Super Podcast Action Committee - Episode 52

May 20, 2013

In Episode 52, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about female presenters at Microsoft's Xbox reveal event this week, EA's continued abuse of the Wii U community, The new S.H.I.E.L.D TV series, Wreck-It Ralph, sushi, and other topics and tangents - mostly instigated by Andrew! Download Episode 52 now: SuperPAC Episode 52 (1 hour, 12 minutes) 66.7 MB.

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EA: No FIFA 14 on Wii U Because Last Game Didn't Perform Well

May 20, 2013

In an update to a story on Friday over at Eurogamer about Madden NFL 25 not coming to the Wii U and a decision about the fate of FIFA 14 on the platform, an unnamed rep from the company confirmed that the latest football title from EA Sports would be a no-show. This is not news to anyone who paid attention last week when EA said it had no games in development for the Wii U currently. Obviously that also includes every imaginable EA Sports title.

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EA Sports Canada Developer Calls Wii U 'Crap'

May 20, 2013

Last week EA confirmed that it didn't have any Wii U titles in development. As if that wasn't enough of a slight against owners of Nintendo's console a developer's comments over the weekend dumped a whole can of gasoline on an already raging fire.

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EA Abandons Wii U Completely

May 17, 2013

Say the name of an Electronic Arts title you'd like to see come to the Wii U. Okay, now let me break the bad news to you as gently as I can: There are no games from Electronic Arts coming to the Wii U in the foreseeable future. Not one title. Not even a Sims game.

"We have no games in development for the Wii U currently," company spokesperson Jeff Brown told Kotaku yesterday.

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EA Discontinues Online Pass System

May 16, 2013

Electronic Arts has decided to do away with its controversial online pass system for used games, the company confirmed with GamesBeat last night.

"Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass," EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg confirmed to GamesBeat in an e-mail. "None of our new EA titles will include that feature."

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Former EA Producer: NCAA Games Designed to Replicate Players Without Using Actual Names

May 9, 2013

A former EA Sports producer says that the NCAA games developed by EA Sports over the years were designed to replicate actual players without using their names. This is according to a deposition given by former EA Sports producer Jeremy Strauser, who testified in a deposition for the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit against the NCAA, Collegiate Licensing Company, and EA Sports. The deposition, along with other documents from the case are part of EA's filings with the court last week. Jeremy Strauser worked at EA from 1995 until 2011.

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EA Cut Ten Percent of Workforce in Last Quarter

May 8, 2013

During its conference call last night to discuss its 2013 fiscal year earnings, Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen revealed that the company cut ten percent of its workforce in the last quarter, or about 900 employees.

"Our cost reduction plans will reduce our overall headcount by approximately 10 percent," he said during the call.

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At Least 15 Games from EA Are Not Coming to Wii U

May 8, 2013

If a majority of EA's upcoming games use DICE's Frostbite Engine 3 and the Frostbite Engine 3 doesn't support the Wii U then it doesn't take a genius to come to the conclusion that a whole lot of upcoming EA games will not be coming to the Wii U.

This story begins with a recent tweet from DICE technical director Johan Anderson, who responds to a question about the company's Frostbite 3 engine running on the Wii U.

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Report: EA Will No Longer License Brands From Gun Manufacturers

May 8, 2013

Electronic Arts had decided that it will no longer "officially" license specific models of guns from gun manufacturers, according to this Reuters report. EA will continue to use various gun designs from manufacturers, but it won't pay any money for them. The company claims that it has a constitutional right to free speech in using the various gun-related trademarks.

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EA and Disney Ink Star Wars Game Deal

May 7, 2013

Electronic Arts announced that it has secured a multi-year, multi-title licensing agreement with Disney to create multiple Star Wars games. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, nor were any of the games that EA plans on making. The announcement was made by President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau on EA's official blog.

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The Sims 4 Will Not Be 'Always Online'

May 6, 2013

Is EA and its Maxis studio learning a lesson from SimCity? We think so. Today Electronic Arts announced The Sims 4 will be coming to the PC and Mac sometime in 2014. The company also confirmed to IGN that the game will not require an internet connection in order to play, or more precisely, that it will have a single-player offline play.

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Madden Not Coming to Wii U This Year

May 2, 2013

Here's some more bad news for Wii U owners that might also be Madden NFL game fans: you won't be getting the popular football franchise on your platform of choice this year, according to this Ars Technica story. More importantly, what does EA's decision not to support the Wii U with one of its biggest sports franchises say about the current perception of Nintendo's struggling console system?

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Judge Rules that Original Madden Developer Lawsuit Will Proceed to Trial

April 29, 2013

A federal judge has ruled that a case brought against EA by the original developer of John Madden Football may proceed to trial. The developer, Robin Antonick, claims that he was the original designer and developer of the Madden NFL series (he worked on the early computer-based versions of the game) and is owed "millions in unpaid royalties, punitive damages and disgorgement of all profits arising from the $5 billion Madden NFL franchise."

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Super Podcast Action Committee - Episode 49

April 29, 2013

In Episode 49 of the show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss the ongoing turmoil inside EA, Nintendo's decision to not host an E3 press conference, results of the latest poll and catch up on some mail that went into the silly spam filter. Download Episode 49 now: SuperPAC Episode 49 (1 hour, 3 minutes) 58.5 MB.

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Leaked Internal Memo Reveals Organizational Structure Changes at EA

April 26, 2013

Yesterday TechCrunch obtained a leaked memo attributed to EA executive chairman Larry Probst, which details EA's reorganization plans.

The memo notes that core marketing functions will be consolidated into a group called the Global Acquisition Marketing and Marketing Analytics to be overseen by COO Peter Moore and led by Todd Sitrin.

EA's Origin digital distribution platform will now be under the watchful eye of Frank Gibeau's Labels organization, while Andrew Wilson will take on its leadership.

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EA Acknowledges Layoffs in Statement, Avoids Numbers

April 25, 2013

Electronic Arts released a short statement today confirming that layoffs are happening across the company on a worldwide basis, but did not give any specific details on any of its decisions in the last month:

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Report: EA Shutting Down EA Partners Label

April 25, 2013

EA's publishing label EA Partners is shutting down, according to a report on Game Informer. The label was used to sign and publish third party franchises such as 38 Studios' Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Valve's The Orange Box, Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead franchise along with the Crysis series, the Rock Band series, Double Fine's Brutal Legend, APB, People Can Fly's Bulletstorm, Starbreeze's Syndicate, Suda51's Shadows of the Damned, and Hellgate: London.

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SimCity Update 2.0 Adds More Bugs

April 24, 2013

A new massive update for SimCity released on Monday has apparently added a number of new bugs, much to the chagrin of players who have taken to EA's forums and Reddit to complain about them. The new bugs apparently plaguing the game after the v2.0 update include city sewage overloads, new traffic errors, a number of building construction issues, loading errors, and a few audio problems.

The update was meant to address some issues with traffic congestion, pathfinding problems and a list of other minor problems.

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EA Convinces California Court to Cancel 'Edge' Trademarks

April 19, 2013

Tim Langdell and Edge Games, Inc. have lost a bid to retain the rights to the "Edge" trademark, thanks to a ruling by a Californian Court. The court sided with Electronic Arts, who Langdell and his company sued (among many others) for using the word "edge" in its game Mirror's Edge.

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Report: EA Lays Off More Staff in India and at PlayFish

April 17, 2013

GameSpot and other outlets are reporting that Electronic Arts continues to lay off its global workforce as part of a restructuring plan to streamline its development apparatus and (obviously) lower costs. According to MCV India the latest studio to be hit by layoffs is EA mobile development operations in India.

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EA NFL Game Class Action Lawsuit Settlement Payout Triples

April 16, 2013

Electronic Arts will have to give customers who spent money on an EA football game between 2005 and 2012 triple the amount of settlement money per game thanks to recent modifications to the $27 million settlement in a class action suit against Electronic Arts, according to a notice obtained by Polygon. Under the new terms, a consumer who bought an NFL game will now receive $20.37 per last-gen game on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Windows PC, up from $6.79.

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EA Lays Off Some Staff at Ireland Customer Service Center

April 15, 2013

Well that didn't take too long. Less than a year after Electronic Arts announced that it would open its customer service center in Galway, Ireland to handle customer services for various game properties in the region, the company has already started laying off staff. EA has been quietly cutting staff and reducing its workforce in the last week or so as part of a cost-cutting measure.

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EA Shutting Down The Sims Social, SimCity Social and Pet Society in June

April 15, 2013

Electronic Arts announced this morning that it is shutting down three games operated by its Playfish Facebook game development studio. The games going offline on June 14 include The Sims Social, SimCity Social and Pet Society. In a statement on its official blog, EA said it was shutting these games down because they no longer get the traffic they did at launch:

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Undisclosed Number of Layoffs Hit EA Mobile Studio

April 11, 2013

Electronic Arts has laid off a number of employees at its Montreal-based mobile game development studio, according to a Polygon report. The company says that these layoffs are part of an overall strategy to streamline operations, though the mobile studio seems to have been impacted the hardest in this latest round of job cuts. No word on whether EA is cutting jobs elsewhere.

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Super Podcast Action Committee - Episode 47

April 11, 2013

Episode 47 of the Super Podcast Action Committee is finally available after a rocky start to the week for Andrew and EZK, who both are apparently very sick. Nevertheless, they tough it out to catch up on the last two polls (one about dying Xbox 360s and another about punishing politicians for creating unconstitutional laws) and take some time to give EA kudos for winning the Worst Company in America award for a second year in a row. Will 2014 make the third time the charm? Stay tuned!

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EA Trounces Bank of America in 2013 Worst Company in America Finals

April 9, 2013

It looks like Electronic Arts has delivered a lethal blow to Bank of America in the grand finale of the Consumerist's 2013 Worst Company in America tournament. EA slaughtered Ticketmaster earlier in the week to get to the finals. It garnered 78.89 percent of the vote, compared to Ticketmaster's 21.11 percent in that battle.

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The Consumerist Responds to Peter Moore

April 8, 2013

EA COO Peter Moore may have wanted to defend his company in the wake of possibly winning The Consumerist Worst Company of 2013 award, but his defense of the company's practices and his contention that conservative groups are doing most of the voting does not sit well with the site.

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Peter Moore: EA Can and Will Do Better

April 5, 2013

With EA within striking distance of winning the Consumerist's "Worst Company in America" award for a second year in a row, EA chief operating officer Peter Moore thought it might be a good idea to mention that the company is paying attention to the dubious distinction it might end up winning next week and that it realizes that it needs to make some changes to better serve its customers.

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EA v. Ticket Master in 'Worst Company in America' Semi-Finals

April 5, 2013

Electronic Arts continues to roll over the competition in the Consumerist's tournament to decide the "Worst Company In America 2013." The semi-final round of winning this dubious distinction for bad service pits Electronic Arts against Ticketmaster, while Comcast will attempt to defeat Bank of America. The winners of this competition will go onto the finals.

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EA Crushes the Competition in Worst Company in America: Round 2

April 1, 2013

In what can only be called a savage beating, Electronic Arts beat the holy hell out of Facebook in the latest round of The Consumerist's Worst Company in America. EA is like 1980's Mike Tyson so far. In the first round it beat down and crushed Anheuser-Bucsch with 92% of the vote. Against Facebook, it was a similar beating, with 79%.

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BearDogg-XSpike TV is airing the new Xbox reveal with help from GameTrailers starting at 11am CT.05/21/2013 - 12:56am
BearDogg-Xhttp://kotaku.com/couric-offers-mea-culpa-for-one-sided-violent-video-g-50892937105/21/2013 - 12:49am
james_fudgeof course he does :)05/20/2013 - 10:23pm
Andrew EisenEZK lives!05/20/2013 - 10:17pm
BearDogg-XNot game related, but found it interesting: http://www.upworthy.com/the-real-reason-they-still-play-mrs-robinson-on-the-radio?g=2&c=mrp1 - 90% of the music/TV/news media in USA owned by 6 companies.05/20/2013 - 2:38pm
BearDogg-X@PHX Corp: It's like they're just throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks at this point.05/20/2013 - 12:15pm
Kajexhttp://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/05/20/neverwinter-money-making-exploit-sees-cryptic-turn-back-time/ My understanding is that none of this was illegal, either.05/20/2013 - 11:42am
PHX Corphttp://www.gamezone.com/news/2013/05/20/violent-video-games-are-bad-for-your-body Most rediclous Study about violent video games ever05/20/2013 - 10:13am
Cecil475@PHX Corp - The dude's a moron who wouldn't know crap if it came up and kicked him.05/19/2013 - 6:36am
PHX Corphttp://kotaku.com/ea-sports-developer-calls-wii-u-crap-and-nintendo-wa-508481261 EA Sports Canada Moron calls Wii U 'Crap' and Nintendo 'Walking Dead'05/18/2013 - 11:42am
E. Zachary KnightIf the videos are of sufficient quality that people subscribe and watch regularly, then those let's players are providing a service that people want. That is the heart of capitalism. That is not something that should be shamed.05/17/2013 - 8:06am
E. Zachary KnightI have no idea who either of those people are. However, I still don't see why making a business out of creating let's play videos is somehow evil or wrong.05/17/2013 - 8:04am
MaskedPixelanteIt sure is if you're just doing it for the money. See Tobuscus and/or Pewdiepie for what happens when people get into it just for the money.05/17/2013 - 7:30am
E. Zachary KnightWhy is it wrong to make money doing LPs? Why should that be something that should be shamed?05/17/2013 - 6:20am
MaskedPixelantehttps://twitter.com/PsychedelicSA/status/335183893214924801 Now here's an interesting, glass half full thought about the Nintendo LP thing. It outs the people who are just doing LPs to make money.05/17/2013 - 5:56am
E. Zachary KnightI responded in writing to all this "let's play" stuff Nintendo Started. No need for my permission, I won't give it. It's not mine to give. http://divineknightgaming.com/?p=29205/16/2013 - 2:21pm
E. Zachary KnightLars Doucet of Levelup Labs has a Reddit going on game companies that allow monetization of Let's Play videos. http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1egayn/lets_build_a_list_of_game_studios_that_allow/05/16/2013 - 1:04pm
Sleaker@Imautobot - yah I wouldn't use an emulator as a good first run test of how stable the console is, haha.05/16/2013 - 11:47am
E. Zachary KnightThe 50th person to jump off a bridge is just as dumb if not dumber than the 1st.05/16/2013 - 10:03am
MaskedPixelanteYeah, let's all jump on Nintendo for doing this, even though they're hardly the first company to do this...05/16/2013 - 9:47am
 

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