Expansion boycott banners (forum sigs)

[Edwin]

I saw this post and found it interesting enough to warrant a mention here.

What boycott?
The boycott of the newly-announced Battlefield 2 "special forces" expansion pack. Jumpy-B-L started a thread here. Maybe there's something more organized elsewhere, but this is the first mention I've read of.

WHY boycott it?
EA/DICE are already working on selling us an expansion pack for a game that a) was released in an extremely buggy state, b) was so ineptly patched after release that the patch itself was withdrawn, and c) is currently suffering from a long list of serious technical and gameplay issues.

What is a boycott supposed to accomplish?
It's the only way we gamers can give EA any kind of black eye. Bitching and moaning on messageboards has no effect -- this has been demonstrated time and again over the last few years. Petitions are equally worthless.

Not purchasing EA's product (and convincing your friends to do the same), on the other hand, deprives EA of the only thing they apparently care about: money. An expansion pack that doesn't sell cuts into EA's profits.

Most importantly, a poor-selling title that has been actively boycotted by the gamers themselves sends a far more potent message: that the gaming community refuses to continue supporting companies that don't support their products.

At worst, a boycott deprives EA of sales. At best, it pressures them to be more aggressive in patching BF2 and supporting the community by releasing mod tools now.

Isn't that worth a shot?

Why bother now? The expansion is months away!
I've seen this argument, and don't accept it. The time to start bad word-of-mouth amongst the gaming community is now...not when the title is almost on store shelves and subject to impulse buys by gamers or their families.

What can you do to support the boycott?
Obviously, don't buy the expansion.

More importantly, spread the word. Put your support of the boycott in your signatures. If you've got blogs, post your reasons for supporting it. Tell your gamer friends. Inform anybody who may buy you a birthday or Christmas gift that you do not want this software.
Who I am
I don't consider myself a rabble-rouser or an enemy of corporate America. I try to not to pitch a fit when I don't get my way immediately. I'm a 35-year-old software engineer, father of two, played my first computer game in the late 1970s, really was in the military and have been playing multiplayer games for over a decade.

Disagree?
That's fine. If you can respond in a mature manner, I'd love to hear why.

Edit: I've thrown together a few more banners, if anybody's interested:

http://www.forumplanet.com/planetbat...19&tid=1700304

[Mishkan]

You realize its two development teams in seperate countries... one is working on patching the other is working on the expansion

[Edwin]

I know. How does that change the fact the game is broken?

[=Sarc=]

I think the point is EA/DICE wants us to buy an expansion with no idea if bugs like the broken IFF will be fixed. So they have two teams working on the game but the expansion obviously a cash grab.

[Apophis]

The two don't need to be associated in order to be effective. EA as the publisher is EA no matter what development team works on it. By pressuring them financially as a company to have the proper division release the editor and mod tools, they may do it a lot sooner than later.

Not that I condone this, but financially it still hits the publisher.

[Black_V!per]

I all for the Boycott, im sick of bad graphics, and i know its the game, because everyother game looks UBER GREAT!

[Migglesworth]

I agree that something needs to be done to force EA to fix the game. As consumers there is little we can do but boycott. BF2 has alot of potential and I am dissapointed in EA/DICE for trying to make this game a strictly cash venture. They have shown that they don't give a damn about the gaming community and I will not be supporting them until they get their priorities straight. The expansion looks stupid anyways...ZIP LINES????

[Toshido]

On the other hand a boycott, if effective enough, may make EA pull support for BF2 leaving Dice with no developer to market BF2 and no real reason to bother with future support...

[CingularDuality]

Originally Posted by Toshido

On the other hand a boycott, if effective enough, may make EA pull support for BF2 leaving Dice with no developer to market BF2 and no real reason to bother with future support...

Not a chance of that happening... The Battlefield franchise is the first game to knock Half Life based games from the top of the playing charts. If EA were to drop BF (which it won't), DICE would have no problem finding another publisher...

[CingularDuality]

Oh, and might as well offer the rest of the banners to everyone for use. Feel free to use the hosting that I'm using in this post.











I'm not sure if I agree that a boycott is necessary in this case, though... I certainly wish that EA would fix all of the problems with their game, but I don't know that the expansion has any effect at all on that...

[Wulfyn]

I think it is the message that is the most important thing. Poor sales of the expansion coupled with a world-wide, internet fuelled protest over a company spending it's resources on making more of a profit rather than on technical support is a radical, and potent weapon.

EA will not drop the BF2 licence for reasons mentioned above, but if they feel that they are hurting their profit margin by not appeasing the masses, then they will, for financial reasons if not moral reasons, have to address that. Remember that market forecasts on the sale of games are based upon those within it's market. If the EA team figure that 20% of players will buy the expansion, but because of the boycott this drops to 10% they may even actually lose money.

Projects are funded based upon the money they are projected to make in return. This is also based on units sold. However for software the biggest finance hit comes in the development of the software. This is the same regardless of how many copies you sell. Thus even what sounds like a small boycott could cause havoc with their profit margins.

I think the argument that the expansion is being written by a different team to the patches is also largely redundant. Although different skills would be required in places, I feel that EA have an obligation to spend money on fixing the faulty software that it has supplied a paying customer with. If this means downsizing the expansion pack operation until a fix is made, then this is where their priorities should lie. I am sick of companies releasing software (or any product) before that have ensured that it fully works. It is worse in software industries as the cost of distributing and implementing a patch is very low, say compared with recalling cars because of a brake problem.

I fully support this initiative. The vendor has an obligation to provide their goods in a satisfactory condition. I'm sure tau_neutrino, or one of the many other players who have had an hour of their lives wasted due to an IFF problem would testify that being teamkilled for an hour was not what they had in mind when they bought the game (then again this is battlefield... ) If this were an electrical appliance I'm sure we all would have taken it back by now.

[MileHighAko]

If you all are so serious, why not stop playing until your demands are met? Wouldn’t the lack of servers, players, and hype about the game be a stronger position than saying in July that you refuse to purchase an expansion pack that isn't even available to buy until fall anyway. Let's be honest with ourselves. It is easy to say now that you're not willing to buy something that you can't even buy.

Personally, I don't really care. Was I pissed off yesterday when I had the "red man bug" and I had to disconnect and restart to fix it? Sure. But I'm still going to play. The fact is that if these bugs were THAT bad, you all would stop playing the game NOW. But they are not THAT bad. Annoying, sure. Irritating, you bet. Be preventive of having a great time playing, nope!

I design and develop software for a living. Bugs happen. Known Issues lists are a regular occurrence. Its just life. Move on. If it is causing you to have a terrible gaming experience, then quit playing. Maybe you’re out $50. Maybe you can convince the retailer to credit you with something else. Whatever, but if your life is being destroyed, then seek help.

Many of you cry about how EA is evil and are obligated to fix the bugs and how they have wronged us players and we're getting the shaft. Well then, stick it to the institution and quit playing. More power too you and I’ll certainly have a whole lot of respect for you. But don’t bore us with threats to not buy something that doesn’t even exist yet, while at the same time logging hour after hour in the so-called “crappy” game you’re so upset about.

Humf… I had a bad day at work.

[icky]

I agree 100% Ako. Unfortunately, the only way to change the standard way in which games are delivered today is to convince people not to buy ANY games in pre-orders or first-day sales. Wait to buy, and they won't push out crap early. If you wait, and you see that the game isn't good, then you can buy it later or not at all. This little banner or internet petition is totally meaningless unless someone takes real action. And taking action on the expansion will send the wrong message or none at all.

Companies have only started doing that because they learned that their customers generally WANT to play the unfinished product if they can get it earlier, and they will happily play that until the patches arrive. If you are very unhappy with what they delivered, then take a deep breath and say to yourself "This is a beta version of the product. I will play it when it is complete, because *I* am willing to wait for better quality."

And as far as the term "cash grab"... what do you think these companies do for a living? They try to sell stuff. Don't be mad at them for feeding your addiction and making you pay for it.

[Kojio]

Originally Posted by MileHighAko

If you all are so serious, why not stop playing until your demands are met? Wouldn’t the lack of servers, players, and hype about the game be a stronger position than saying in July that you refuse to purchase an expansion pack that isn't even available to buy until fall anyway. Let's be honest with ourselves. It is easy to say now that you're not willing to buy something that you can't even buy.

Personally, I don't really care. Was I pissed off yesterday when I had the "red man bug" and I had to disconnect and restart to fix it? Sure. But I'm still going to play. The fact is that if these bugs were THAT bad, you all would stop playing the game NOW. But they are not THAT bad. Annoying, sure. Irritating, you bet. Be preventive of having a great time playing, nope!

I design and develop software for a living. Bugs happen. Known Issues lists are a regular occurrence. Its just life. Move on. If it is causing you to have a terrible gaming experience, then quit playing. Maybe you’re out $50. Maybe you can convince the retailer to credit you with something else. Whatever, but if your life is being destroyed, then seek help.

Many of you cry about how EA is evil and are obligated to fix the bugs and how they have wronged us players and we're getting the shaft. Well then, stick it to the institution and quit playing. More power too you and I’ll certainly have a whole lot of respect for you. But don’t bore us with threats to not buy something that doesn’t even exist yet, while at the same time logging hour after hour in the so-called “crappy” game you’re so upset about.

Humf… I had a bad day at work.

With that kind of logic, unions would not exist. You cannot improve industry standard by ignoring the bad guys and hoping that the good guys come along and change everything by example. That will never happen.

I don't want to wait for the once-in-a-blue-moon game developer that impresses it's customers with good support and communication, then fades away into obscurity until another title release. I want ALL gaming companies to have good communication and support, or at least make an effort to dedicate some resources in providing it as best they can. If EA/DICE were a distributer in real-world products and appliances, they would be out of buisness, simple as that.

The only reason that EA/DICE, and the other software companies get away with such bad practices, is because there are virtually no quality standards set on software. They can promise you one bundle of extra applications, support for another kind of hardware, advertise dozens of extra features and then give you NOTHING that was promised. They can write their own TOU, and with no legal binding whatsoever they can break it themselves as often as they want. They can cancel your support, subscription service, and hash together any kind of incriminating evidence against you to which there is no regulation.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease, quiet people rarely change history.

[SmokingTarpan]

Originally Posted by MileHighAko

If you all are so serious, why not stop playing until your demands are met? Wouldn’t the lack of servers, players, and hype about the game be a stronger position than saying in July that you refuse to purchase an expansion pack that isn't even available to buy until fall anyway.

Not to make your day worse, but this is a bad argument. Doing this would be like attempting to make a statement against Kraft by buying some Mac & Cheese and then not eating it. Kraft doesn't care that you don't eat it, they have your money now. Just like EA wouldn't care that you don't play after you've bought their game because they already have your money.

For me at least, what's crappy isn't the game; the bugs do suck, but I've learned to live with them. What I dislike is EA's business practices, where they think it's appropriate to release bad patches and devote large amounts of energy to an expansion team when the patch team really needs the focus. There's a good chance that I won't buy the expansion if EA doesn't shape up.