geekosystem

If you love games where you pretend to kill your friends and strangers over the Internet, then you're probably down with EA's Battlefield series. Battlefield 4 is coming out this Fall, but EA has plans for even more sequels to the game. Kind of a lot of them, in fact.  They recently registered Battlefield domains ending in numbers 13-20, so gaming site Rock Paper Shotgun did them exactly one better and registered Battlefield21.com.

It doesn't pay to be one of the most famous soldiers in the United States Armed Forces, apparently. Seven members of the U.S. Navy's infamous SEAL Team Six are have been punished by the military for revealing classified information to Medal of Honor: Warfighter developer Danger Close and publisher EA while consulting on the game's development. According to a CBS report, the soldier-cum-consultants revealed confidential military intelligence while helping the team write a more "authentic" military shooter.

When most people think "EA," they think "challenge everything" or "it's in the game;" but EA might be playing a very different kind of game. There have been a number of rumors floating around about an alleged buyout of Electronic Arts, Inc. The story first appeared this morning in the New York Post, which reported, based on unnamed inside sources, that EA is in the early stages of negotiation with private equity firms KKR and Providence Equity Partners regarding a potential buyout. Could this really be happening? Could EA really be sold to an equity firm? Although nothing is certain as of yet, these rumors are certainly making a splash.

What? You're telling me that Zynga steals games, repackages them, slaps "Ville" on the title, and then unashamedly releases them? Say it ain't so! But today, the folks over at Zynga realized that there are always bigger fish out there. Electronic Arts, Inc. didn't take too kindly to the blatant ripping-off of their game, The Sims Social, in the form of Zynga's brand-new game, The Ville. The folks over at EA decided to sue Zynga back to the Stone Age and have published a 50-page legal complaint describing in detail how The Ville is essentially identical to The Sims Social in everything from the animation sequences to the RGB color values in the custom skin tones. Zynga messed with the bull and they seem surprised about what they're about to get.

It would be a gross understatement to say that EA Inc. isn't the most popular company nowadays. Intrusive DRM, release-day DLC, disc-locked content, and the habit of suffocating smaller game companies are just a few of the reasons EA received the dubious honor of being named The Consumerist's "Worst Company in America" back in April. On Wednesday, the company announced that it had joined a coalition of businesses in support of the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.

The consumers have spoken. Electronic Arts, better known by its nickname EA, is the Consumerist's Worst Company in America for 2012, as voted by users. For those of you who are familiar with EA, this probably isn't a huge surprise, EA's Origin platform is widely considered to be garbage, their DLC policies seem pretty greedy, and there are more customer support horror stories than you could ever care to hear. All that aside, EA makes video games, yet still beat out companies like Facebook, Apple, and in the final showdown, Bank of America, companies that stand accused of stealing your personal information, utilizing large amounts of sweatshop labor, and stealing your money or even your home, respectively. How could EA compete with that?

In order to drum up some excitement for Mass Effect 3 -- as if there weren't quite enough already -- Electronic Arts has engaged in an interesting little publicity stunt: They're launching a few copies of Mass Effect 3 into space. Well, near space; the kind of space you can get to with a weather balloon. Space travel aside, the important thing to note is that these copies will come to Earth before the official launch, and if you can find one, you'll be able to play it.

So remember back, after the big Sony hacking fiasco, when Sony pushed a PlayStation Network update that required all users to surrender their right to sue Sony? Well now Sony is getting sued over it. There were a lot of questions about whether the move to include the clause was actually legal, and now we're set to find out. Sony did provide a way to opt-out of the clause, but it was hard to find and even harder to excute; you had to send them a letter snail-mail, which as we all know, is an activity bordering on impossible. Seriously though, it's kind of a pain and that was a pretty sketchy move on Sony's part.

In a market that’s constantly fluctuating, it’s in the best interest of companies who are in the business of business to diversify their holdings. In fact, it’s pretty much in their best interest regardless of how the market looks. I’m no expert, and my degree certainly isn’t in business, but this much I do know. Companies have a habit of swallowing up smaller companies in order to branch off in new directions or to solidify a previously tenuous position. So, Electronic Arts making a bid to acquire PopCap Games—even if it’s at the purported $1 billion mark—makes complete and total sense.

Various outlets are reporting that PopCap Games, essentially the casual gaming kings of the modern gaming era, are in late stage acquisition discussions with Electronic Arts for a price of over one billion dollars. You may not know PopCap Games by name, but you certainly know them by game: The makers of Bejeweled, Plants vs Zombies, Peggle, and Bookworm, to name a few. If Electronic Arts does indeed acquire PopCap for the rumored price of over one billion dollars, they would be paying a large chunk of their market cap, which is currently $7.49 billion, meaning they're making a huge bet on PopCap, but judging from PopCap's dominance of the casual gaming market, their string of top notch titles and their fantastic devotion to product quality (say what you will about casual games, but PopCap knows how to make you play their casual games instead of other ones), EA is probably making a safe bet and a smart move. One can only assume that if EA really does acquire PopCap, they will give PopCap their freedom, but make PopCap their "casual games division," so to speak, similar to how they made BioWare their "RPG division" back when EA acquired them a few years ago. Of course, one can always make the joke that if EA acquires PopCap, Bejeweled might suddenly get a bunch of $0.99 DLC packs that add new-colored gems and Plants vs Zombies may get a $2.99 DLC pack that adds a female scream when you lose a level. (via TechCrunch, 2)

You know the Madden Curse? That seemingly impossible, yet oddly convincing curse that befalls players who have appeared on the covers of the Madden video game box art, in which their careers usually take a turn for the worse after appearing on said box art? Well, Electronic Arts is working on a movie about the Madden Curse. The best part about this? It's not a documentary. Read on past the break for some comedy.

A couple months ago EA announced that it would allow gamers to play as the Taliban in the multi-player modes of its upcoming Medal of Honor game. The response to this decision was vocal and negative, and came to the same conclusion for a variety of reasons. This week, EA rescinded the whole thing... sort of. Players will still be able to play as insurgents in the new MoH, its just that the game will call them "Opposing Force" instead of "Taliban." No aspects of the gameplay will be changed other than the name. But even this purely cosmetic change is too much for some industry analysts.

In what will probably be the latest big gaming controversy, publisher THQ decided to hamper their used games via one-time codes that unlock online functionality. After THQ's announced plans to hamper their used games by including a single-use code that allows online play in their upcoming Smackdown vs. Raw 2011, the publisher's creative director Corey Ledesma made some rather controversial statements to CVG regarding the move:

"I don't think we really care whether used game buyers are upset because new game buyers get everything. So if used game buyers are upset they don't get the online feature set I don't really have much sympathy for them.

That's a little blunt but we hope it doesn't disappoint people. We hope people understand that when the game's bought used we get cheated.

I don't think anyone wants that so in order for us to make strong, high-quality WWE games we need loyal fans that are interested in purchasing the game. We want to award those fans with additional content."

The Sims franchise has always been about simulating everyday life. Sure, expansions have gotten more and more exciting with nightclubs, pets, vacations, expeditions, and a whole lot more, but the core gameplay has always centered around a mostly plausible modern day lifestyle. You have your house, your job, your friends, your cozy little neighborhood, and you grow up and live life to the fullest. That's what the franchise is about. Well, now The Sims is branching out in a major way, with the announcement of The Sims Medieval, a game set to come out for the PC and Mac in spring of 2011.

Holy moly, it's the fourth time I've seen this trailer and I'm still wetting my pants. With E3 2010 in full swing, the Star Wars franchise continues to astound geeks worldwide with their incredible game cinematic teasers, first for The Force Unleashed II and now for Bioware's much anticipated MMORPG The Old Republic. In what is essentially a five-minute short film, we watch a raucous battle between Republic and Sith forces on the once-beautiful planet of Alderaan unfold. Big friggin' guns are fired, and of course, lightsabers are swung. It's time to see the "good guys" strike back for a change (for the ignorant and forgetful ones, the first incredible trailer detailed the absolute destruction of the Jedi Temple at the hands of Sith sabers and bounty hunter wrist-launchers). Video after the jump.