To the executives and management of Eagle Dynamics

PLEASE NEVER LET THIS HAPPEN.

'Never let what happen?' You ask.

Never sell out to an American software publisher like EA or Activision, or any of them for that matter. I have been a long time fan of the battlefield series and it *was* a great game until EA (electronic arts) acquired Battlefield' development company DICE. Since that time the battlefield series has really gone downhill. On the surface, BF3 and BF4 look amazing, immersive and incredibly fun but once you get into the game you find it is riddled with problems. Weapons, classes and vehicles are not balanced, hackers are not dealt with as per the EULA and coding glitches coupled with server glitches are not addressed in a timely manner. You can almost hear the screams from the fan forums demanding that the game be fixed and yet the progress is slow and the attitude from EA is pretty much "we'll get to it when we're good and ready".

Please don't ever sell out to these American companies. They are greedy, blood sucking vultures who will butcher and kill your company should you ever get in bed with them. I am not against capitalism or free enterprise but I hate exploitation and this is what EA does quite arrogantly. Please don't make the same mistake that DICE did.

I do not think you have to worry about that situation. ED already had a "bad" experience with Ubisoft, and I honestly do not think they want to repeat an association with any distributor.

Yeah, I definitely know what you mean. The concern here is that money talks and changes everything. Throw enough money at someone and they will sell. Something EA and Activision have done to acquire rival companies and monopolize the industry. It happened to DICE and I just don't want to see it happen to ED.

Unless there is a sudden massive surge in the popularity of the flight sim genre, I don't think you'll find many publishers interested anyway. Most publishers got out of the flight forever ago because it just wasn't a huge money maker. Ubisoft ironically would probably be the only pub with any interest at all, as they continued to back the IL2 games. EA did release that ace combat clone under the Jane's name a few years back, which I'm sure was DOA. I was excited to see a new Janes title on the self for all of 2 seconds.

Edit: Actually EA sold off the Jane's license to a Maximum Family Games it seems, so it wasn't even EA.

I know how you feel Akula. I was a regular poster over at EAUK forums before and after BF3 released, and it was utterly disgusting to see the direction DICE decided to take and it shocked every dedicated fan of the franchise on the forums. I'm confident ED will never let it happen to them so I don't think worry too much about it.

Also BF2 forever!

I know how you feel Akula. I was a regular poster over at EAUK forums before and after BF3 released, and it was utterly disgusting to see the direction DICE decided to take and it shocked every dedicated fan of the franchise on the forums. I'm confident ED will never let it happen to them so I don't think worry too much about it.

 

Also BF2 forever!

Yeah I feel you on the BF2 forever thing. I was so excited for BF3, then they released that beta. It immediately felt like a COD clone as opposed what I expected from a BF game. All hope was lost.

I have been a long time fan of the battlefield series and it *was* a great game until EA (electronic arts) acquired Battlefield' development company DICE.

Heh, yeah - I made a very successful sale of my DICE stock shortly before that. Was awesome. :P

But well, as far as being bought up goes, I actually suspect there's very limited risk of EA, Ubi etcetera trying a takeover on ED. MiG, Boeing, EADS etcetera on the other hand... That might happen. :P

Regarding DICE, what I want them to do is get back to racing games. Do you remember Raillisport Challenge and Motorhead? OMG those were awesome! (And were what made me purchase a shareholding as well, back in the days. :P )

Unfortunately everything is for sale. The kind of money EA. Microsoft and others in this industry can throw around would retire the main stake holders in this title. With a hefty payout to the others involved. This money could be used to create another "Baby" to keep the creativeness of the team going as they enjoy a less stress filled life.

I wouldn't hold it against them, they have families and children along with the future to consider. Creative entities have sold out sense the dawn of time. DCS has in that vain created a long term goal that would be poor business practice to sell out at this time. The future of DCS World with partnerships and add on aircraft allow an unpredictable but forward thinking business model that should take care of the creators and stake holders for yrs. to come. So ultimately from a "Sound Business" practice standpoint selling at this time and in the near future is not practical.

I'll add this to calm you down:

There are many things that are more profitable than serious flight sims. There's a reason ED hasn't gone that way - it's owners are flight sim fans. ;) It's a case of "want something done, do it yourself". :P

I'll add this to calm you down:

 

There are many things that are more profitable than serious flight sims. There's a reason ED hasn't gone that way - it's owners are flight sim fans. ;) It's a case of "want something done, do it yourself". :P

Very true. Let's hope ED does not lose it's vision and continues on their own path with their own interests. I just don't get why todays companies don't have the "give them what they want and they will buy" philosophy. Instead, they have the "get them addicted and then drain their wallet" mindset.

TFC Wont let that happen.

Yeah I feel you on the BF2 forever thing. I was so excited for BF3, then they released that beta. It immediately felt like a COD clone as opposed what I expected from a BF game. All hope was lost.

Just wanted to echo these sentiments. Played a little BF3, haven't even bought BF4.

PLEASE NEVER LET THIS HAPPEN.

 

'Never let what happen?' You ask.

 

Never sell out to an American software publisher like EA or Activision, or any of them for that matter. I have been a long time fan of the battlefield series and it *was* a great game until EA (electronic arts) acquired Battlefield' development company DICE. Since that time the battlefield series has really gone downhill. On the surface, BF3 and BF4 look amazing, immersive and incredibly fun but once you get into the game you find it is riddled with problems. Weapons, classes and vehicles are not balanced, hackers are not dealt with as per the EULA and coding glitches coupled with server glitches are not addressed in a timely manner. You can almost hear the screams from the fan forums demanding that the game be fixed and yet the progress is slow and the attitude from EA is pretty much "we'll get to it when we're good and ready".

 

Please don't ever sell out to these American companies. They are greedy, blood sucking vultures who will butcher and kill your company should you ever get in bed with them. I am not against capitalism or free enterprise but I hate exploitation and this is what EA does quite arrogantly. Please don't make the same mistake that DICE did.

I will never forget or forgive what UBISOFT did to the Silent Hunter series (in particular SH V), nor what they did to IL2 CoD and the condition that was released in. I haven't bought a UBISOFT product since.

Sure - one little person's silent protest - but there are a lot of little silent people out there who feel the same.

Side note: I use to like playing sub sim games as much as I like highly detailed flight sim games (A.K.A. DCS), but I lost the passion after SH V was released.

I will never forget or forgive what UBISOFT did to the Silent Hunter series (in particular SH V), nor what they did to IL2 CoD and the condition that was released in. I haven't bought a UBISOFT product since.

 

Sure - one little person's silent protest - but there are a lot of little silent people out there who feel the same.

 

Side note: I use to like playing sub sim games as much as I like highly detailed flight sim games (A.K.A. DCS), but I lost the passion after SH V was released.

indeed! SH III still kicks @$$! The Mod's are priceless.... as dated as that game is, it's still awesome.

Well, if they had just done SH4 + the "immersive" stuff in the sub, that could have been cool. Sadly they didn't do that. Instead they gave us a sim where getting even basic things to work (like the sub not auto-sinking yourself at depth) requied mods that were probably not actually legal since they relied on the modmaker doing decompilation and hex decoding and all sorts of such funky stuff to find the bug Ubi simply wouldn't patch...

But with SH4 + the 3D insub environment we could have had, with some help from the modders, a good combo of an immersion into the "fear envirnoment" of the people that did this for real, and realism.

It says a lot when the first mods released are to relieve you of the requirement to trump Gûnther Prien's lifetime achievement on your first patrol... Submarine FPS! Yaaaaayyyy..... ahem...

just so you all know.

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/12/19/ea-sued-by-stockholders-over-supposedly-lying-about-battlefield-4/

PLEASE NEVER LET THIS HAPPEN.

 

'Never let what happen?' You ask.

 

Never sell out to an American software publisher like EA or Activision, or any of them for that matter. I have been a long time fan of the battlefield series and it *was* a great game until EA (electronic arts) acquired Battlefield' development company DICE. Since that time the battlefield series has really gone downhill. On the surface, BF3 and BF4 look amazing, immersive and incredibly fun but once you get into the game you find it is riddled with problems. Weapons, classes and vehicles are not balanced, hackers are not dealt with as per the EULA and coding glitches coupled with server glitches are not addressed in a timely manner. You can almost hear the screams from the fan forums demanding that the game be fixed and yet the progress is slow and the attitude from EA is pretty much "we'll get to it when we're good and ready".

 

Please don't ever sell out to these American companies. They are greedy, blood sucking vultures who will butcher and kill your company should you ever get in bed with them. I am not against capitalism or free enterprise but I hate exploitation and this is what EA does quite arrogantly. Please don't make the same mistake that DICE did.

Well, at least EA is still better than BIS. BIS throws your complaints in the trash can and then bans you.

I would take never a little more seriously; he has horrendously bad track record.

I do not think you have to worry about that situation. ED already had a "bad" experience with Ubisoft, and I honestly do not think they want to repeat an association with any distributor.

I honestly don't know who decided that a development company needs a distributor to begin with. This strips the devs of any power with regards to quality control and shift that power to an entity that is more concerned with making a huge profit over a competitor. Hell, a small competent marketing team within the development company can figure all this stuff out ESPECIALLY in this age of downloadable content.

A distributor may have been needed back in the day when millions and millions of CDs needed to be made to get the game into the hands of eager consumers but that method of distribution is slowly falling by the wayside. DICE does not need EA, not anymore and definitely not after the shit that EA has pulled.

This community can work as ED's marketing team! :)

This community can work as ED's marketing team! :)

Therein lies the problem. It often appears that this is ED's marketing team. ;)

I just saw the "there is always fighter OPS" quote and I have to say what a sad POS that is. People have donated and donated and donated. The group generated so much hype among the flight sim community when they first started that nearly 10 years later all they have is some lame videos and some desktop wall paper lol. What a crock of shit that is. To add to it, the instant someone posts something like "when will it come out?" Or anything the least bit critical, they get all pissy and angry.

They don't need a distributor or a marketing team lol, they just need to stop entirely and apologize to everyone for offering any type of hope that they would be the "ultimate flight sim". Give me a break.

Sorry, went off on a tangent there ;)

I honestly don't know who decided that a development company needs a distributor to begin with. This strips the devs of any power with regards to quality control and shift that power to an entity that is more concerned with making a huge profit over a competitor. Hell, a small competent marketing team within the development company can figure all this stuff out ESPECIALLY in this age of downloadable content.

 

A distributor may have been needed back in the day when millions and millions of CDs needed to be made to get the game into the hands of eager consumers but that method of distribution is slowly falling by the wayside. DICE does not need EA, not anymore and definitely not after the shit that EA has pulled.

A couple points:

Distributors are not Publishers. (Though some companies do both: EA is an example.) Also, depending on the contract, you can have full control over your own QA etc while still having both a Publisher and a Distributor. The "funky" stuff happens when it's the Publisher that paid for the development and thus assumed the financial risk. TFC does contract out to various publishers when it comes to getting the DVD copies into stores, simply because it's not big enough to maintain a network of contacts all over the world.

Also, be careful with assuming too much with the age of downloadables; most of DICE's sales (for example) happen through normal stores. I could imagine that on the PC market the digital distribution model is a big player, but don't ignore the massive role of consoles in DICE's bottom line.

There is also an issue regarding having marketing staff in a development company; unless your dev company is HUGE and put out games constantly (think Blizzard), you'll have a lot of time where said marketing staff doesn't have much to do. This means you can't pay them very well. This means the good marketers will get snatched up by those companies (usually publishers) that does have a use for them constantly.

Another example would be animators; depending on the type of product you're making, you may or may not have use for animation staff throughout your dev cycle. But if you don't, and you want a few good movies, you either hook up through the publisher, or subcontract it. (Another case that happens is for ports; if you want consoles (or PC) as a nice little bonus, your own staff may not be best placed to do the port - so to avoid crappy ports you contract out to a specialized porting company.)

I just saw the "there is always fighter OPS" quote and I have to say what a sad POS that is. People have donated and donated and donated. The group generated so much hype among the flight sim community when they first started that nearly 10 years later all they have is some lame videos and some desktop wall paper lol. What a crock of shit that is. To add to it, the instant someone posts something like "when will it come out?" Or anything the least bit critical, they get all pissy and angry.

 

They don't need a distributor or a marketing team lol, they just need to stop entirely and apologize to everyone for offering any type of hope that they would be the "ultimate flight sim". Give me a break.

 

Sorry, went off on a tangent there ;)

Oh, don't get me started about FO. I called them crooks and liars to their faces years ago. Nothing but rip off artists.