his protests against the removal of certain sections from the "Criticism" section of this article. In my own defense, I feel that I would like to submit the following argument to show that I (Braidedheadman), am not biased in so far as I only make edits that can be substantiated by facts supported by credible sources.

It is true that the bulk of my edits have contributed to the growth of the "Criticism" section in question. The reason for that being the case is simply that, prior to my contributions, in addition to those added by other, like-minded wikignomes, the EA wiki article ran more like corporate promotional material or a press brochure rather than an encyclopedic article written from a non-neutral POV. The article needed a criticism section in order to balance all the fluff that persists in this document body to this day.

And so I took it upon myself to identify and document points upon which EA could be fairly criticized, with supporting documentation attributed to credible sources (sometimes with help from others =P ), in order to preserve some sense of NPOV throughout this article. More than that, without criticism like this, there can't be the kind of healthy debates that encourage growth elsewhere. While I admit I do feel that, without making them one's soap-box, publicly controlled articles like these - seen by hundreds of thousands if, indeed, not millions - are a perfect place for such things and for leveraging large corporations like EA into examining themselves closely to look for ways to change for the better; to the best of my knowledge, I have not made this article my personal soap-box and, to my credit, I have opposed points of criticism here in the past that were either not sufficiently notable, were not NPOV, or could not be substantiated through proper documentation.

As far as EA's staffers editing wiki articles in which they have a vested interest goes, and people's continued efforts to remove EA's recent involvement in such activities; yes, I know it happens and, no, I don't have any problem with it in so far as they are not the kind of historical-revisionist entries like those that were made here in the past or are not full of salacious, corporate disinformation.

When companies do stoop to this level, however, I strongly believe that these are notable events, particularly when major news media outlets like the NY Times et al pick up on it and run them in their periodicals. As such, they are confirmed points of historical record and have a place of value in encyclopedic articles. Bias does not factor into including them in such articles one bit. I might even contend that not including them, in fact, shows a particularly favorable bias toward EA's interests in direct opposition to allegations made of my own supposedly non-neutral points of view. It's worth noting here that Wikipedia is not a corporate public relations entity where everything that is said about the corporations they document has to be all peachy and nice.

Anecdotally, I made edits in the past wherein I quoted EA's current CEO, John Riccitiello, for his comments regarding EA's apparent stagnation and lack of innovation. The edits at the time received a fair bit of resistance given that there was some ambiguity in his comments with regard to whether they pertained to EA specifically or the industry at large, generally. I'd like to thank those who contributed toward making those comments as NPOV as possible in that regard. At the same time, however, I'd like to direct everyone's attention to this article by the NY Times, which pretty much vindicates my interpretation of the older articles currently cited in the criticism section. If Mr. Riccitiello was not specifically talking about his company's stagnated growth in new and innovative IPs then, he certainly is now. =P

Please expect further updates to the criticism section in the near future. =D Peace. 04:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Internet: Serious Business. Look, it was not massively discussed (pertaining to notability) anywhere except for game-related blogs, which are barely a reliable source of information, and ONLY focus on gaming, not general news. I did not hear a peep from any major news source (ABC, CBS, CNBC, Faux- I mean, Fox News, etc.) about the incident. Besides, if you check the Wikipedia IP Scanner here, you'll find that many companies do what EA did, which was make a couple edits on their behalf. And since you seem to dig blogs so much, check this. It's a short list of notable companies and organizations (including EA) that have edited the Wiki on it's own behalf. And you might want to read up on Wikipedia:Ownership of articles, because your account has few past edits that do NOT pertain to this article. And if you think that the article needs balancing, it does not become fixed by simply keeping one small section that is both not encyclopedic AND fluff itself. Go ahead and keep reverting my edits. Can't stop me from re-reverting. Blacklist (talk) 05:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no interest in getting into an edit war over something like this, so I won't bother taking part. What I will say is that a corporation editing Wikipedia is neither inherently notable and should be included, nor inherently not notable, and should not be included. I agree that there are lots of edits made to Wikipedia by big corporations, and many of these are not worthy of mention. I feel, however, that this deserves a mention in the article, as it did get coverage, even if largely only in videogame and tech-related sites. Other similar cases of Wikipedia editing which are mentioned in their relevant articles are Exxon Valdez, Raytheon, Congressional staff, CIA, "Internet brigades", NYT, Cult Awareness Network, Diebold, BBC, Fox News, and likely many more. Some of those articles have less references for that section, others have more. The section that there is a revert war over at the moment was fully referenced, from three different references. Those are Joystiq, Shacknews, and Gamesindustry.biz, which are used as references all over Wikipedia. They are clearly reliable enough, in my opinion, and this section got wide enough coverage to warrant inclusion, in my opinion. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 06:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If both of you could avoid reverting for a while, and just discuss on this talk page, that would be great, and would avoid the possibility of either of you getting blocked for violating WP:3RR. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 06:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

In accordance with this, I have put 3RR notices on each of your talk pages, for making two reverts each in the past 24 hours, just incase either of you was to revert before reading this talk page (fair warning and all. :) ). Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 06:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Noted. You'll also note that I twice requested in history comments that this come to discussion before this revert war escalated and yet I see the original page content has been changed, yet again, before a consensus has been reached. Furthermore, as I also pointed out in history comments, this topic indeed has been discussed extensively in the past (check the archives) and has been at rest for several months now. '@Blacklist:' If you are suggesting, sir, by your references to Wikipedia:Ownership of articles that I cannot work with the other editors on board here, you are mistaken. As it stands, since you haven't come up with a better argument than, "I don't think it's notable," and your fallacious assertion that this topic has not been widely covered by credible sources, I simply happen to disagree with your reasons for removing the section.Braidedheadman (talk) 06:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Fine. Since an Admin got into the mix and is threatening to block people and stuff, do what you wish. If it DOES need to be mentioned, it should not be in it's OWN underlined section. Regular folk work at EA, especially those who gain outside Internet access inside of the Quality Assurance department (since it hires regular folk once every six months or so), so then they get to edit the article to defend their employer while on the clock, and by doing so, make it from EA's IP Address. Not that big a deal that it deserves a header, if you ask me. Blacklist (talk) 00:29, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Hold on, hold on. I'm not an admin, I'm just a regular editor like yourselves. I wasn't threatening a block, just placing a notice to inform both of you that edit warring is not productive, and if both of you continued to revert without discussing it on the talk page, that you would end up violating WP:3RR and that usually leads to a block for all violating parties. Do not think that I used that to stop you from taking part in this discussion. I think it is important that a consensus is reached here. Apologies if it felt I was throwing around any kind of authority. :) Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 00:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

... Isn't there a general rule on the Internet that if you're not a moderator, then you don't go around acting like one by warning other users that they're somehow breaking the rules? You warned us both, and I assumed that since you had the ability, you would go on and pull it off if such an event would come to fruition. But whatever, I'm past this. Blacklist (talk) 00:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• I am an admin here. Any user can issue warnings for vandalism, 3RR, etc, so Dreaded Walrus acted quite correctly in issuing warnings, but would need to request an admin to issue blocks. That's why we have WP:AIV, for example. Meanwhile, I'd suggest, as a fellow editor, rather than acting qua admin, that the issues in this debate are *how encyclopedic is the section under discussion?, *what understanding does it give a reader?, and *how well-sourced is it? Can we move on on that basis, please? --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 01:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Reverted your edit. I'm for keeping it up there. Just because it wasn't covered by "major" news doesn't mean it isn't news. And if you're perception of "news" is limited to the "major" networks, you may need to do some serious thinking. And i'm sure other companies do this whole dirty business of wikipedia editing, wikiscanner shows it! Unfortunately, they aren't reported in the news generally, much less so in any of the avenue(s) you are used to (READ: TELEVISION). Haracas (talk) 20:51, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

First off, it's considered news if it reaches a general and major populous that then acknowledge the events depicted in said news. Second, I don't need to do any thinking, for anybody. Thank you very much. Finally, you never touched on the fact of whether or not it was encyclopedic, which is what half of this debate is about. Also, I personally did watch a News Report out of my local KGO 7 News about Microsoft editing Wikipedia. Oops, I guess they are reported in the avenues I am used to. Blacklist (talk) 05:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Well as for how "encyclopedic" this is, i would say its worthy of being placed in here. We are dealing with EA's criticism. Their editing of Wikipedia and subsequent press release is an excellent example of how their PR practices, in my opinion. Including it in Wikipedia will give readers a better understanding of what EA is like. I also do think this is a notable event such that even EA itself issued a press release, in which it did not deny its practices (but nor did it condone them). I don't think that the article is biased nor is Braidedsomethingsomething (sorry, i can't find your name!) biased in his opinion. Judging his POV based on the fact that all the edits he has made are in the criticism section and then accusing him of being biased is a bit far-fetched. He cited sources in his edits, and EA's own press release regarding this issue was included in the reference too, that, by my definition is not biased. Biased is when you accuse someone or something of doing something despite evidence to the contrary. Finally, your maturity (or dire lack thereof) as an editor of Wikipedia is somewhat alarming, but i'm sure you're over this whole fiasco now as you said so yourself and hopefully you won't be so rude next time to fellow editors. <3, Haracas (talk) 10:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Your own comment just lacked maturity also. Don't try to put one over on me, punk. Blacklist (talk) 07:21, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Uh, ok, so rather than use this talk page to move towards a compromise, you once again decided to just dive in, even with name-calling added! Moving aside from all that hatred and anger for punks, i would like to once again focus on the topic at hand and offer some suggestions(if you're still interested in working out a resolution that is). I do still strongly feel that the topic about Wikipedia editing should stay up. I think it is important to let the readers know that the material they are reading was at (a) point(s) heavily tempered with and from the company itself too. I don't mind if it was scaled down to one or two sentences though, and merged with the main paragraphs under criticism, eliminating the need for its own section. If you (and anyone else opposing the current situation) do not mind this suggestion, then be my guest and carry out the necessary edits. Punk, out. Haracas (talk) 14:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

With regards to how well sourced the section was, it had three separate pages used as citations, but there are many more, as the story was picked up by many other big names, such as CVG [1], Kotaku [2], Destructoid [3], and even GameSpot [4]. The story was also picked up by foreign-language sites such as FOK!games [5], so I would say it's certainly important enough for inclusion. Many of our entire articles don't have as many sources as that. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 01:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• I am prepared to let the page sit as it is for another couple of days at least in order that this can be discussed thoroughly, at the end of which time I plan on reverting the changes. IMHO, however, I feel that since this has been discussed before and that the section in question as it was had been at rest for several months, someone (*ahem*) other than myself should step up and do the honors. =P Braidedheadman (talk) 20:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The section should stay up. I think the fact that EA (or more specifically, an EA IP address) is editing out criticism should make it notable. It would be a much different scenario if the article added something like, EA is the best company and worth $2 BILLION which could just be attributed to employee enthusiasm/spamming(?). However, I don't believe "criticism" sections are required just because a corporation is non-negative things written about it.Strongsauce (talk) 03:03, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

My perspective: I don't think this is notable or worth inclusion especially considering the GameSpot "story" cited appears to be a personal blog. If at least one real newspaper or periodical covers this issue then I would change my position. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

GameSpot isn't cited in the section in question. The three citations used are Joystiq.com, ShackNews (the originator of the story), and Gamesindustry.biz. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 08:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

(as an aside, if you're talking about the GameSpot page I linked to above, that appears to be from Sidebar, GameSpot's official news blog, named such because it appears in the sidebar on their main news page). Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 08:37, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is noteworthy. Unless someone knows WHO at EA edited the article, it is a criticism of unknown EA employees, not the company. There is no reason to believe it was sanctioned by the company, and every reason to believe it was not (since EA is a software company, and the edits must have been made by a non-technical person if they did not understand that vandalizing a wiki won't accomplish much and can be tracked). I think it reeks of petty bias, and I don't particularly like EA myself. Your comment, "please expect further updates to the criticism section in the near future," makes it sound like you're on a mission to destroy EA, and your edit history reiterates it. --Mugsywwiii (talk) 23:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

While I don't agree with most of what you've said - if it wasn't noteworthy, major gaming eZines (legitimate, credible news/media sources) would not have run with the story in droves - you are dead wrong about the last part. I would like nothing more than for EA to get back to producing great games again as they have in the past rather than the reiterated franchise material that has been their bread and butter for the better part of the last decade. I feel that criticism such as that found in articles like these and elsewhere go a fair ways toward accomplishing that goal. But the ad hominem attacks made here in recent weeks do nothing to address the facts and, so far, no one has been able to show why this section is not notable outside of their own opinion. I argue that it is notable because it is supported by substantiating documents. Moreover, the comment you quoted, and took out of context BTW, was intended as a friendly jab at my fellow wikignomes who some months ago resisted the idea that Riccitiello might actually have been talking about his own company in comments he made in an article that I cited at the time. As the new article I linked to above is explicit in Riccitiello's comments (rather than implicit) this time, I could not resist the opportunity to poke some of these guys in the ribs =P. It has nothing to do with me wanting to see EA fail.Braidedheadman (talk) 07:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Income

I don't think the math works out,it doesn't make any sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.4.149.231 (talk) 22:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)