Tag: Electronic Arts

Please Stop Talking About Titanfall 3, It Hurts Too Much

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In 2014 Respawn released Titanfall, a game that combined two of the best things in video games: wall-running and giant mechs. It was great, but also multiplayer-only, so in 2016 they released a sequel, which kept the wall-running and giant mechs but also added another of the best things in video games: a cool and fun singleplayer campaign.

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Both were excellent games. The second, especially, is remembered as having one of the most unique first-person storylines (and level gimmicks) in modern shooter history. You’d think, then, that a third Titanfall game would have been a no-brainer, but life hasn’t quite panned out like that.

Respawn went on to develop Apex Legends, a game set in the Titanfall universe only—crucially—without the Titans, and which has been printing money for years. They’ve also made the new Star Wars Jedi games, which have been a successful return to form for a franchise long stuck in licensed adaptation hell.

They’ve been very busy with those, and given their success likely will be for the foreseeable future. You also need to know that, as critically successful as Titanfall 2 was, the game—released alongside a bunch of other blockbuster shooters, including EA’s own Battlefield 1—was seen by publisher Electronic Arts as an enormous commercial failure.

So the likelihood that we ever get a Titanfall 3, especially a Titanfall 3 in the same vein as Titanfall 2, are slim! Actually that’s being generous. The likelihood that Respawn, as busy as they are, will make a Titanfall 3 with backing from EA, a publisher who will throw an under-performing franchise in the trash without a second’s hesitation, is pretty much zero.

Yet that doesn’t stop fans from hoping. Those fans—and I am one of them—have been through the ringer in recent years, teased then shot down, given glimmers only for them to be snatched away. Most hilariously, sometimes it’s even the other way around, like the time I made peace with there never being a new Titanfall before Respawn walked back a seemingly definitive statement with another damn tease.

This week, we’re back in said ringer. Speaking with Barron’s (thanks, PC Gamer), mostly about their new Star Wars game, Respawn boss Vince Zampella was asked about the possibility of there ever being a Titanfall 3, to which he replied

I hate to say yes, then people latch onto that, and then skewer you when it doesn’t come.

But I would love to see it happen is the real answer.

My man, you are one of the handful of people on the planet with the power to make this happen! You don’t need to pine about it in a interview, go call some meetings!

I kid, of course, there are a multitude of planning, resource-related and financial reasons we haven’t seen a Titanfall 3, but refreshingly—and in the only piece of good news to be had here today—that’s partly down to the fact that were such a thing to ever happen, Respawn want to do right by the game, rather than just drop Titanfall Tour on iOS or something.

“It has to be the right thing”, Zampella says. “It’s such a beloved franchise for the fans and also for us. If it is not the right moment in time, the right idea, then it just doesn’t make sense.”

Maybe that time will be soon. Maybe it’ll be never! All I know is that until we reach that right moment in time”, every time I have to type “Titanfall 3″ and not follow it up with “Announced” is going to kill me.

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Luke Plunkett

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April 27, 2023
EA Lays Off Almost 800 People Weeks After Posting Huge Profits

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Image: EA

Publishing giant Electronic Arts announced today that approximately 6% of its global workforce, or between 700-800 people, will be laid off as the company drives “greater focus across our portfolio”.

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In a post on EA’s website, CEO Andrew Wilson writes that the publisher has taken a look at its upcoming projects, restructured some teams and even reviewed their “real estate footprint”. In the wake of that, the decision was made to lay off “approximately six percent of our company’s workforce”.

As we drive greater focus across our portfolio, we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy, reviewing our real estate footprint, and restructuring some of our teams. These decisions are expected to impact approximately six percent of our company’s workforce. This is the most difficult part, and we are working through the process with the utmost care and respect. Where we can, we are providing opportunities for our colleagues to transition onto other projects. Where that’s not possible, we are providing severance pay and additional benefits such as health care and career transition services. Communicating these decisions began earlier this quarter and we expect them to continue through early next fiscal year.

Electronic Arts generated approximately $7 billion in net revenue last year, as reported on January 31, 2023, with gross profits of over $5 billion (an increase of 18% over the year before). In 2022 CEO Wilson, who described this move as “the most difficult part”, made approximately 172 times the median EA employee’s total compensation. Or 636 times what some customer service staff had been paid (before they were laid off, anyway).

This announcement comes just a month after 200 testers working on the company’s Apex Legends series were laid off via Zoom call (though given Wilson’s comments that “these decisions began earlier this quarter”, those may have been part of this overall count).

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Luke Plunkett

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March 29, 2023
Fans Dunk On FIFA Promising New Soccer ‘egame’

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This will be the first year since 1993 that there won’t be a new FIFA game after Electronic Arts abandoned the exclusive license once negotiations reportedly broke down over the renewal price. FIFA President Gianni Infantino swears the FIFA series will return, however, promising “FIFA 25, 26, 27 and so on – will always be the best egame.”

The remarks came at a press conference following Infantino’s unopposed reelection to continue leading soccer’s embarrassing and allegation-ridden international governing body. “The new FIFA game – the FIFA 25, 26, 27 and so on – will always be the best egame for any girl or boy, we will have news on this very soon,” he said, according to Times reporter Martyn Ziegler. Fans immediately offered mock-ups of what this vaporware might look like:

Today’s comments echoed a hollow commitment Infantino made after the original news of the split with EA first broke. “I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans,” he said at the time, despite having nothing to do with the existing series which was solely developed by EA.

Infantino has a long history of saying stuff that is nonsense, cringey, or offensive, and sometimes all three. Elsewhere during Thursday’s press conference, he reportedly said he was previously inspired to run for President of FIFA because of the Rwandan genocide, a comparison he apparently now disputes making.

EA, which is now continuing its own soccer games under the new title EA Sports FC, apparently walked away from renewing its exclusivity deal with FIFA because the organization wanted $1 billion dollars, and to dilute the name by experimenting with junk like NFTs. The publisher’s hands aren’t clean either, having turned its sports franchises into live-service money makers that revolve around loot boxes while fans are left to deal with incomplete or buggy annual upgrades.

Still, FIFA can’t even manage its own house. I have no idea how they expect to make a game from scratch, or who they could hope to farm it out to. Infantino oversaw a spectacular 2022 World Cup that took place amid incredibly grim human rights abuses. “Today I feel Qatari,” Infantino said before the start of the opening ceremony last November. “Today I feel Arabic. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel [like] a migrant worker.”

The Guardian previously reported that as many as 6,500 migrant workers died while helping Qatar prepare for the World Cup, and it is also illegal to be gay there. Of course, EA’s FIFA 23 was also only too happy to try to sportswash the event.

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Ethan Gach

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March 16, 2023
Tom Brady’s Video Game Career Dates Back To The 20th Century

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Screenshot: MilesDawkins247

You can hear someone tell you Tom Brady’s age (45!) and it doesn’t really hit you, because the guy still looks pretty fit and healthy. To fully grasp the length of Brady’s tenure on this Earth, then, you need to realise that the man has appeared in a video game for the PlayStation. Like, the original PlayStation.

Brady, born in 1977, was drafted by the New England Patriots in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft—as the 199th pick—and spent his first season in the league as a fourth-string QB. He was so far down the NFL pecking order, in fact, that for his first appearance in Madden—Madden 01, which not only released on the PS1 but also the Nintendo 64—he wasn’t even named, he was just listed on the Patriots depth chart as “QB #12″.

A year later, having moved up to the backup spot, he took over from the injured Drew Bledsoe, led the Patriots to a Super Bowl victory and the rest is history. Brady retires as the statistical leader in almost every category that matters for a QB, from passing yards to passing attempts to TD passes, while also leading the league in ball deflation controversies, crypto scam endorsements and weird ways to kiss your kid on the mouth.

To celebrate his career—or, for many more of you, to celebrate his retirement, announced today—I’ve put together this slideshow showing his video game career, from those early days on the PS1 through to the NFL 2K series, Madden and some other stops in between. It won’t be every game from every year, that would be boring—and for recent Madden games incredibly repetitive—but still, it’ll be a nice little walk down memory lane. Unless you remember playing any of these first few games, in which case I’m sorry for reminding you how old you are.

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Luke Plunkett

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February 1, 2023
Congress Wants To Know What The Biggest Game Companies Are Doing To ‘Combat Extremism’

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Photo: Mark Wilson (Getty Images)

A group of seven lawmakers are sending a letter to the world’s biggest video game companies tomorrow, asking each of them what steps they’re taking to combat “harassment and extremism” in online video games.

As Axios reports, the seven Democratic representatives—including Lori Trahan (Massachusetts), Katie Porter (California) and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon—have all co-signed a letter, which is looking to “better understand the processes you have in place to handle player reports of harassment and extremism encounters in your online games, and ask for consideration of safety measures pertaining to anti-harassment and anti-extremism”.

Unsurprisingly, the list includes companies like Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty, Overwatch), Microsoft (Xbox), Sony (PlayStation), Roblox, Take-Two Interactive (Grand Theft Auto, NBA 2K), Riot Games (League of Legends, Valorant), Epic (Fortnite) and Electronic Arts (Battlefield, FIFA & Madden).

Those are all massive international companies, most of them with thousands of employees spread out all over the world, and responsible for some of the planet’s most popular and enduring online games. To want to grill them, when so many of them are based in the US—or at least most popular in the US—is a pretty obvious move!

Hilariously, though, whoever put the list together of which companies to target has clearly just gone down a list of “most popular games”, not “biggest companies”, because among those titans of industry are Innersloth, the developers of Among Us.

Among Us may be a huge hit, but Innersloth are also a tiny team. How tiny? This tiny:

Among Us Wins Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards 2020

Innsersloth’s webiste says the studio currently has 20 employees. I don’t know how much they’re going to be able to explain when their game has you playing as a cute little astronaut, doesn’t have voice chat and only lets players communicate via a menu of pre-written lines.

But then nobody has to legally reply to the letter at all, it’s just a letter, so maybe they can just reply “sorry, think this is meant for Xbox!” and get on with their day.

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Luke Plunkett

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December 15, 2022
Battlefield 2042 Joining Game Pass, Getting Free Weekends

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Image: DICE

Hi, this is Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett, one of the 17 people on the planet regularly enjoying the game, reporting live from Battlefield 2042.

If you haven’t played the game during its first 12 months—and really, it has had problems, who can blame you!—EA has decided that now is the time to try to convince you by offering Battlefield 2042 for free (during the first few days of December, across all platforms), or at least as part of the subscription fee you’re already paying for Game Pass.

They’re doing this for two reasons, of course. The first one is that nowhere near enough people bought this game in the first place, so the playerbase has been at times tragically low. Here in Australia, for example, only a single multiplayer mode is ever populated enough to get regular games. The second, and this is related, is that Battlefield 2042 has cosmetic microtransactions, so the more people EA can get playing the game, the more they’re hoping to make off weapon, vehicle and player skins.

I’m now going to tell you that you don’t need to buy those skins, the ones you unlock are fine, and I am also going to tell you that you should play this game! Battlefield 2042 launched with a lot of problems and a lot of changes, both of which upset many long-time players, but like I said at the time, there was still good (or at least potential) in what it was trying to do.

Now, 12 months later, after a ton of work and (remaining) fan feedback, developers DICE have the game…at the point it should have been at launch. Which is a low bar to clear, I know, but this game was developed right through a pandemic, it’s going to free (or basically free on Game Pass), and clearing low bars is exactly what those kind of services and weekends are for.

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It’s also gotten pretty good! The original maps are being reworked, the new maps are great, and a lot of the stuff older fans were missing at launch—from scoreboards to the class system—have either been reintroduced or are about to be.

Battlefield 2042 | Development Update – Maps & Specialists Reworks, Vault Weapons, and More

In announcing the free/Game Pass availability, DICE also dropped a video and blog today, outlining new weapons, map changes and specialist tweaks coming as part of Season 3. There was also a very brief hint at something else coming beyond that, which they’re pitching as something more substantial. That something else is discussed over a cinematic of soldiers looking at ominous weather, so given the game is set in a near-future climate apocalypse (and already features in-game storms that can wreck your shit), it’ll be interesting to see if this something else makes dramatic changes to the way weather shapes and affects the maps.

Battlefield 2042 will be hitting Game Pass when Season 3 launches soon, while the free weekend/week will run from December 1-4 on Xbox, Dec 1-5 on Steam, and Dec 16-23 on PlayStation.

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Luke Plunkett

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November 10, 2022
Massive Madden 23 Patch Tries Addressing Backlash, Still Leaves Fans Fuming

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Image: EA

EA’s “most polished” Madden in years continues to walk a rough road. Madden 23 received its massive October title update on Thursday, and with it a lot of welcome tweaks to underlying gameplay. But despite a bevy of bug fixes, many fans still feel like EA isn’t been honest about the current underwhelming state of the game and what they see as the prioritization of microtransaction gambling over making sure regular modes are glitch-free.

“Today may have saved Madden 23,” Madden YouTuber Zirktober tweeted yesterday shortly after the October patch notes were published online. By the end of the day, players had discovered a major bug. Upgrading any of the game’s “Most Feared Monsters” players would automatically lock players out of Madden Ultimate Team, the game’s highly monetized competitive online mode.

“Do not upgrade any Most Feared Monster Maker players as it can lock your account out of Ultimate Team,” EA announced that evening. “We are currently working on fixing this issue and unlocking any players impacted.” A few hours later the bug was fixed and players could use the upgrades again without fear of being locked out, though EA still seemed unclear on the precise source of the issue. “We have disabled chemistry options on Monster Makers for the time being as we are investigating an issue,” it tweeted.

While the interruption ultimately ended up being just momentary, it was still a perfect encapsulation of the rollercoaster ride fans have been on since Madden 23 launched back in August. Initial reviews were mostly positive, followed by a harsher assessment by some players, including a few NFL pros. Content creators rallied around a brief “pack strike” to protest the high price and piss-poor odds of getting great players out of Madden Ultimate Team’s card packs. By the beginning of October, some wondered if Madden 23 could still be saved, or if it might end up being remembered as one of the worst iterations of the annualized money maker in several years.

First, the good news. Madden 23’s October Title update does address some core complaints in recent weeks. A recalibrated slider seems to be addressing the maddening number of super-human interceptions players were previously witnessing. A disconnect issue leading to lots of lost progress in Franchise mode was also seemingly fixed. CPU teams should no longer randomly end negotiations with players. Some players got new face scans. And there were plenty of teaks to blocking, catching, and other core gameplay mechanics.

“While not every issue has been resolved today, more fixes are coming with future updates as we continue to actively work to bring you the best possible experience. We value and appreciate your feedback,” EA wrote. “Our team is consistently taking it into consideration and working on delivering updates all season long.”

This Is Popular Stranger

But the story with Madden is never as simple as one of total disaster or complete redemption. The title update also claimed to add the Jets’ new alternate black helmets, but several players have been getting glitched white versions instead. Franchise mode is also still a mixed bag. While some players report finally being able to progress in their seasons after previously hitting a wall of crashes and disconnects, others are still encountering the dreaded draft loop bug that sends them back to the beginning of a season whenever they finish a game.

Another particular sore spot remains Madden 23’s field passes, a battle pass system similar to the one free-to-play game Apex Legends added just this year. Its three tiers—Season, Competitive, and Fear—have given players issues ever since launch. Even now, they don’t always track players’ stats correctly, meaning players don’t get rewarded for completing an objective when they should. As YouTuber This Is Popular Stranger points out, just getting a pass open can be a chore, with some players still getting flooded with error messages when they try to access it. And then there are the missing rewards.

Some players weren’t getting rewards for House Rules matches, while others weren’t getting Trophy Packs for winning season-length Super Bowls. Coins, used to buy packs without spending real money, also went missing. EA acknowledged the issues at the end of last month, but players are still waiting to hear how it will be addressed. Meanwhile, Solo Battles, a main objective for collecting other rewards, were broken for a week, leaving many players to miss out. It’s a big problem for a game in which the only alternative is to shell out money on randomized card packs.

“I wonder if EA just doesn’t realize what a HUGE issue broken rewards is,” Madden streamer Kmac tweeted earlier this week. “It’s been THREE WEEKS now and they’re just dropping new promos like nothing is wrong. There’s no incentive to play Madden. No one can afford the new cards dropping.”

It’s the stinginess of the card packs—the backbone of Madden’s most popular online mode—paired with the lack of acknowledgement of ongoing bugs and lost rewards that’s continuing to foment discontent within the community.

“A lot of people were like, ‘Is the Pack Strike over?’ ‘The content’s really good, it felt like things were better this morning’—it’s absolutely not [over],” Popular Stranger said during his recent title update video. “The bundles do look better but we ain’t buying them. I hope you guys aren’t as well.”

A player who goes by iowaopoly on Twitter has been tracking pack and stat reroll odds since launch, and continues to believe they are some of the worst in years. That’s despite the card packs themselves historically making billions for EA. It was one of the few publishers to continue posting great profits this year while rivals like Ubisoft and Activision struggled, mostly on the back of microtransactions in series like Madden.

“The main theme of Madden 23 is stuff just continues to come out broken and super expensive and it takes days or even weeks to get stuff fixed in some way so players can get rewards to get the items or even play the game so it counts for something on progress,” Twitch content creator Rob Lopez told Kotaku. In the meantime, Madden 23 just went on sale. It’s $20 off less than two months after release.

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Ethan Gach

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October 14, 2022