Remember how the entertainment industry was whining about pirating movies, games and music and such? Well, the game developers have no moral ground to stand on as more and more of them are becoming outright thieves.
EA is, without question, the worst of the bunch. I have about a half dozen EA titles that are stand alone games that require no active server. All but one of them I purchased the hard copy version of directly from the EA store. The other title I purchased at a game store. As of now I can no longer play ANY of them. They won't load and the ones I tried to reinstall wouldn't even install. My last title went "dark" about a year ago. I contacted EA four different times using three different methods and have never received any kind of response. I also noticed all the same titles are prepackaged on their hosting site, Origin, for sale of course, even if you already own a copy.
Then there's LOTRO. I'd been playing that since about 6 months after it went live. Played for years until my graphics card shit the bed. Went back after 18 months and a new company was running the game and the fuckers had wiped out all accounts that had been inactive for over a year without any warning or notice via e-mail. I literally put a few hundred bucks into that game and it was just stolen. Hell I had enough alternate characters to form my own kin so I could buy a kin-house as my own personal house, although at least that didn't require any real cash.
At this point I've said "fuck it". I will no longer purchase any more games for my computer nor put a dime into any of the shitty little game apps out there that I play from time to time. In fact there's one I'm playing right now that I'll admit I'm enjoying quite a bit. And it's tempting to buy one of the packages but nope, not gonna do it. I've learned my lesson.
There is ONE exception however, it's the ETS2/ATS series. The actual game itself is totally "vanilla" and was developed to be modded from the outside. This allows the developer to keep the game's basic performance levels suitable for as many potential players as possible while also allowing modders to create content for the game for themselves and so that they can share it so anyone can then use it themselves, for free. The game developer literally grew itself by hiring the best modders from the community to help create new content and revamp existing content and still continues to do so.
Other than that, the industry can go fuck itself.
EA is, without question, the worst of the bunch. I have about a half dozen EA titles that are stand alone games that require no active server. All but one of them I purchased the hard copy version of directly from the EA store. The other title I purchased at a game store. As of now I can no longer play ANY of them. They won't load and the ones I tried to reinstall wouldn't even install. My last title went "dark" about a year ago. I contacted EA four different times using three different methods and have never received any kind of response. I also noticed all the same titles are prepackaged on their hosting site, Origin, for sale of course, even if you already own a copy.
Then there's LOTRO. I'd been playing that since about 6 months after it went live. Played for years until my graphics card shit the bed. Went back after 18 months and a new company was running the game and the fuckers had wiped out all accounts that had been inactive for over a year without any warning or notice via e-mail. I literally put a few hundred bucks into that game and it was just stolen. Hell I had enough alternate characters to form my own kin so I could buy a kin-house as my own personal house, although at least that didn't require any real cash.
At this point I've said "fuck it". I will no longer purchase any more games for my computer nor put a dime into any of the shitty little game apps out there that I play from time to time. In fact there's one I'm playing right now that I'll admit I'm enjoying quite a bit. And it's tempting to buy one of the packages but nope, not gonna do it. I've learned my lesson.
There is ONE exception however, it's the ETS2/ATS series. The actual game itself is totally "vanilla" and was developed to be modded from the outside. This allows the developer to keep the game's basic performance levels suitable for as many potential players as possible while also allowing modders to create content for the game for themselves and so that they can share it so anyone can then use it themselves, for free. The game developer literally grew itself by hiring the best modders from the community to help create new content and revamp existing content and still continues to do so.
Other than that, the industry can go fuck itself.