My Rant Against EA

[Professor S]

Well, not JUST Electronic Arts, but any publishers that have taken the availability of seelling content on-line and twisted it into something it never should be.

Here is what I'm talking about:

In some cases I like how they use the expansion packs in consoles, but it's companies like EA that hold back content that would normally be in the game so they can sell it piecemeal that piss me off.

I'm never buying Madden again. Last year I bought the game only to learn I needed the expensive Head Coach option to get create-a-play... a feature that used to be included with the regular game. Now EA has repeated this atrocity by having no less than 4 different content packs that were available the day of release... and STILL not create-a-play feature, a feature that is now somehow inexplicably gone. I'm waiting for the next downloadable content pack with it included... for another unearned $10.

The real culprit in this is not the system of downloading content on-line... many games like Fable do it right by releasing content to extend gameplay. The real culprit is EA's monopoly of the NFL brand. They are the only game in town and they are milking every dollar from that fact. It's no coincidence that EA started these tactics shortly after locking down the brand.

This is nothing less than price gouging, and perhaps one of the best examples of how a lack of comptetition causes the consumer to suffer at the expense of the monopoly.