Yeah but it isn’t really redundant (even if it could have been worded better). Someone might believe that the other shareholders have some say in how the company operates when they won’t.
So, as far as control over the company is concerned, the Saudis have 100% control even though they don’t have 100% of the shares.
If you haven’t noticed there’s a lot of people out there are incredibly dumb, and don’t understand basic math, let alone how a company like EA works.
I can guarantee you that there are more dipshits out there than you’d think who would look at that number and say “well it’s less than 100 percent, so they don’t have total control, so what’s the big deal?”
Now as for whether any amount of clarification is enough to convince those idiots that that’s not how things work, that’s a fair question.
I wouldn’t call EA anywhere close to the worst company in the world.
Serious contenders based on their overall effect on humanity would be Monsanto, RTX, Aramco, UnitedHealth and Nestlé.
It’s from PC Gamer, so I think it’s safe to say they mean worst gaming company in the world. They could have said that though.
Even limited to gaming, EA, Ubisoft, and Activision have always been pretty much tied for it. Now Activision is part of Microsoft, and I think with both Activision and Bethesda and the shit the latter has caused lately, I think we can bump Ubisoft out. And I think when Copilot gaming rolls out, whatever they’re calling that, they’ll be worse than EA was before. The problem with EA isn’t so much what they were before though, it’s what they’ll be under SA leadership.
Gaming by megacorps has never been good for gamers, and it’s going to get worse. And yet people keep supporting them.
It’s an AI assistant in your game that will help you, tell you where to go and whatnot by using Copilot to help by analysing your game.
Doesn’t sound too bad, I mean who cares if they see what you’re playing or how (bad) you’re playing? It’s just weird. Like the generations after mine used GameFAQs, or asked on Reddit, or watched YouTube videos. My generation read Nintendo Power, and shared tips on the playground or at school, whether we read it in a magazine or discovered it on our own. There were 1-900 numbers you could call, but no one I know called them. Maybe the rich kids did? I was forbidden from doing so (by my parents) and I never did. But that was actually another option. Like, Nintendo operated one. I think some of the third-party gaming magazines may have, as well. You could also write in, and maybe they’d publish your letter and a response, but that would take months.
The only way I can see this shit working is like a search engine that do AI summarizing. They can’t trained Copilot to “learn” about the newest game. This shit looks more like marketing bullshit than anything, any AI that can search the internet will do just fine.
I think some of the third-party gaming magazines may have, as well. You could also write in, and maybe they’d publish your letter and a response, but that would take months.
LOL, I had some of these magazines but at the time internet was already a thing, sounds painful to wait months for a response on how to beat X game.
That’s my thought as well, that it will just source IGN and other sites and scrape the data.
Also, people calling EA the worst company in the world seem to forget that EA published the Mass Effect trilogy. I just noticed that yesterday, their copyright is at the bottom but the EA logo isn’t shown when it (the Mass Effect Legendary Trilogy remaster) boots up. Just the Mass Effect-themed Bioware animation.
EA also published the Rockband games, trying to save the rhythm gaming industry from Activision, which tried to kill it after the developer (Harmonix) left. They got Neversoft (of Tony Hawk games fame) to repackage Guitar Hero 2 with more songs and limp along after it, but once Rockband came out and they added vocals and drums, Guitar Hero was basically done… so Activision flooded the market with slop. I’m not saying EA did anything heroic, they just gave the rhythm game developer a platform to publish on. I don’t think Rockband was ever profitable, but they all damn sure tried. Rockband 3 is also one of the reasons you have mods on console at all. It was part of the pilot program for Microsoft’s XNA, which brought user content to Xbox users. Games too, but most sucked. The real kicker was that anybody could put songs in Rockband, and some indie bands converted their entire catalogue. PC game modding had been a thing long before, but console users getting fan-made content in a game was simply not a thing before then. Even today, people make custom songs for the modded Rockband 3 Deluxe (which requires a modded console, adds a bunch of quality of life features) or computer ports like YARG (Yet Another Rhythm Game).
When I was a kid, EA published a paint program, Deluxe Paint, on the Amiga. Not really gaming related, but it was an awesome paint program and did stuff you still don’t see in drawing/paint programs in 2025, paid or free (DPaint was paid; my father bought it on floppy disk in a cardboard sleeve with a manual and everything).
So yeah. Way worse companies out there. But I’m not gonna excuse the shit EA got into. I do think Microsoft is worse, between Copilot stuff, Activision, and Bethesda.
The headline is omitting a vital part of the article, namely the “one ingredient”. You have to read the artivke to finish the title, which can be a definition of clickbait.
For me, it didn’t trigger my clickbait alarm. Yes there’s a hook there but I’m already interested in Kowloon City, Minecraft and 3D design so I was happy to read it.
Maybe if the title had put “: people”, at the end then it would have been completely above board, but it’s still a far cry from something like “The New Minecraft Map That Recreates a A Demolished 90’s Era Enclave Has One Super Important Thing Missing!”, followed by pages of ads.
We’re just used to it by now, but the title is phrased in a way to make you curious what the author meant by “what’s important in 3D level design”. I wouldn’t call this clickbait, but it’s definitely written in a way that intentionally omits the central conclusion. A better article title would say “Its lack of residents show how important this is for 3D level design”.
I read the article. It appears to deliver on the promise of the headline pretty completely. What is promised is a little bit too nuanced and complex to be neatly encapsulated in the headline any other way. The headline also isn’t sensationalized or misrepresentative of the content. And, honestly, the reason I think most people are clicking is for the Kowloon part, not the level design part. Are you just upset because it sounds a little bit like a LinkedIn status in its construction?
I’d orefer a title to summarize the article so that I know whether it’s worth my time investment to actually read it at all. Now, I’m put if by the blayant cliff hanger at the end of the title.
It’s a very good summary of the article. The things the author reconsidered were pretty nuanced, and trying to describe them in a headline without making the headline even longer than it is.
Would you have liked this better?
“This Minecraft map that recreates Kowloon Walled City, one of history’s most notorious slums, made me realize that 3D level design isn’t just about the complexity or the environmental challenge, but about the internal lives of the people who live there and the way that the game implies a greater reality that exists beyond the confines of the camera’s field of view”
“This, it should be stated, was not the objective of Sluda’s build. But it nonetheless made me think about what I deem important in virtual architecture and level design more broadly. My favourite games are always those that give me a complex, natty 3D space to unpick, like Dishonored 2’s Stilton Manor, Hitman’s Sapienza, and Thief: Deadly Shadows’ Shalebridge Cradle. But playing Sluda’s map made me realise these levels are more than just environmentally challenging sequences of rooms and corridors. They say something about the people who lived in those spaces, exuding their virtual history from their grimy walls, spooky attics, and beautifully recreated gelato shops.”
Yeah, but…
Minecraft will never achieve the writer’s design requirement; immersive sim level design philosophy is where he is aiming, where highly environmental detail for storytelling and possibly some competent AI, both hostile and friendly, to support the immersion.
MC is just a block-by-block construction, competent with building form, and it offers some simple decoration, and no more; I can’t see how it is a fair comparison.
No, Minecraft cannot deliver that kind of experience.
Go check out the video of The Golem city in Mankind Divided if you want to know what the writer is seeking, which is also inspired by Kowloon Walled City.
Secondly, the interior details of Kowloon Walled City have always been pretty sparse on the internet, Sluda has to imagine all of them, that is not the objective of the build.
There’s a video of Kowloon Walled City from a university student (Suenn Ho) if anyone wants to see how it looks like from the inside. It’s incredible how people even managed to live there.
Hoping to cover costs solely from cosmetics is a pie-in-the-sky fancy and they knew that, the only way that works is if your game blows up in the way that only those rare, 0.01% of games do. Saying they expected that to work out was some fucking bullshit. I sympathize with their plight, it’s obvious that if the options are sell DLC or shut down the studio, you sell DLC, but it shouldn’t have happened like this.
They were dishonest at worst or brutally naive at best from the start. I’m willing to accept that latter simply because these were originally Reddit people who wanted to make their own mark on the genre, but it’s still inexcusable. I have zero involvement in the industry and I could tell you that was not gonna work out.
I totally agree with ditching a game over MTX, but doesn’t PoE also want to stick its hand in your wallet? Making a game more restrictive to sell “quality of life” is just as bad as selling a character.
Everything is cosmetic last I checked aside from stash tabs, which granted should be earnable in-game, but it’s nothing like an entirely MTX-only class. I do wish the game had a transmog system though at least, even Diablo 4 does, and we all know how Blizzard is.
Personally I’d call it buy to play with an unlimited demo and optional mtx. Back when I played it, the default stash tab wasn’t remotely enough, but after spending 20 euros I had enough tabs for all my needs and I then played several seasons without spending anything more. It’s still the best freemium model that I’ve ever encountered imo.
Hat stores and “buy more space to hoard the loot we design the game to make you need” mtx shouldn’t be given the free pass they get, especially by players that go nuclear over paid character DLC.
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