Boyung.com

Well, it was great while it lasted.  Okay, maybe that's not true, but I stood by it longer than most that took the same stance as I did.  You see, back in 2004 or 2005, Madden NFL football was losing out to the NFL 2K series of football games in sales numbers, review scores, and game quality.  So rather than spend some money to improve their product, they decided to go and throw huge amounts of money (I've heard at least nine-figures, if not hitting the ten-figure range) at the NFL for exclusivity instead.  They'd rather destroy any ability for someone to compete with their one true cash cow instead of putting out a quality product.  When you add that to the way that they have treated their developers in recent years (which multiple lawsuits by their employees, former employees, and employees' families show off quite nicely), I was pretty fed up with them as a company.  And I wasn't alone.  There were plenty of people that decided to boycott the company.  However, I don't think that many lasted too long. 

I'm actually surprised that I lasted as long as I did, considering some of the great games that companies that they have acquired during that timeframe have put out.  Note, mind you, that I did not say anything about games that EA put out, because in the last four years, they have all pretty much sucked.  But they just buy up good, smalled game studios, let them put out an amazing game or two, and then crush their spirit and their ability to put out anything creative or original, and turn them into another studio for pumping out crappy sequels to games that were never that good to begin with.

In January, I had the feeling that my boycott was sadly coming to an end.  That's when the announcement was made that one of my absolute favorite video game companies, Bioware, was going to be purchased by EA.  Bioware has put out some of the most amazing computer RPGs ever (especially the Baldur's Gate games, and the absolute best computer RPG ever - Planescape: Torment - uses Bioware's RPG engine as well) and they are going to put out what looks to be a great Sonic RPG for the DS (their first handheld foray).  I don't think I could last too long without buying games by Bioware.  Then EA actually came up with an original IP that looks like it could be good in Boom Blox, which actually comes out this week.  And of course, the big announcement for their behemoth recently hit that Brett Favre is going to be on the cover of the '09 iteration.  I really, really want to own that game.  In fact, I really want to own two copies, because I want to buy the Xbox 360 collectors edition, since it comes with the next version of NFL Head Coach, and I want to own the Wii version, since that will probably be the best version of the main game.

Okay, I am perfectly aware that my little personal boycott means absolutely nothing to EA or anyone else really, but it really made me feel good that I was doing my part in an attempt to supprt my fellow developers, who do a job that I and countless other video game fans are very thankful for - I'll take any software development job I've ever had over working for a video game company like EA.  It also felt good to say that I wasn't supporting EA since they do very little to innovate in the world of video games.  Well, at least I can say that I've stopped several hundred dollars of profit from ever hitting their coffers over the last several years.