Personally, I don't see a problem with subscription based games. I'd actually much rather pay a monthly service and know what I'm getting than a play2win (because lets face it, thats what f2p is 90% of the time) where we find out later if we want access ot everyting we have to break out our wallets and in the end it ends up costing us more than a monthly subscription would have. Personally, I will never pay for a single item in a f2p game. And to be honest, I don't think the model is that great, if you want an example of that models failure look at black prophecy. 

Don't blame the subscription based model, it works fine. Blame the company. I played SWTOR and the amount of issues it had were mind boggling and having to pay a monthly subscription had nothing to do with my decision to cancel. 

For me, the gunslingers horrible ability delay, the insane amounts of lag in ilum, the fact that the graphics weren't all that great but still managed to make my video card work like a dog and caused excessive heating issues were definitely my top 3 reasons for leaving. That, and after my second character when you hear the same stories you did the first time through, the luster of the movie cutscenes begins to wear off and becomes just a waste of time to try to sit through, so you spacebar 99% of the content. 

RA3 was an eye sore, its basically Command and Conquer Toy Soldiers 1(not real)

i mean, really?

look at some of the other C&C titles and their units(keep in mind, pre-generals are 2.5D games), then look at RA3.

The reason EA's value is tanking is because it's going down to where it's actually worth. EAs network in recent times has been based on acquisitions and NOT natural and actual growth, the company has been operating in the RED for years.

the lies have finally come home to roost. and EA is finally paying for it's sins.

To Stardock: For the Love of God and all things holy, please please please, don't sell out again to the megalithic publishers, specifically EA, please please please, I will even go so far as to donate money to your company through paypal if it means you stay independent. I think most people on these forums would.

-Æ

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:EA&fstype=ii

Apparently, now they're not.

I'd be surprised if the entire reason Bioware was brought in wasn't to overhaul EADM and take over for middle management.  I've liked EA since Riccitiello took over as far as games and such, but EADM sucked ass.

According to the conference call it's still holding at about 1.3 million subscribers.  Considering people are still throwing numbers like 500k about I'd think there's a lot of misinformation going around.

The cycle is always the same.

It begins with a talented individual (or a few individuals) who have played tons of games, and they have a strong vision and motivation. Most of the times, it does not work, but sometimes they have that magic touch - and put together something everyone loves and want to play (MOO2, Dungeon Keeper, Dune 2) - genre defining stuff people try to imitate for years to come.

Success brings money, and the stench of money brings another kind of people - suits who care for everything the original creators mostly don't - like money, flashy signs of wealth and status, their oversized ego, etc. What they lack in skill, they make up in ambition - and while the others care about making games, these people attend meetings, make themselves visible, speak and take credit - and eventually, they take over. 

And because their forte is imitation, they start to churn out pretty cookie cutter copies of successful games - which is exactly the path to failure. Doom clone is not doom - the imitation always leaves bitter aftertaste, because the gamer feels cheated in the end (and rightly so). 

But the good name of the company is usually sufficient to support these leeches for a few years - and when the company collapses, they move on to destroy another - after all, they have valuable experience, right?

Everything that turns into "business" ends up with churning bland, unsatisfying, tasteless imitations - it's true about food, films, books, and of course also about games.

Meanwhile, the original creators have left the company, starting new good projects, retired, or have been succeeded by a new generation of people with fresh ideas (Minecraft - it's ultimately a bad game, but brilliant idea).

... and the cycle can start again.

I'm one of 'em. I didn't even get a new account once they also introduced it to the Bioware forums. Well, actually I didn't buy any EA games eversince it was made public that they secretly install spyware on your rig while you install a game (same with Ubi). But that Origin crap sealed their death warrant.

One of the many reasons why I refuse to use Steam.

Of course.  Speed won't really be different at all, though devs still using x86 code (ugh PhysX) will have to change to SSE2...which will be a major boost.

And bringing up FPSes is lame.  They can shovel you through a corridor and control every aspect of everything around you, so have a very limited RAM footprint.  Even Crysis' lauded world was just a few extra buildings and a wider corridor.

I've been over this hundreds of times, so I don't feel like getting into it again.

Here's a few snips of Brad talking about it instead.

https://forums.stardock.com/425109

64bit operating systems (like Windows 7-64bit) pave the way to expanding games in interesting ways.  Bigger worlds, more players, more unit types, more stuff.

https://forums.stardock.com/425351

This is incredibly important to the industry.

Not having access to more memory is very limiting these days.

For instance, for those of you who have read Elemental: Destiny's Embers, you know that the Fallen aren't just "big humans".  They are, effectively, a collection of fantasy archetypes.  The Ironeers are supposed to be dwarves.  

But we can't have lots of equally equippable body types because we can't fit it in memory. Obviously budget is a limiter as well but FE has, effectively, an unlimited budget. What we don't have is unlimited memory.

EA makes bland games.  They buy good companies that make great games, and then those companies make mediocrity.  EA turns great product creating companies with mediocre sales into mediocre products with great sales.  It's a fucking magic trick of the vapid and dull.  

Just to mention, John hasn't been CEO except for the last five years, and anyone who didn't already think gaming was headed in that direction is clueless.

And if I do yearly, yes, they've been going down, and this year they didn't.  Will they continue to make money?  Noone knows, but it's certainly looking better than it did.  I expect they're done with acquisitions, going by what has been said.

Also for Tridus: they can't lie to their shareholders.  If they did they'd be ruined.