EA starts with beta test of game streaming service Project Atlas

#5710393 Posted on: 09/12/2019 09:42 AM

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Just think, while your streaming a game they can interrupt that streaming with a few unskippable advertisements. Lol

#5710406 Posted on: 09/12/2019 10:39 AM

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First they failed with the live services for BF5 and Anthem and now another thing for us to try??? .... money grabbing company ; fix your games EA !!! Bring back the old good NFS and C&C.

#5710415 Posted on: 09/12/2019 11:12 AM

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At first you'll be able to use their service normally with a subscription...

Phase 1

1 month after release when the reviews are done they'll break the service down into pieces:

1 - The subscription for "access" that does nothing.

2 - You'll need to grind advertisements to get "A Feeling of Pride & Accomplishment Tokens" to unlock things one by one, such as being able to load a game. It will take 3 years of uninterrupted advertisements to get enough AFoPaAT to unlock the ability to see anything at all aside from advertisements. You can't use or interact with anything at that point though, those are separate purchases, you can only look. Or you can just pay $10 per basic function on a monthly basis, and you have to get them all at the same time for realistic functionality. It won't be a straight payment though, you have to buy "EA Scholar and Gentleman Crystals", so they can make sure they manipulate things further. $10 worth of those Crystals can be used for the purchase. You can not buy $10 worth of EA Crystals, or any multiple that would break even with the amount of functions you need to buy. There will always be left over Crystals.

Also they store your credit card information, even if you don't allow it, in a plain text file on a server with no security.

3 - A higher tier "EA Scholar" subscription to be able to stream at higher res than 800x450. It allows up to 720p 20 fps with 200 ping in a best case scenario. Input lag not included. You still need to pay for part 2.

4 - A highest tier "EA Scholar and Gentleman" subscription that still requires part 2. It allows streaming at "4K" (720p stretched) "60 fps", which never goes above 25 fps, at 150 ping, average input lag is 116 ms. But you can't just buy it. No, their highest tier will require buying passes for their monthly events, every month, for $20 of EA Crystals. With the pass you can grind monotonous, mind-numbing, "missions", to collect "Legendary EA Scholar and Gentleman Crystals". 100 of those can then be used to purchase the highest tier subscription. 1 of them requires 22 hours of nonstop play so it's not actually possible to acquire the pass that way. Even if it took less time, to make it technically possible, there's always 1 "mission" designed to be technically impossible to prevent you from reaching 100. The Legendary Crystals expire at the end of each event so you can't save them up to eventually buy a pass.

So then you must then buy "Special Event Bundles" in order to get meager amounts of Legendary Crystals at insane prices because the bundles include "Gentleman Portals" (loot boxes which provide the vast majority of the Legendary Crystals you're trying to get) and "Legendary Items" such as a single red dot that can be used to aim in games (games, ability to access games, or ability to load red dot not included). Buying 100 Legendary Crystals costs about $150 on average, but depending on your luck with the Gentleman Portals, it can cost up to $420.

5 - If you actually bought the "EA Scholar and Gentleman" subscription, you'll be given the option to buy a "Supreme EA Scholar and Gentleman Crown" for only a measly $50 more worth of EA Crystals. You can equip it (ability to equip not included) to enable its special loading screen border there to remind you how dumb you are for buying it. At least you'll have something to look at during the 12-15 minute load times if you somehow got access to games, or loading. The service will bug out constantly and unequip the crown though and sometimes it just randomly doesn't work.

There's more to this phase but it's too tiring to explain it all.



4 months after release they'll retroactively change all subscriptions to only function on "EA Gamer Phones", and not let you cancel anything you're paying for and continue charging your credit card because "you agreed to the ToS". The phones are $1500 to match iPhones, have built in spyware worse than China's wet dreams, install apps automatically at EA's whims, and have unskippable ads on every page. EA Gamer Phones self destruct worse than a Galaxy Note 7 every 6 months so you'll have to buy 2 per year. The only language option on the EA Gamer Phone is Newspeak.

Do you not have phones? Are you not entertained by phones?

You'll have to pay another additional subscription fee to re-enable using the service on anything but their EA Gamer Phones. It's presented as monthly options but they're all tied to 3, 5, 7, 10, and 25 year contracts.

I'm skipping the rest of phase 2 so I can finish this before I fall asleep.

Phase 3

8 months after release they'll further increase the prices of everything, remember, you can't cancel that 25 year contract, you should have read it... BUT! They'll give you the option of making the price hike portion of the payments "free" by signing up for their "Scholar and Gentleman Health and Activity Home System" for "developing a sense of healthy living and accomplishment". The hardware is a $2000 upfront payment or totally "free" if you sign up for a 10 year contract at $69.42 per week.

TL;DR is that you'll be installing spy cameras for EA all over your house, and spyware infested "health" software on your computer so they can gain access to anything they haven't yet. It changes your language setting to Newspeak. Don't forget the "health anklet" (location monitor) you'll have to wear. It's not removable. Ever.

.....................

... too many phases... maybe I'll finish explaining one day. But critical points are the phases when they:

1 - Manage to impose a social credit system like China has. One of the first things people will get punished for is not using Newspeak, aside from the more obvious stuff such as ever saying anything negative about EA or the credit system. Smile as you tell the camera the credit system is amazing and a benefit to all of mankind.

2 - Gain legal access to everything you have or are entitled to ever get. Everything.

3 - Acquire legal ownership of you. Yes you are now literally a slave. You will have monitoring chips implanted into your hearts at this phase, yes it allows EA to decide when you die. EA will use the data to breed more efficient slaves who can survive on less nutritious gruel than what they're serving to start, with lower and lower IQs and more subservient behavior to stop any potential mass rebellion, can't have all their current slaves die at once. Enjoy your trip to an actual mine.

And @XP-200 ...... I don't know how to tell you this brother, but the unskippable advertisements never stop until you reach the mine because "They're not advertisements. They're an integral part of the user experience which provide a sense of comfort and connection to the world".

But don't worry, at the mine there will be large screens everywhere playing sayings of EA CEOs which you will now call "Big Brothers" so you'll have something to watch until you go blind from malnutrition and stress. What they do with you from there is too dark to get into.

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If anyone actually read through that absolutely retarded lunacy, stop and realize that a LOT of those insane things listed have not only been done but are still going on right now. Need I say more?

This is probably filled with more typos and general mistakes than I'll ever be willing to edit.

#5710418 Posted on: 09/12/2019 11:21 AM

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If the market accepts this the way they accepted DLC and Season Passes, we'll be stuck with it. We all know the dangers here and what it potentially means for the ecosystem. The only question is, how many players want to trade the convenience and cost savings streaming can potentially provide for the performance issues and additional control it puts in the hands of the Publishers?

I'd like to think the market for steaming is small given these issues - at least in the M rated game space that most of us play in. I acknowledge the casual game market is a different animal.

Time will tell.

#5710445 Posted on: 09/12/2019 12:55 PM

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We all can be upset about EA and other big companies, but it hardly changes anything. Especially EA is regularly voted as one of the worst companies on this planet and yet they are still very much profitable, because the game they produce aren't really that bad and they own a lot of great IPs, it's just the additional crap that no one wants, like DLCs, gambling and microtransactions. The problem is that big developers and publishers are publicly traded, so every time they need to make a decision between their customers and investors, they are always going to choose investors and put in further monetization.

Although I personally do not care about the service, I understand the appeal for some people. However, I sincerely doubt that this will ever eliminate traditional games sales, as long as they provide enough income with minimal investment. Especially if every big company is going to introduce one subscription service for their games. Just look at e.g. netflix, now that there are other services that also require their separate subscription they all aren't as profitable, because no one is going to pay 4 services just to watch all the shows they want. They'll rather stream it for free from third party sites or download it in a certain bay.