A few years ago, EA used to be the butt of Internet jokes about corporate greed – a company which everyone saw as constantly trying to squeeze money out of its customers. Which is why the current state of their business would seem quite surprising to someone from that time period. EA have not only managed to make the criticisms die down, they have actually turned around and changed their style of work for the better, and have been doing quite a lot to keep their fans happy lately.
Case in point, a recent sale on the PlayStation platform which saw several of their titles being given away completely free. Interested players were given the chance to get “Need for Speed: Most Wanted” for the PS Vita, “Mirror’s Edge” for the PS3, and perhaps most surprisingly, “Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare” on the PS4!
It’s not often that games are given away for free so shortly after their initial release, and it’s even more rare for EA to make free giveaways like that in general, but the company has certainly been showing a lot of willingness to change lately, plus the latest “Plants vs Zombies” has been making the headlines consistently. It’s easy to see why EA would want to maximize the game’s reach and make sure that everyone gets a chance to try it out, and as Valve have been showing the industry for several years, giving your games away for free seems to be one of the best ways to win over customers to your platform.
Plus, their overall quality level seems to be on the rise – it used to be the case that EA were getting a lot of criticism for forcing studios to rush releases in order to meet harsh deadlines, but lately, they have been putting more emphasis on quality. This can be seen in the newest “Plants vs Zombies”, which not only took a serious risk with its gameplay formula, but actually managed to pull it off successfully, at least according to most fans.
The game has been quoted as a refreshing addition to the “PvZ” family, and even though it’s not exactly what fans were expecting, given the name, it was still a surprisingly fun and exciting title which many are still playing actively. EA are rumored to have an interest in continuing this part of the franchise as well, which was met mostly positively by the community. On the other hand, fans have also wanted to see a proper sequel to the original “Plants vs Zombies”, and not one full of micropayments like the latest mobile version that was released recently.