Who Ruins Xbox Live? EA Does
This past week I picked up Fight Night Round 3 for the Xbox 360 for $25 from Gamefly.com. I started out playing through the career mode and I have roughly 5 fights under my belt and had yet to venture online. After a round of Halo 2 tonight I decided to try out the online component of Fight Night Round 3. Several things are wrong with the “Live” portion of FN3, here we go.
- Its by EA so the whole process takes place on their servers
- The EA matchmaking and lobby system looks like it was assembled by a blind 2 year old.
- The ranking is pathetic, If i am coming online for my first fight with a “Live” record of 0-0-0, I shouldn’t be matched against a player who is 293-101-0.
- Did I mention that it is hosted on EA’s servers?
- Since its from EA I have to agree to a whole new set of privacy and terms of use.
- I now have an email from EA saying hey say you played Fight Night, you should join our online area and agree to let us sell your email address to Turtles and Spammers.
I should know by now that I shouldn’t count on playing any EA game online, since they are destroying the “Live” experience as well as charging for cheat codes, stadiums, uniforms, teams, your internet connection, your moms lunch, your sisters dog, and your left sock. All things which previously were included in the original purchase. Thankfully several non EA games are coming out soon, including Gears of War and Tony Hawk’s Project 8. I am also looking forward to Small Arms, which doesn’t yet have a release date. I would simply avoid EA games by principle but at least I feel less guilt buying used or renting through Gamefly.
Josh Smith is a blogger, database manager and adjunct professor of business and technology. 
I agree, I play bf2:mc on normal xbox. Their servers are laggy ass B******. Like every 1 hour or so it will say you have lost connection to the EA servers, and everyone on the game is kicked off of xbox live. Also EA doesnt care if players cheat and boost to be on the leaderboards.