April Fool's from DICE regards Wii U *spawn

(((interference))) said:
When even devs are taking potshots at the Wuu, you know your console is dead.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...or-frostbites-stupid-anti-nintendo-april-fool
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The follow-up to those tweets was one of the most stupid things I've seen in the internet coming from major corporations.
Peter Moore coming out, dissing his colleagues at Frostbyte to try to put out some non-existant flames was pretty dumb.

Then again, it's EA and they'll try to grab anything that might look like a positive spin on the news. Even if they still have no idea how to get that.
 
It was nothing short of unprofessional. I think its safe to say that if Mario Kart were to make a big impact on Wii U's userbase, EA would be looking to include Wii U with many of its future 360/PS3 releases. I never blamed EA for backing off support for Wii U, their games weren't selling well at all on the console. Attach rate was terrible for EA's games, and honestly Mass Effect 3 and NFS MW are two of the better ports to Wii U. Its not just the small userbase either, Wii U had a similar early success like the X1 has had, but EA's games have sold much better on X1 even with a similar userbase.

Dice can say and think what they want, but Wii U supports game engines that are just as good if not better than Frostbite.
 
I didn't know April fools pranks were supposed to be "professional".

It wasn't insulting to anyone, it didn't stain anyone's name, it didn't cause any difference whatsoever on people's opinions on WiiU, Frostbyte, Dice or EA.

Besides, if an apology had to be made, it should've been done through Frostbyte's twitter account.
Peter Moore coming out and stating that Frostbyte's April Fools tweets were "unacceptable" and "stupid" shows a huge lack of respect and consideration to the people who work on Frostbyte.

A good leader takes the hit from his underlings' mistakes and then takes care of things internally.
Publicly reflecting the guilt to his underlings to save face and try to somehow gain a personal positive spin is what makes a terrible leader.


Unacceptable and stupid is what I think of Peter Moore's part in this soap opera.
 
The remarks were boorish and given the ongoing mess that is BF4 Moore probably jumped on them to avoid a stink. Nintendo fanbois have a way of making more noise than the lackluster WiiU sales would suggest (witness the comment threads of every single indy game without an announced WiiU port).
 
Goodtwin said:
It was nothing short of unprofessional. I think its safe to say that if Mario Kart were to make a big impact on Wii U's userbase, EA would be looking to include Wii U with many of its future 360/PS3 releases.
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If Wii U sells a lot and EA wanted to release games on it, Nintendo would support them. They're not going to refuse a (large) publisher because of a April Fool's joke - that would be unprofessional.

AFAICS, DICE pranked Wii U/Nintendo fans with false claims, which is typical for an April's Fool, and they got upset. If someone leaked a game saying Halo was coming to PS4, or MS was releasing a VR headset next month, or somesuch, no-one would grumble when the fool was announced. The only real unprofessional aspect IMO was claiming 'Wii U is most powerful Gen4 platform' which is kinda taking the piss, but the Nintendo fanboys so want to believe it anyway that to give them this hope and then say, "April Fool", is rubbing their nose in their own fanishism. If they were realistic, absolutely no-one would have fallen for this April Fool because the opening tweet is an obvious falsehood. "Wii U is most powerful Gen4 console? Yeah right. Oh, look at the date. Ha ha, try harder DICE. Not falling for that."

Let's just list the tweets here:
Frostbite now runs on #WiiU since it is the most powerful Gen4 platform
Our renderer is now optimised for Mario and Zelda.

Frostbite will power #HalfLife3, coming out summer 2014!
#WiiU exclusive.

Good news. We have finally fixed and optimised our 'netcode'. Uses quantum entanglement for Zero Latency connections. Exclusively on #WiiU.
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They're even ribbing themselves with the mention of netcode (actually that's the most unprofessional aspect of the whole thing! DICE need to get their game working rather than make jokes, although maybe it is now?).
 
Shifty Geezer said:
AFAICS, DICE pranked Wii U/Nintendo fans with false claims, which is typical for an April's Fool, and they got upset.
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Did they really, where? I've not seen examples of ninty fans upset over these (pretty boring) "jokes". Personally, I found them unbelievable in the extreme, simply not funny at all and pretty much impossible to get upset over. They were simply too dumb, anyone who got upset over them must be an extremely insulated person, no touch with the world and anything which is the least bit important... ;)
 
Isn't it pretty common for organizational Twitter accounts to be run by non-technical PR staff or interns?

Sometimes there are bot-run accounts, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
 
I think a good april fool's joke would have been apologizing for all the BF4 bugs by announcing having secretly developed BF5 for launch this autumn.

That would have made tons of people blow coronaries so hard they'd go ballistic. :LOL:
 
Shifty Geezer said:
The only real unprofessional aspect IMO was claiming 'Wii U is most powerful Gen4 platform' which is kinda taking the piss, but the Nintendo fanboys so want to believe it anyway that to give them this hope and then say, "April Fool", is rubbing their nose in their own fanishism. If they were realistic, absolutely no-one would have fallen for this April Fool because the opening tweet is an obvious falsehood. "Wii U is most powerful Gen4 console? Yeah right. Oh, look at the date. Ha ha, try harder DICE. Not falling for that."
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The thing with that though is it's true. The WiiU would be the most powerful 4th Generation console. But given we're on the 8th? Generation now. :LOL:

I think it was a pretty fair April fools jest, Peter Moore was more of a real fool for coming out all macho and crapping on the DICE team. If they split what does EA have left?

My favourite was the Kaz Hirai is quitting Sony and has been in talks with Nintendo. 'We've hit an iceberg. I know what comes next. I just want to work at a company that actually has a successful handheld..."
 
BoardBonobo said:
I think it was a pretty fair April fools jest, Peter Moore was more of a real fool for coming out all macho and crapping on the DICE team. If they split what does EA have left?
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Wasn't it the frostbite engine twitter account?
I believe that's something EA owns so the team is probably not going anywhere, and I believe the engine is something EA is trying to sell as a product, at least when its marketing face is not insulting industry partners.
 
BoardBonobo said:
The thing with that though is it's true. The WiiU would be the most powerful 4th Generation console. But given we're on the 8th? Generation now. :LOL:
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I think a lot of folk are fairly counting from PS1, the advent of 3D gaming. Earlier generations don't contribute much to the present save a few franchises, and the generation numbering system is nicely marked by PS iteration numbers eliminating confusion for gamers who haven't been keeping count on generations since the first Pong machines.
 
3dilettante said:
They're all going to quit because their boss said someone's tweet was stupid?
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Of course not.
But now they know he's not the kind of boss who'll stand up for them when the time comes.

That will change the way they face future orders from the top. Either it's just a little or a lot, conscious or unconsciously, it'll depend on each person. But it's not a positive leadership sign.
 
ToTTenTranz said:
Of course not.
But now they know he's not the kind of boss who'll stand up for them when the time comes.
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That boss is trying to keep them from burning bridges with an industry partner and raising questions as to the marketability of the engine, which is the reason that team gets its paychecks signed by EA.
Do we know it's not some random intern that wrote the tweets?

That will change the way they face future orders from the top. Either it's just a little or a lot, conscious or unconsciously, it'll depend on each person. But it's not a positive leadership sign.
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I don't follow, trashing an industry partner IS stupid and unprofessional.
Using a PR vector that has official sanction is unwise to the extreme.
If an employee of an EA internal studio has a problem following orders in the future because someone, an intern, a programmer, I don't know, did something stupid and unprofessional, then maybe they are continuing a theme.

This isn't the first time a DICE-associated employee has thrown a little hissy-fit over Twitter.
Same thing happened when a few of them bad-mouthed Microsoft when the Xbox One's launch territories were cut back.
 
Goodtwin said:
Dice can say and think what they want, but Wii U supports game engines that are just as good if not better than Frostbite.
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Sure...
...
I thought the first tweet was a great jab at the Wii U fanboys by DICE, who are infinitely more pathetic than the Xbox fanboys in their desperate efforts to try and unearth the mystical, hidden power in their console of choice.

Yes, the follow up tweets weren't particularly funny, but then again, they are Swedes trying to make jokes in English.
 
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