@Barighm: Nope. Still correct. There were still no shortage of people taking a dump on EA even during the Kingdoms of Amalur/Dead Space period. There has not been a time that gamers (in general) have not hated on EA since the Football exclusivity deal or EA spouses. Even before that, things like their accquisitions (Bullfrog, Origin, etc) were garnering a lot of hate. (Disclaimer: I was bitter about Origin for quite some time.)

But after 2005, the whole hatred of EA just became set in stone. The whole "changing of opinions" didn't happen. At best, the hatred may have become muted but it never went away.

@superklyph: Wouldn't matter. EA hatred is largely independent of what games they put out.

The two reactions to EA games are:

EA does well: Eh, they'll find some way to screw it up or they'll screw up the next game. I still hate them.

EA does bad: I hate them even more.

There is no possible way for game opinion as a whole to change on the subject of EA.

Given how much of gaming on consoles is "retro 8/16-bit style gaming" or "games as service", this is not a surprising statement.

Truthfully, I didn't see much reason to get a current-gen console but I was kinda dragged into it. Next-gen....It'll be (maybe) one game per year and the rest will fall into one of the above categories.

Interesting. One would have thought that the failure of this practice in Dead to Rights 2 and Spider-man: Web of Shadows (and others but I didn't play those games) would have been seen as a reason not to do this again.

Yeah, I'm kinda going with what aross2004 said.

In a way, this continues the trend of what happens when developers create their own company (going all the way back to Gathering of Developers). He did great with Unreal and Gears but, as soon as he decided to become the CEO, he stepped into a whole different ball game. I hate to say it because of corporate executive culture but I've come to the conclusion that you need someone who is not in development handle those type of issues instead of trying to have the developers handle that. Separation of responsibilities seems to be the best option (and, if you're trying to cross over, get a transition team to help.).

@Bread_or_Decide: Pretty much this. We think a game's plot and story are so much better than they are because we're actually playing them. Take away the interactive and a lot of game stories stop measuring up.

One of the things that have always stuck with me about video games is how, as I was leaving the first Resident Evil movie, the guy next to me talked about how disappointed he was that there were no crest puzzles in the movie. This prompted the reaction of "Really? You wanted to watch a movie where people keep dashing back and forth to find the pieces of a Rooster Crest?"

The easiest way to make sure that crunch time is minimal is to make sure everyone is an hourly employee.

When employees are salaried, CEOs have no problem working them like dogs. Hence the saying "Salary is another word for slavery." I myself have had that issue with my career at certain points.

Hourly, on the other hand, means that this 100-hour week is costing the company the equivalent of 130 normal paid hours per week. Even for Blizzard, these would be unsustainable numbers. As such, companies that do pay hourly also pay more attention to proper staffing levels. Sure, OT still happens (Last week, I had one ten hour day as well as two more hours distributed throughout the week) but it is at far lower levels.

@jcharp: What's going to happen with both is the same thing that happened with Star Trek although fatigue seems to be setting in much quicker with superhero (Yes, I'm including Fox and DC here) movies.

Still, that didn't kill/ruin Star Trek. It just means that, when we hit supersaturation point, the SW franchise/superhero genre will go dormant for 5-10 years and then come back. These things almost always run in cycles.

*Pinches bridge of nose*

In other words, because it's a woman as a villain, they will:

a) Make her be secretly in love with the protagonist. (Bonus points when the hero redeems her through the power of his pe..... "love". I totally meant love.)
b) Be the largely incompetent figurehead who is being manipulated by the REAL villain.
c) Have her be more an anti-hero antagonist whose schemes are for "a greater good" rather than an actual villain.

There was an interview with Joan Allen during the making of Death Race where she revealed that the reason that she took the role is that there are very few movies where a woman is allowed to just truly be a villain. Every time something like this comes up, I'm reminded of that. Still, it's FF8 so I've probably already expended more caring on the topic than it deserves.