Fourteen days ago, I entered my local Gamestop for a simple transaction. I intended to trade in my copy of
NHL 15 and another game for the latest edition of a popular first-person shooter. In that transaction, a 21 year relationship came to a bitter and spiteful conclusion. The massively disappointing
NHL 15 was the final EA Sports title that I will own.
Truth be told, I would have much rather have snapped the disc into a thousand pieces, but I felt it more important to spite EA's insatiable greed and prevent the company making an additional $60. Putting another pre-owned copy of the game in circulation, it seems, is the best I can do.
In 1994, I recieved a Sega Genesis and a copy of EA Sport's
NHL 94 for my 5th birthday. It was the first video game I played and it helped me fall in love with both gaming and hockey. I spent much of the next 21 years as a loyal EA Sports customer. As the console gaming market exploded, EA and their constant high production value was one of the few reliable choices for sport games. Over the course of two decades, I purchased dozens of their titles, including nearly annual purchases of both the
NHL series and
Madden NFL Football. Also included: several copies of
NCAA Football,
NASCAR Racing,
NBA and
NCAA Basketball titles,
FIFA Soccer,
Tiger Wood's Golf... The list goes on. And as strange as it sounds to say at this point, money spent on their products was money well spent.
In my mind, their transformation from hero to villain began in December of 2004 when, facing stiffer than expected competition from Sega's
NFL 2K5, EA Sports effectively purchased the largest share of the sport game market. A deal was reached between EA Sports and the NFL, giving them the exclusive right to use NFL trademarks and eliminating their competition.
The choice was no-longer 'spend $20 on a good game' vs 'spend $50 on a great game' but rather 'spend $50 on a great game or don't.' As EA had wagered, a significant portion of their competition's customer base decided they would rather buy EA's
Madden than not have the latest and greatest football title. It wasn't long before the lax competition started to show and the quality of their product quickly declined. Sales followed.
In the following years, video game applications mixed with the social media platform and the gaming landscape changed forever. As Zynga and their
Farmville addicts peppered us with notifications and requests, EA quietly slipped the same greedy system into
FIFA 09 and FIFA Ultimate Team, or FUT, was born. Now, instead of using only in-game currency to sign new athletes to their squad, players could now use their real world money to purchase 'packs' like trading cards in which they may or may not receive star players or valuable consumable items. Spend more money on better packs and have a greater chance to receive star players. The person who spends $60 on the game now has a great disadvantage against the person who spends $500 on the game.
While not nearly as popular Stateside as it is across the rest of the world, 'Ultimate Team' was a
FIFA exclusive for two years before making the transition to
NHL 11 and
Madden 11 in 2010. With this jump, it seems, comes the far too controversial complaint of 'ice tilt'. Gamers who have frequently played the NHL series should know what I am speaking of... Far too many people have similar complaints of outplaying opponents handily, outshooting them 55-6 or something similar, only to have the opponents goalie make miraculous save after miraculous save and lose by three or four goals.
Claims of 'ice tilt' (or pitch/field tilt, depending on your sport of choice) have become a bit polarizing in EA's titles. I was doubtful at first, but each further title I have played cemented the idea as truth in my mind. Plenty of gamers agree with me but just as many say we're wrong and that we just suck, which admittedly, is possible. As far as
Madden and
NHL are concerned, EA has flat-out denied putting in any sort of assist system, though has hinted that there is one in place for
FIFA.
For those who don't follow, the idea is this: People like myself believe that when a more talented/experienced player is matched against a less talented/experienced player, in order to keep the game fun for the player who would, in all likelihood lose, the AI will apply certain assists to the less skilled player. While this serves to keep the casual player casually interested in the game, it also drives the more experienced player to become frustrated with his own team's performance. EA hopes you try to solve this problem by spending more money on more packs for better players.
In recent years, this sequence of events has been relatively limited, taking place, for the most part, in Ultimate Team and other game modes where one might be motivated to purchase consumables or upgrades. This, however, is where we come full circle. On September 9th, 2014,
NHL 15, the first hockey game for the XBox One and PS4 was released. And as I had done religiously for the past few years, I purchased the game on its launch date.
It only took a moment before I was overwhelmed by all that was missing. No EASHL. No Be a GM. No Season or Franchise or Be a Pro. Everything that made us fall in love with NHL was missing. But there was Ultimate Team, front and center. Large parts of the main menu advertising Ultimate Team packs ("30 players. All Gold. All Rare. Only $10.00") and Ultimate Team partners Honda and Discover. I feel like I just spent $60 on
Hockey Ultimate Team 15.
It was as if three quarters of the game I had purchased was erased before popping the disc into my console. Of course, EA had been sure to include Hockey Ultimate Team and even had the audacity to charge $70 for a version of their half-finished product (which, thankfully, I did not purchase). With all the game modes missing,
NHL 15 was boiled down to 'Play Online', 'Play a Friend', or Ultimate team. EA Canada promised additional content to come. While we were waiting, Electronic Arts slipped the infuriating 'ice tilt' into other areas of the game under the guise of 'puck physics' and about 90% of
NHL 15 contests have a scripted feel one way or the other. The choice is now 'Play Ultimate Team or don't.'
To an experienced player of the
NHL series, it seems I'm fighting more against my own team that the opponent. In some cases, I am refused control of a particular player until he can no longer affect the play. Other times, my player winds up for a shot but then stops his motion as if the puck were frozen to the ice. The slightest nudge sends my players sprawling across the ice while it seems my opposition has invented Puck Magnets and attached them to their sticks when no one was looking. I think my Russian goalie snuck some vodka into his water bottle. When the ice tilts against you, there is no hope.
The frustrations that began with
NHL 11, grew stronger with each updated edition of the game, and finally boiled over two weeks ago. After a fourth consecutive particularly frustrating defeat, punctuated with some colorful language, I decided it was time to end my rocky relationship with EA Sports. I removed the game disc from my Xbox One and really had to convince myself that it was worth not lighting the disc on fire and frisbee-ing it across my parking lot. I put the game in its case and let myself cool down for an hour or so before driving the half-mile to the nearest Gamestop and eliminating EA Sports from my life for the forseeable future.
EA Sports had effectively removed all the fun from their products and if I'm not having fun, then why keep playing? It is a game, after all. As I wrap this up, I find myself wondering if there is anything the company can do to win me back. And I'm not sure if there is. Trust, once lost, is hard to regain. In all likelihood EA Sports will reintroduce their deleted game modes over the course of the next few years and pretend that the consumer is too dumb to notice and people will keep buying the game because they have no other option.
It's now just a matter of time before Electronic Arts alienates enough of their customers to no longer be one of the top studios. Until that day comes, the forecast for fans of sport games like myself is thus:
Madden will be exclusive game of the NFL for a 'couple more years. EA owns the exclusive FIFA rights through 2022, but there are often other competitors, such as
Pro Evolution Soccer 2015. Hockey fans can only hope someone else enters the NHL market to take on EA Sports. We can only hope. As far as Electronic Arts is concerned, I sincerely hope their inevitable departure from the market is as expeditious as possible.
Brian Zientak
@BZientak
