EA Sports stops PC games. Apocalypse to follow
Category: PC, Posted: 04/11/2008 at 12:47PM EDT by Creighton DeSimone, Contributor
How can one tell when a platform is dead? When EA Sports abandons it, it's a damn good way of measuring the life cycle of a platform. There's usually one EA Sports game at launch and one as its final ballad (i.e. Madden 08 for Xbox and GameCube).
Using my impenetrable logic as a guideline, it can only spell disaster for the PC as a viable gaming platform (don't hate me).
EA has announced that it will no longer be making NBA Live for the PC. This announcement comes eight days after we learned that Madden NFL 09 won't be coming to the PC. Interesting moves indeed.
EA is not a stupid company. Evil, yes. Stupid, no. The only way EA would stop producing a game on a particular platform would be if it were no longer profitable. NBA Live and Madden NFL are the two biggest EA Sports titles. If they can't make money on the PC what hope does the rest of the EA Sports line have. I'd say close to zero.
The cancellation of Madden and Live also says a lot about the current state of the PC gaming industry. It's costly. People are seeing online play and graphics that are just as good on the consoles for a fraction of the price.
Console gamers will spend 500 dollars on their system and controllers once every five - six years. And that's over estimating on price. PC gamers spend 400 dollars on a video card that's out dated after a year and a half. Don't forget about adding ram, making sure your processors are up to snuff and whether you have enough space on your hard drive.
With consoles you just put the disc in. That's all. Just pop it in and it will play with no worries about "system requirements." And you get to sit on your couch instead of a desk chair. Also a plus. I'm sure EA didn't take any of the above factors into account when removing their two biggest sports franchises from the PC.
They just looked at the bottom line. And it was red. If you loose money at EA before long you find yourself kicked to the curb.
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psh the PC platform is far from dead
EA's just clueless and besides, sports sims are lame anyway
if you wanna play a sport, go do it outside
and sports games on a PC are pretty unprofitable anyway. think about it, most people who buy sports games buy the console versions. it just makes more sense to play them with a controller than a mouse and keyboard, just like real fighting games like street fighter and MK...not soul caliber or tekken lol
and face it, a majority of gamers don't think to play games on the PC with a good controller, but most PC controllers are shit anyway. except the 360 controller
Ironic, peple love to hate EA, but everybody needs them. And i really mean needs them.
Look what it did to the poor Dreamcast...
this is smart for ea. i just dont see sports fans playing the sports games on a comp. pc gaming isnt dead, the sports genre is just a consol thing
ChristIllusion, thnx for keeping me from having to type that.
As I said before, I'll just wait for Bloodbowl, thank you very much.
Oh, Creighton, you card.
who gives a good goddamn about sports games on the PC? Seriously..
I see sports sims being wholey in the arena of consoles and I really have absolutely no problem with it. A sentiment I think I share with many of my PC gaming peers.
true that, Mercer. Sports sims are really geared to the non-gamer, collar-popped, frat boy. They can keep em.
Wow, I've never heard anyone talk about PC gaming dying! *NOTE: Sarcasm*
I dunno, 9 million on WoW, 300k copies of Sins of a Solar Empire sold, thousands online 24/7 playing TF2, CS:S. Crysis was still a million seller, even if it wasn't a million in the US. 14 million active Steam users, digital distribution overtaking retail space as the #1 profit maker for PC publishers.
Yeah, I guess you're right, PC gaming must be dead, it couldn't just be EA realizing that, like it or not, PC gamers are generally a more highbrow crop than console gamers generally are, and don't care much for sports titles anyway. Any goober with a remote can hook up a 360 and fire up Madden, while PC gamers tend to look for a deeper, more satisfying experience.
Honestly, I'm surprised it's taken this long for them to pull NFL and NBA titles off of the PC, the last 2-3 years, they've been releasing 1-2 year old iterations of those games as currently anyway.
PC gaming isn't dead, and it won't die. Unfortunately, neither will this need to speculate on it.
"Console gamers will spend 500 dollars on their system and controllers once every five - six years. And that's over estimating on price. PC gamers spend 400 dollars on a video card that's out dated after a year and a half. Don't forget about adding ram, making sure your processors are up to snuff and whether you have enough space on your hard drive."
The old myth that gaming on a PC is so much more expensive than a console. You don't need a $400 videocard to play top of the line games these days, a 9600GT can be had for less than $150, a lot less in some cases, and you can build a pretty spiffy C2D setup for a lot less than the boutique PC makers are trying to foist on gamers.
I just built a friend a PC with a 9600GT, a C2D 4500 w/ 2GB of RAM and a 500GB HDD, and it cost me less than $600. The last time I checked, a PS3 with less than a 5th of storage space was only $100 less than that.
Add in a decent HD TV to play games on, which is going to cost you a pretty penny more than a 22" LCD monitor for a PC, and in the end, you usually end up spending MORE for console gaming than PC gaming.
Not to mention console gamers have given in to paying $60 for AAA titles, while PC gamers still pay $50 or less.
Sorry, I posted twice on this, it's just that ignorant crap like this gets me riled up. Please get your numbers ad facts straight ad leave your personal biases out of your articles if you're going to post something.