Whatever fits their agenda.EA Access is $20 for the year.
Those are options and great values to many. You aren't forced to subscribe to HBO, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. Just buy what you like when the value is there and cancel when it's not.
Gamers have suddenly started following the rhetoric that less options and features is better. Single player without multiplayer is suddenly a benefit. Optional cosmetic microtrasacrions that keep new maps free and don't split the community is bad. Services that offer lots of games at the fraction it cost to buy one new games are a bad option. Forward compatibility ruined your generations.
There's a segment of gamers (who unfortunately dominate the major gaming sites) that want to only play 10 to 15 hour single player, story driven campaigns on a disc...with the same terrible AI and physics that we've seen in games for almost 2 decades. They want this forever. Any evolution, including customer friendly options, is ruining the industry.
It's like last gen. PS3 had free MP and some games allowed mods (I remember Unreal 3 allowed mods and PC cross play). You can play SP or MP how you like, but it's all free. You can play games like Unreal 3 with or without mods. Seems like good options. And good perks vs. 360's Gold fee and zero mods.
Now this gen, mods are on lockdown on PS4 and PS+ is mandatory for MP. Suddenly fewer options. Where's the uproar? None, as Sony gamers sucked it up and zipped their mouths.. Now you don't hear about it anymore.
I think the loudest gamers are simply ones who are either awful at games, or hardcore fanboy warriors. Checking numerous forums regarding CoD (always interesting to see what people are talking about when the game releases as some people seem to know a lot about it despite being out for only 48 hours????), but the whiniest and loudest guys are the ones who seem bad at it. Guys who seem frustrated they are getting their asses kicked so they whine, complain and beg gamers what the best loadout is.
Playing shooters since Unreal, yeah there's some unbalanced crap sometimes (MW2 pre-patch dual weld 1886s), but in general any gamer who has decent skills can be good at shooters. There is also no "best loadout" anyway. I play the EXACT SAME style in CoD every time and rake in the stats no matter how rat-mazy the maps are becoming and how little recoil there is now in SMGs used by run and gunners.
As for SP vs MP games. I don't play as much as I used to, but prefer RPGs/indie for SP and the usual shooter for MP.
And you are right. I 100% agree non-graphical stuff hasn't improved. I don't think AI, audio, physics and such have moved in years either.
I can understand AI being dumbed down for certain games. If it's a shooter, or "you vs. 1,000 monsters", it doesn't make sense for all enemies to have equal AI than a human. If that was the case, it wouldn't be possible for you to complete the game. So they let gamers Rambo their way through idiotic AI.
But for games like sports, AI is no better than the 90s. I used to play NHL and even I gave up. The game is still super easy, but the AI has been the same since NHL 08. Dumb, BUT to counter the AI, they give the CPU stat boosts and allow them to skate in ways a human player can't. Even a 4th liner will skate as fast as Ovechkin with a laser shot.... "when the game thinks it's time to activate boost mode". I remember bickering with EA forum mods and even they caved in and said they do it "to provide a challenge". How r******d, but at least they admitted it.
Fuk, everyone has cable internet now and more powerful rigs, and programmers can't even get MP lobbies running as smooth as 2002 when I was playing Unreal Touney Special Edition. And that was on Pentium 3 running at the crappiest cable internet bandwidth specs at the time.
I remember playing it and the game ran great. Hop from lobby to lobby in the server browser as you could see the map, player count, ping times, rocket launcher only, etc.... It's 2017, and 99% of console games don't even have that.
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