The EA Way of Things

Living and working near Downtown Vancouver I regularly walked past by the large EA sign. This was the home to such popular EA titles as the "Need for Speed"series. Recently, EA shut that office down and moved the team to its Burnaby based studio.

I came across an article on cbc.ca which went into detail about the move as well as 1,500 people across Canada who would soon be losing their jobs. I found one particular quote rather interesting int he article:

"EA said the restructuring is being done in a tough market for game sales as a result of the recession. It plans to focus on higher-profit products."

Is anyone else just a little tired of hearing everything blamed on the recession? It has become the default catch all to justify just about anything. Well, perhaps, they are right in that the recession finally has shown people that paying $69 for a new title in Canada is simply to much.

I am a fan of EA's "NHL" series, but I only buy the titles perhaps once every three years. The studio pumps out these updates, year after year with what account to minor updates and want to charge the full $69 (or equivalent of it at the time) for it. If the updates were more reasonable, taking that into account, myself and others would buy them every year.

How many people buy brand new games anymore? I rarely do. When a title comes out I am interested in I may rent it to see if I like it. If I do I wait for the title to drop in price in the pre-owned section of the store to at least $40 and then pick it up.