Xbox forum - A journalist asks...

Author

A journalist asks...

Brayquincy

2004-10-21, 5:47 pm

....to talk to fans of ESPN/s NFL2K5 game. Why play this football game instead
of Madden? I want to know, for a story I'm doing.

I want the article to include your name, age, occupation, and the community
in
which you live.

This is for real. Click on the links below to read some of my stuff.

Interested? Please e-mail me ASAP. Thanks.

Hiawatha Bray
Technology Reporter
Boston Globe
135 Morrissey Blvd.
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819 USA
617-929-3119 voice
617-929-3183 fax
617-233-9419 cell
bray@globe.com
watha@monitortan.com
Blog: www.monitortan.com
Recent writings: www.boston.com/business/technology/bray

xTenn

2004-10-21, 5:47 pm

"Brayquincy" <brayquincy@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20041021150255.29543.00001238@mb-m05.aol.com...

quote:

> ...to talk to fans of ESPN/s NFL2K5 game. Why play this football game
> instead
> of Madden? I want to know, for a story I'm doing.
>
> I want the article to include your name, age, occupation, and the
> community
> in
> which you live.
>

Okay, age I kinda understand. Why occupation and community? Does what you
do for a living and the community in which you live really factor into how
you appreciate or determine a particular game? If so, what is the intended
pub date and location (if not the boston globe)? I want to be sure that I
do not read it. I dislike articles that try to use mickey mouse statistics
or labeling conventions to explain something that should otherwise be
universal.

Kendrick Kerwin Chua

2004-10-21, 5:47 pm

In article <20041021150255.29543.00001238@mb-m05.aol.com>,
Brayquincy <brayquincy@aol.com> wrote:

quote:

>...to talk to fans of ESPN/s NFL2K5 game. Why play this football game instead
>of Madden? I want to know, for a story I'm doing.
>
>I want the article to include your name, age, occupation, and the community
>in which you live.

I'm going to ignore my instincts and go ahead and respond to this post.

I happen to be one of the guys that bought NFL2K5. While the price and
Sega's involvement are definitely positive factors, I recognize that it
and Madden NFL 2005 are essentially equivalent games. Visual Concepts, the
team behind the Sega/ESPN NFL game series, are the ones who originally
made the Madden series what it is today. So it makes sense that a lot of
the gameplay mechanisms and features are very, very similar.

My reasons for buying it are actually pretty petty. Electronic Arts has
repeatedly disappointed me, either with poor product or poor service.
Their handling of the Ultima series of games is exploitative and they
actively discourage enjoyment of the earlier titles. They frequently
outbid other superior developers for highly visible character and story
licenses and squander them on cookie-cutter platform and shooter titles.
And Electronic Arts has purchased many smaller companies to own their
products and copyrights, but do nothing to support existing games which
may have been released prior to said buyout. Their customer service is
terrible, their products are frequently flawed and buggy, and they expect
no intelligence and no sense of pattern recognition from their customers.

Is this the same company that was at the forefront of game design when the
home computer was new? Is this the same company that released Bill Budge's
'Pinball Construction Set' and David Maynard's 'Worms' that is now
endlessly cranking out rehashes and rereleases? EA has joined the ranks of
Wal-Mart and Blockbuster Video and eBay, all companies that started off
with good intentions but became more interested in earning money than in
serving their customers. Based on my experiences, I feel like Electronic
Arts is more interested in taking my money than providing me with an
entertaining and worthwhile video game experience. I don't shop at
Wal-Mart, I won't rent from Blockbuster, and I will never do business on
eBay again. In my opinion, EA has earned that same notoriety.

The history and recent experiences of Sega pretty clearly demonstrate that
they don't have the best business sense. It's arguable that Sega is more
interested in making games than they are in making money. But even without
a bad example for comparison's sake, Sega has never disappointed me and
has always given me great satisfaction as a video game consumer. I'm
always willing to give Sega my money, and very willing to take a chance on
their products and their services.

So that is why I bought ESPN NFL2K5 over any competing product. I really
hope that Electronic Arts becomes aware of their status in the industry,
and takes action to gain the respect and the trust of gamers again. Maybe
it's not appropriate for me to speak for other gamers, so I'll just hope
that they do something to earn my trust and respect again. But until then,
I'm passing up games with the EA logo.

-Kendrick Chua, 30-year-old male, technology worker and displaced New
Yorker living in Jacksonville, Florida. A large, sprawling city where we
have a high school named after one of the founders of the local Klu Klux
Klan society. E-mail me if you plan to visit and I'll draw you a map of
the parts of town you should avoid if you can.

--
-- I was treated unfairly and without consideration by eBay - kendrick
and Paypal. If you require independent testimony about - @io.com
or corroboration of illegal or questionable business -
practices by those two companies, please contact me. -

Dr.z3n

2004-10-22, 12:47 am

"Brayquincy" <brayquincy@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20041021150255.29543.00001238@mb-m05.aol.com...

quote:

> Hiawatha Bray
> Technology Reporter
> Boston Globe

Aren't you guys busy shilling for John Kerry?

/the answer is "yes"

Dr.z3n

Dr.z3n

2004-10-22, 12:47 am

"xTenn" <xTennRemovePart@tds.net> wrote in message
news:ePFmvK6tEHA.2300@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

quote:

>
>
> Okay, age I kinda understand. Why occupation and community? Does what
> you do for a living and the community in which you live really factor into
> how you appreciate or determine a particular game?

She wants to include the bioler-plate remark that gaming isn't just 12-year
old boys, but is in fact, 40-year old boys as well. She also wants to write
this article without playing the game herself.

Dr.z3n

summer somewherelse

2004-10-22, 6:46 am

quote:

>-----Original Message-----

"EA has joined the ranks of
Wal-Mart and Blockbuster Video and eBay, all companies
that started off with good intentions but became more
interested in earning money than in serving their
customers. Based on my experiences, I feel like Electronic
Arts is more interested in taking my money than providing
me with an
entertaining and worthwhile video game experience"

quote:

>i completely agree here but:

"It"s not a bad philosophy, and I will not say I am sorry
for it. We have 3 billion on the bank every year that
proves it."
Jeff Brown
(Director of corporate communications EA)

quote:

>this proves you point very well

"But even without a bad example for comparison's sake,
Sega has never disappointed me and has always given me
great satisfaction as a video game consumer. I'm always
willing to give Sega my money, and very willing to take a
chance on their products and their services."

quote:

>remenber the Saturn? or the DreamCast? or what about

sega 32x? i can go backward all day...

now, every single person that as a homework have to write
a story about whatever, can be called a journalits?
cheers!

Kendrick Kerwin Chua

2004-10-22, 9:46 am

And here we are at the web-based newsreader...

In article <098501c4b809$aa869660$a301280a@phx.gbl>,
summer somewherelse <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

quote:

>
>"But even without a bad example for comparison's sake,
>Sega has never disappointed me and has always given me
>great satisfaction as a video game consumer. I'm always
>willing to give Sega my money, and very willing to take a
>chance on their products and their services."
>
>sega 32x? i can go backward all day...

Yes, I remember all those. They were excellent products that were poorly
marketed and poorly received. I was very satisfied with the support and
the availability of Saturn software, even if they came in second next to
the original Playstation. And the Dreamcast still has new software being
published for it, albeit mostly homebrew or import stuff.

Mainstream acceptance and public success doesn't always have a one-for-one
relationship to the quality of the product. I like the stuff, and I don't
regret purchasing or using Sega's stuff. I understand that other people
may have come to a different conclusion, and that's okay. What's
interesting to note is that Sega always puts out neat, whizzy, interesting
stuff without considering if anybody is going to buy it or not. That's how
stuff like the Sega Nomad and the Saturn Netlink got to market, usually
before people were ready for them.

Here's an example: The Saturn went into stores with composite A/V cables
and no RF adapter packed in. The estimate is that 75 percent of Saturn
buyers went back into the stores in order to get the RF adapter, which
colored their impression of the console. Sega wasn't thinking about the
idea that America wasn't quite at the point where A/V connectors were
commonly used in the home yet. This is either bad market research or
ambitious forward thinking, depending on your point of view.

-KKC, pondering pressing penstrokes to the paperwork to patent his
paper-thin peanut-oil pancakes.
--
-- I was treated unfairly and without consideration by eBay - kendrick
and Paypal. If you require independent testimony about - @io.com
or corroboration of illegal or questionable business -
practices by those two companies, please contact me. -