Over the course of my life, I have been one of Electronic Arts best customers. Itâs embarassing to admit how much money I have spent on the company, but year after year, Iâm the guy who falls for their trick of repackaging the same content, over and over again.Iâm not sure why I feel so compelled to upgrade each year, but for the last decade, Iâve purchased an EA title at least, once every three months. A few of these have been new games that EA has come out with, but by and large Iâve mostly stuck with the tried, but true sport franchises.
I like the sports games the best because they allow me to play a quick game without having to keep track of whatâs going on. Iâll usually start with a season mode and by the end of the real life season, I am wrapping up the playoffs. When the online capabilities started to come out, I was pretty fired up about being able to skool other gamers with my mad John Madden skillz, but as a casual gamer, I quickly found out the hard way, that I was no match for the caliber players, who have the time to play online.
Right now my lifetime winning record for all Xbox Live games is under 10%. These days, I tend to stick to playing the computer, but every now and then, Iâll still log in, just so that I remember what itâs like to take a beating.
EA knows that they make their bread and butter on customers like myself. Most of their titles are franchise oriented, which allows them to have a neverending game pipeline in the works. In the past, I thought it was silly to upgrade from one title to another, just for the updated player stats, but each year the subtle differences in the gameplay was enough to convince me to keep upgrading.
Normally, overpaying for a game that I wonât play very long, isnât really all that big of a deal, but over the last few years, Iâve noticed a disturbing trend at EA and after continuing to be disappointed with their products, Iâve finally decided that enough is enough.
Every since I first bought my Xbox 360, Iâve noticed that EA sports has been building in planned obsolescence into their franchise titles.