@Panda14616 As much as I regret the loss of ads, and disdain EA's silence on this issue, I disagree with your attitude. And it is not unique to you, so please understand that this is an open statement and not a personal assault.
In my opinion...
EA wants to make money. For anyone who understands how business works, this should not be a surprise. You create a product and then find a market, or see a market and then create a product. Whichever comes first, the ultimate goal is to profit off of your efforts. When we go to work each day, we expect to get paid for the effort we put in. This only happens when the companies we work for show a profit from the products they sell. Whether that product is a hard good or a service.
EA sells entertainment products. As such, no one's lives depend on those products.
If a consumer cannot afford their product, no one is hurt. This means that they have a right to price the product as they wish. If I want it and can afford it, then I buy it. If not, EA needs to depend on others for their income. The economical logic of how they price their product is out of my hands. Sometimes profit is based on unit price, sometimes by volume of units sold.
I want a PS4. But, I cannot afford one, plus the price of games. Therefore, I do not own a PS4. This is not Sony's fault, or problem. This is the same for EA's products.
Actually, the fact that EA created a process, the ads, for people to obtain product they could not otherwise afford, was a generous move. They did not have to. Was generosity their motive. Probably not. Sales of TS3 store items had probably dipped and ad revenues were a way to increase store profits. When the ads were malfunctioning and they were receiving complaints, they decided it was not worth the effort to maintain them. Another business based decision. We may complain here, but we are no longer calling customer dis-service about technical problems on the site.
I wish the ads had continued. Or that they had come back. I was given much of my store content free through the ad program. (Some prefer the phrase "earned through watching.") I would love to see others have the same benefits. But I do not think their being gone makes EA a bad company.
That being said, I do have other issues with EA not supporting their customers properly once we have paid for a product. Notice my use of the term "customer dis-service." They are still selling TS3 at full price, knowing full well that there are bugs that will never be fixed. We are treated like pariah when we do call for support. They have not officially dropped support for the game, but good luck finding someone on the support team who has a clue how to help with even the most basic problem. It's just that dropping the ads is not one of the reasons for my current opinion of the company.
