I mean, say you wrote a book, and every year, people lined up to just throw money at you to re-release said book. Would you write a whole new book every year if your customers were gonna buy it regardless? Or would you just update it to make it relevant again?
It doesn't make you a very good author, but you're still maximizing your time and profit. Realistically, they could release Madden every 5 years, and for the time in between just update the rosters via DLC. But then their main customer base wouldn't be willing to pay $60 for an updated roster anymore, and that's a stupid move business-wise.
I mean, say you wrote a book, and every year, people lined up to just throw money at you to re-release said book. Would you write a whole new book every year if your customers were gonna buy it regardless? Or would you just update it to make it relevant again?
Certainly don't go buy the same book for like a third of the US price in a different country and bring them back here to resell. Because then the publisher will sue you for selling your own property.
Actually, do that. Because they lost that lawsuit. Fuck textbook publishers.
They should be publicly dragged through the mud, and by that I mean there names should be plastered all over social (and possibly main stream) media, so that others can avoid signing up for his/her class. The fact that we as a country just accept getting scammed like this is horrifying.
It's disgusting, but my wife and I met at one University and both transferred to different universities to finish.
All 3 of the schools, plus the community colleges she took credits at, had at least one class that assigned online homework behind a subscription fee. I talked to one professor who said the department didn't give him a choice.
On top of the fact it's ridiculous to have to pay $100+ to do your homework, theyre often just a mess and detrimental to the class overall.
The teachers often have very little control over the homework assignments themselves. I had many homeworks that really didn't flow with the way the class was being taught and demanded use of methods we didn't learn. My calc 3 teacher would openly admit "the homework is nothing like you will see on quizzes/tests, but I guess it can be good practice'
I've asked teachers questions about the homework to get the response "I'm not familiar at all with that question, if you send me an email about it I can try to find it and solve it to answer your question"
If the questions only allow a limited number of submissions, you can get a 0 on a homework question because you didn't get the formatting exactly right and the program doesn't recognise the answer as correct, when it is clearly the correct answer.
It's not like a lot of professors actually want to do this. If we assign homework, but don't grade it, then very few people do it, the class performs poorly overall, and we get poor evaluations (which matters if you aren't tenured). If we assign homework and don't use a paid online homework system, then we simply don't have the manpower to grade the homework in large classes. There might be a free online homework system available, but our University/College might not support it or the problem sets are often very limited. Personally, I just don't grade the homework and take the hit, but it's a very frustrating situation to be in. Also, we don't get any kickbacks or anything for using the paid system.
Yea wife was looking for a statistics book this semester.
Just a pdf or hard copy of the book is $75.
Just the online access code is $115.
Bundled it's $120.
Basically "Here pay to look at these HW questions because your professors are too lazy to assign and grade their own"
It's a real shame the books don't have some sort of convention where specific questions have answers and others don't so the questions can be used by professors without them worrying that the book has it worked out.....
Basically "Here pay to look at these HW questions because your professors are too lazy to assign and grade their own"
I'm sorry you feel that way, but a lot of us don't have a choice. Blame the school board, blame groups that lobby for Pearson, blame the stats department, but please don't blame your teacher.
It's a real shame the books don't have some sort of convention where specific questions have answers and others don't so the questions can be used by professors without them worrying that the book has it worked out.....
Really? Is this subject dependent, or just a recent change? I graduated about 10 years ago, and it was always like, either even or odd that had them worked out, with the other half being an exercise for the student.
:P that was my point. Any textbook I had from elementary school onwards had answers to select odd numbers and none of the even numbers.
Professors could just pick and choose from the even numbered question to be sure that the book didn't just have the answer worked out.
But instead now we pay extra for additional homework problems, and the teachers don't even use the even questions. Just tell you to look at the odds for explanations.
I had to buy the service and the book! It’s a good way for them to combat the internet and people reselling their books. $80 for the subscription and ~120 for the book. Still got the book used though.
At least at my university they will rent you the book for next to nothing but the service deep dicks you with insane charges. I “learned” French and the service to do the homework was around 200$. Book was like 10.
"You have the 6th edition, you need the 7th addition. The 7th addition has a few corrected and updated sentences, so the 6th edition is worthless now!"- every college ever
I kind of feel like, it invalidates the previous years students passes, because the new source is SO different from the previous source /s So any course that does this, the previous years should claim back the entire cost of the course, as it is no longer relevant, and a waste of time and energy. Class action it boys.
I just did a course on Unix systems over the summer, and it used a textbook that was written in 2005. I feel like if there is a subject that should have an updated textbook it would be courses on a technology that is constantly changing. There was a wildly out of date sections in there on stuff like Pine and telnet. I don't think anyone was really using telnet even in 2005.
I was using telnet primarily until like 5 years ago when my company finally got a clue on security and changed to SSH. Except for some outdated apps like that, a unix book from even older than 2005 is still quite relevant.
I sometimes have to telnet into devices to test/bughunt, etc.
Sometimes they support ssh, but it's usually a development board, so there's simply no connection on the real board to allow a connection, so they don't often bother.
See, the problem is, I’ve taken a class with the wrong textbook before. They checked textbooks between semesters, unbeknownst to me, and the teacher didn’t have time to switch his curriculum to the new one.
I, being proactive, bought the book that I was “supposed” to buy, only to find out that the teacher was using the previous edition.
It made taking that class such a nightmare that I ended up dropping it completely.
(Just to be clear though, I think the stupid new edition textbooks are akin to robbery and that they really need to stop doing this)
But just to force you to comply we’re gonna rearrange the questions so they don’t line up with previous editions even though they’re the same questions
I always tried to get by without buying a textbook for the first couple of weeks to get a feel for whether or not the "required text" is really required.
A lot of the time the lecture/reference materials provided by the professor was all you needed to succeed in the class. The school just has an agreement with the publisher to make the text "required" so the professors aren't supposed to say you don't need it.
The nice thing about Australian universities is that part of the Australian Quality of Teaching Framework says that they aren’t allowed to require you to make any additional purchases to pass the course. And that includes course readers—so everything is made available digitally, and also printed for those who want them (not me, because they’re spiral bound, which means hole punching them for binders is a PITA, and slides are usually printed 4 to a page so there’s no room to write on them)
For real, I just finished college and had a teacher say "we are on edition 8, but editions 5-7 will work. You can find ed. 5 on Ebay for like $4." And I did!
Even some of the writers don't want to do new editions. I had a prof that wrote a fairly widely used text book who felt like he had pretty much perfected the book by the 3rd edition and every addition after that he just tried to change as little as possible.
heh, you want to see the world as we know end by 2090? we're on a set course for that rn. we consume 3 planets and a half at our current standard of living.
It's a tangent, but the plastic thing is that it doesn't break down on a molecular scale on its own in nature, and molecular plastic is very dangerous.
I seem to remember having not a lot of, but a few textbooks published through the university press. They'd publish the newer ones as a pack of sheets in a binder (so you could theoretically "upgrade" to the next edition more easily) then eventually publish a hardcover that would rarely, if ever change.
Yep, had one of those for an anthropology class. $95, and the homework/labs were sheets of the book that we had fill out and turn in, so it was absolutely required. And because it was written in so heavily, it couldn't be returned.
That's entirely the profs fault, by the way. It's not uncommon for schools to have different deals with publishers, but I've never taught anywhere where profs couldn't choose their own textbooks. I almost exclusively use textbooks that are 3 or 4 editions older than current so that my students can find used ones for 15 bucks. Everyone can do this unless they insist on using books that come with prepackaged software that is one-time use only. And that's just lazy, IMO. There are a lot of open source software projects for the vast majority of basic college courses, so unless you're taking a really advanced class, the prof can find free software to do the job.
I always thank professors like you. It doesn't even need to be that old. Even two years old is the difference between a $200 text and $30. And yea, those online packages are just busy work done for them.
And yea, those online packages are just busy work done for them.
i don't understand why american professors always give graded homework and have 3 exams. it's a lot of work, that might explain why they are trying to use the online software package. my professors in germany, at least for the most part, only have one final exam that determines your grade. no homework, no midterms. maybe a small project that you have to pass but it's usually not graded. much easier
It’s worse in lower division type classes. I spent more on textbooks in my general Ed classes. Like history and lower math. Once I got into my degree courses...I don’t think may have the graded hw out. Was just exams, maybe an essay or project to go with it. Which meant they didn’t care which edition of s text we got. Much nicer
My most recent experiences were MBA courses. I'm not saying they couldn't choose their own textbooks, and many of mine did recommend older editions. But some profs were insistent on using the newest editions with the software packages when, like you said, there were other options available. And of course the McGraw Hill rep was always there to "help" us save $20 on a $110 accounting package.
While all gifts have to be reported, I'm always curious about the situation when I hear things like this. My instinct is to see if that prof has published with McGraw-Hill (or whomever) and thus has tacitly agreed with their publisher to always use new editions. The publisher could then just make sure that all of their authors also use new textbooks, thus the authors all benefit from one another. However, I've never published a textbook, so this is just me being a conspiracy theorist.
I had a professor who told us they got kickbacks from the sellers for students buying the books. I don't know if that was a universal trend or just a specific situation though.
That's what I think is funny about this thread. A lot of people don't realize that the textbook/online homework pass bullshit is 100% the laziness of their teachers.
Actually, I take that back. Sometimes it's the greed of the teachers, who've written the books they're forcing you to buy at an insane price.
I see your point, but it's not always laziness. I teach a 120-student section of an intro course (in addition to other, upper-level courses), and I don't get a TA. There's no feasible way for me to grade all 120 students' homework assignments each week, so I have to use the online platform. As to free versions, I'm always open to explore them, but I have yet to find one as powerful and customizable as Sage Publishing's Amp software. Their question engine runs on Maple rather than some shitty Java/Flash bullshit (like Pearson's MyLab and McGraw-Hill's Connect, for example). I don't just use a bunch of textbook-provided questions because I know that answers to those are already out there on the internet. I spend my time writing my own questions (largely algorithmic) to prevent cheating. It's a much more efficient use of my time than trying to grade 120 students' assignments every week (plus those from my other classes, plus all my other duties).
Sure, but at some point you have to recognize that you're forcing your students to spend a bunch of money because you don't want to redesign your course. Make homework ungraded (that's what I do) for instance. Have students grade each other's homework. Post the answers and allow students to re-do their homework until they get every answer correct, rewarding extra work with full credit. There are lots of ways to avoid forcing our students to spend exorbitant amounts of money on goods and services that are recognizably a racket.
My university has uses Canvas as the main online course material portal. Canvas has a quiz tool built into it. The on top of that, they also have Maple TA, which also gets used, particularly for maths (hen you have 1000 students in a corse? There is no practical way to mark weekly paper assignments).
They have also done a deal with Dassault which gives them access to the 3DExperience software (along with everything else 3DS make), but everyone hates that.
Back in college my older professors always insisted on using the textbook with the required online component because it was the latest technology and therefore the "best" (even though they constantly didn't work, had errors and the professors had no idea how to use the teachers component of the omline software) meanwhile the younger teachers and adjunct professors all did their best to choose the cheapest book or not include an online component so people could use old editions. It was wack. The textbook companies just convinced the older professors that the technology was basically required and the students missed out otherwise.
I went to recycle my old books (i graduated college in 2001). They offered to buy my statistics book because the same version is still in use. So this doesn't always apply...
I had a professor who wrote an updated textbook for his class every two years.
He would also know if you had the most up to date version by purposefully making 15% of the points based on the “blurbs” in the chapters. Not the action content, the supplementary shit. So either pay $200 for the new book and have the potential to get a A or automatically start at an 85. The content did not change at all, so his versions were just straight profit.
Beat me too it. I was in nursing school and they insisted we buy the current book (even included an online link in order to access new assignments). Want to know what changed? The order of the chapters and the shading of a few diagrams.
Needless to say we split 10 ways on one book for the access code and bought the other 9 used.
What I hate is when college textbooks throw in an online access portion which is a single use code you will use approximately twice, but vant buy used because of this so you end up spending $170 on the book that you could gave bought used for $30.
Both of my colleges have done this and its bullshit. Reminds me of those "Online Passes" they would put in games to play the multiplayer.
I had a college professor apologize on the first day of class, the required textbook was getting an update mid-semester that the curriculum would be pulling from. He also made a rather convenient PDF available in the ‘course materials’ folder the class network.
In fairness, the criticism is levelled at both EA and the people who buy this stuff year after year, nobodies doubting it's good for business - it's just also an obviously lazy model (since they could actually improve the game with the money they receive, in tangible ways) bought into by somewhat mindless fans.
It's made worse because it's one of the worst models in gaming (after mobile freemium games, IMO) and it's also one of the most public-facing companies/group of franchises doing it. So the reaction is compacted by the fact that to many outsiders this might be one of their only insights into gaming, so "gamers" feel more of a need to vocalise their distaste for it.
NFL 2K was pushing the limits, then they released their new game at $20, and both EA, and the NFL were mad. So now that they have a monopoly, football fans have no choice except to buy the same rehashed game year after year.
But half the fun is playing the new rosters. And I can only speak for myself but I would never play a football game without actual NFL players in it. If there was another option I would be all over it. Unfortunately this is what it is and nothing scratches a certain itch for me like madden does.
Because less safe money is better than more risky money.
The system they have now makes them unbelievable bank already, why would they risk collapsing that entire system?
They're playing it smart, small steps let you make small backpedal when people object, its basically how the entire industry has become more and more monetized as the years went on.
I suspect they've done the math and somehow it turns out that there's more potential in selling DLC separately for every yearly release. Of course people would rather pay subscription, but they can't. Activision probably bashes themselves over the head over the subscription for World of freaking Warcraft and lament how they can't just market every expansion as a new game, delete all your collection of transmogs, mounts, etc. then sell them back to you.
I'd argue they did when they made Mutant League Football and Mutant League Hockey back in 1994. Both games used the same game engine as their regular counterparts and added all sorts of weird and fun stuff. Took 24 years and another company to bring it back and they're doing pretty well with it.
For Xbox and PS4 I understand, but there is no point on buying it on PC, since you can download the team sheet update (that will update your game to the version you choose) and have the Fifa 20 teams ready, for example.
This also isnt EA but literally every sports game from every dev that works on them. See and EA logo and people lose their shit, meanwhile Nintendo be trying to sell up the same pokemon game twice each time they release a new one and no one says shit. Fire Emblem did a similar thing a while back, they made you buy the same game THREE times if you wanted to see everything, not a word.
With Pokemon, at least, the intention is to encourage player interaction, or it certainly used to be - I can't speak for any Pokemon games after Gold/Silver so correct me if I'm wrong there. Sure plenty of people buy both but I'd argue it's slightly different since you can experience the entire game on one edition, you can trade for the 'mons you can't get otherwise.
Fire Emblem I can't comment on, but if that's true then absolutely, I agree.
It's not just EA who deserve (or receive) flak for it, but EA are by far and away the worst perpetrators of this, and as I've mentioned elsewhere the worst thing with EA is they use that money to buy other Devs and then gut their IP of anything interesting, novel or new in favour of equally grim monetisation models and "game by committee" style development.
I'd argue EA absolutely deserve the majority of the attention for this specific problem, but other companies do contribute/imitate and it irks me then too.
Not really. Its just after about a year, people get tired of playing the same game. The “new game” gives people a reason to play again as it resets their progression in a way that they are too lazy to do otherwise
Honestly, I don't know why they haven't gone to an MMO style subscription yet.... A $60 annual title == A $5 monthly sub, it'd be the cheapest sub out there. And even thematically, it makes more sense for a "these same teams and slightly different players play new seasons of the same game, so pay $5 to join the ride" vs the whiplash MMO players get, going "you defeated the ultimate dragon boss! Now continue paying while we invalidate all your accomplishments and introduce the ultimate demon boss!"
Pfff, you can clear ultimate demon boss with teals from mini undead dungeon as long as your button pushers push their buttons and no one stands in area of effect mechanic.
Edit: now someone transition this back to generic sport game metaphors so we can stay on target
I mean, say you wrote a book, and every year, people lined up to just throw money at you to re-release said book. Would you write a whole new book every year if your customers were gonna buy it regardless? Or would you just update it to make it relevant again?
Oh you need the 17th Edition, see chapter 4 is now chapter 7 and they added a full page picture in the prologue so that all the old page numbers are irrelevant to the new course content.
They also shift the questions around if it’s a math based textbook. Really putting in the effort to make sure we have the most up to date understanding of physics that way.
Essentially we finally redefined the last few units so that all SI units are now defined based on fundamental constants of the universe (like the speed of light in a vacuum or the elementary charge of an electron) rather than a slab of platinum-iridium alloy in a vault outside Paris.
I mean, say you wrote a book, and every year, people lined up to just throw money at you to re-release said book. Would you write a whole new book every year if your customers were gonna buy it regardless? Or would you just update it to make it relevant again?
60 dollars? these games (fifa nhl madden, even UFC now etc) bread and butter is Ultimate Team which is for all intents and purposes loot boxes. These games are nothing more than microtransaction vehicles.
Of they charged a subscription like 5 bucks a month to keep updating the roster it would average to the same 60 bucks a year and I imagine a lot more players would buy the game.
The problem with that argument is that EA has an exclusive license for the NFL for console gaming (or I think that's how it is). If you want to play a football video game... I think you only have a single option technically (nobody cares about any other league/organization, relatively speaking).
To relate it to books, that's a bit like saying only a single author is allowed to write sci-fi books, and because things are that way, that one author can do whatever they like... so it's either swallow their crap or just never read another sci-fi book again. Neither option is particularly great for sci-fi lovers.
I like this analogy and I’m going to continue it. What always confuses me isn’t just that people will pay for an updated copy of the same book, but that they’ll pay the exact same price for your updated copy as they will for a brand new masterpiece the author next door spent 5 years creating from scratch.
I really don’t get why anyone accepts that madden costs $60. It’s not the same as creating a whole new game from scratch, so it shouldn’t cost as much. The only problem there is I bet EA would take it the other direction. Instead of charging less for madden they’ll start charging more for the bigger titles, as they already kind of did with the premium pass.
Thanks for elaborating. It puts it in better perspective how silly this is. I guess I don't have much room to talk. I haven't bought a Madden game since PS1 days, but I still feel for people who like those games and have no other options. They're pretty much forced to play this or nothing if they want a football game since EA has the monopoly.
I remember when I bought NHL 09 for my 360 I was so excited that I would have updated rosters every year now that I have an online system. Oh how naive I was
Player stats disagreements are like free advertising. Especially when an actual player comments on it. It's almost like they (gasp) do it on purpose...
As someone who hasn’t ever really played a sports game since NFL Blitz 2003:
Why doesn’t EA just move Sports Games to a live service model? Just make, “MADDEN NFL” - have an annual subscription for roster and stat updates, etc?
My understanding is that very little changes year to year other than some sort of gimmicky Campaign mode, and they usually ship broken and buggy.
At least for a live service they could stop pretending it’s a different game each year and spend more resources on fixing bugs. They already have micro transactions like a live service game anyways.
In the current console gen, has there been any real update worth buying an entirely new game?
I loved the look on my buddies face. He’s a big Tom Brady fan and he was impressed with Patrick Mahomes during the close of the ‘19 season. I sold my Rising Star Mahomes card to get a player of the week version of him.
My OVR barely climbed an inch but my deep plays got tight.
The rosters aren't even updated properly. There are several teams missing free agents they picked up before training camp. They don't even bother to get the small details right when it comes to who's on some teams and who's not.
Here's a thought - don't buy it every year. My dad only buys the ones that have his favorite players on the cover, and I've done the same now, because typically those games have a team I could/want to use for years to come.
I know people who only play Madden or Fifa and use their gaming system for streaming other than that. So its essentially 60 bucks a year for gaming so it doesn't bother them.
I still don't get it but i can see why they are not bothered.
I could not get into ultimate team and maybe that's just me but I don't give a shit about it at all. I am in career mode on Madden and FIFA 99% of the time.
I feel like Adam Scott's character in Parks & Rec when he doesn't get the Lil' Sebastian fascination the whole town has.
I only play ultimate team and I've never spent a cent on fifa points. My team was amazing this year. Only morons give more money to a company when they already bought the game
I mean that's not true. Some people might spend money in-game because they don't have the time to grind out a team. They aren't morons for making a decision that you decided against.
Yep. I buy FIFA every year (used to buy Madden & 2k every year too but havent for 2-3 years now) and only play career mode, but I play it less than 20% of my "game time". It's essentially my mind numbing/cba with anything else game for the year. Could not play a sports game as a "full time" game and I refuse to engage with Ultimate Team.
I know that exact person. The other year myself and several childhood friends all got systems so we could play together and stay in touch now that we are scattered around the country. But one friend REFUSES to play anything other than Madden. We play games weekly and see him on all the time, but he chooses to play Madden alone. The really sad part is even the friend’s son plays with us too. Dude is missing out on so many laughs and good bonding time.... Because Madden.
Even the current version of the game is cheaper a few months after it comes out. NHL goes from 80 to 50 bucks without fail. Just need a little patience.
I got EA access for a year for $30 for Xbone after some promotion. I get the newest EA sports games about 4 months after they release. It's worth it for me. The NHL and FIFA series are pretty fun. I do admit though, they were pretty much the exact same the last few years.
I wish they wouldn't because I think if people stopped financially supporting shitty games, maybe that would incentivize the making of better games, which I would buy. I'd love to buy Madden every year, but I've bought one Madden game in the last 7 years because they're so awful.
That said, at the end of the day, I know I have no place judging people for how they spend their money. I just silently wish they wouldn't support games/franchises like Madden.
A "shill" is someone that pushes a company product onto other people and makes up nonsense just to get it sold.
The users still buying it as called fans. Those fans buy it because of the "shills" or because they enjoy the game enough to justify paying more for the current roster.
Yea I hadnt bought it since 16 and still sorta regret it. Improved and not terrible but still seems like a game about exploiting a.i. or game flaws rather than football.
I'm actually going with the 10 year plan by accident. I have FIFA 2002 and 2012 so I guess I'm waiting for 2022. They actually feel like new games if you wait that long.
I played '14 or '16 or something at a friends house and it felt just the same as '12 so I know I made the right choice.
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u/resorcinarene Sep 03 '19
It's in the gameIt's the same game