EA launching a subscription-based MMO is practically archaic these days and was bound to lose subscribers by the boatload.  Doing business that way means that they're not seeing what customers actually want (in terms of purchases) which means they're not providing the services the customer wants (within reason) which makes subscribing rather pointless.  Being forced to adopt a free to play business model is not necessarily a bad thing, even if it is embarrassing to not have launched with it from the get-go.  The fact is, getting players to log on at all is the hard part, and a subscription requirement is one sure way to send them all packing.

On one end of the F2P scale you have players who log on now and then and maybe buy one thing or two but largely play as free as they can get.  On the other end you have players who like the stuff available in the store so much that they're willing to part with their cash.  It's not difficult to see that when you have a very large player base, this continuum of customers can generate far more business revenue than the subscription model.  Sure the servers will be packed and they'll probably need more hardware to cope with it, but that's something which is fairly easy to scale, if there's a constant trickle of revenue.

Why not? Do you think there will be no games without big publishers?

I hope so!

Yes and thats no surprise. Maybe D3 is a good game. I don´t know. I haven´t played it. (there is path of exile ) But friends, who bought and play D3 told me, that they like it, but its obvious that Blizz. designed D3 with the AH in mind. Money is all. 

What goes around, comes around.

This probably has more to do with the advent of free-to-play, and the aforementioned creative destruction, then anything to specific to EA. As much as I hate EA they still sell a lot of games and that's what really matters in the end. Big inflexible game companies are simply starting to look bad to savvy investors, with Activision Blizzard being the exception because of it's great IPs and profit. Add in Kickstarter and a more knowledgeable base and it seems obvious that the large dominate companies are going to lose some market share. No they won't go under or anything too dramatic but they probably seem overvalued to a lot of investors. Expect EA to churn out bad games for a long time to come even if a few less people buy them.

Another awesome company that outputted awesome games.

Why does EA keep screwing up the market and dragging it down??

EA killed Command and Conquer. For that there is no retribution. Burn Burn Burn Burn! 

I think you guys are forgetting that developers come and go pretty frequently. Very few people want to spend their whole life making command and conquer games. They get bored and want to try something new. Also, team sizes have grown over the years so as you add new people to the project you get new influences that will change the direction of the game.

Even if we didn't have marketing and other execs pushing the games in bad directions, the franchises we love would still drift in new directions, possibly for the worse.

EA and other companies are guilty of buying up companies and splitting the talent from the IP, usually valuing one over the other. This doesn't always happen though and there are some great games that never would have seen the light of day if not for the big publishers.

you guys all forgot Maxis.

even if the Sims did get repetitive, they were still better before Will Right was forced to resign because of what EA did to Spore.

look at these:

Original demo trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

Post EA modification:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDUIDO-Njho&feature=relmfu

I'm rarely the one to bring torches and pitchforks to storm a game company, but I hate EA.  I really don't think that I can come close to saying that about any other video game company.  I hate to be "one of those" internet people who sees in black and white and uses hyperbole like a fat man uses table salt, but I had a very bad feeling when EA purchases Bioware, and as much as I wanted to live in denial, everything that Bioware has released since has been underwhelming.  But, to be fair, I didn't bother with Mass Effect 3. 

If EA's first offense for you was Bioware, then you're doing much better than the majority of us who have been disappointed in EA games for quite awhile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electronic_Arts

just say which one was the last straw for you.

me:

Westwood.