In response to the trumps of flatulence sounding about how much worse BoA is than EA, yes, you're right. Want a cookie? You're still missing the point.
This was a web poll on the consumerist. A site where people can *****, moan, and vent about how company xyz pissed them off that day. (I know I'm oversimplifying but hey, pot, kettle...) This is not the goddamn board of the IMF deciding who to blame the global economic downturn on. This is a web poll which 'awards the winner' a gilded lump of shit. This was a poll to let people say 'This company rustled my jimmies and I'm not happy.' This is not a meta-score to decide which skyscraper Tyler Durden will bomb first.
Did you all miss this section of the article? Seems OP did, because it's directly prevelant to (indeed, preceeding and following) her quote, and casts the whole thing in a much different light.
To those who might sneer at something as "non-essential" as a video game company winning the Worst Company In America vote: It's that exact kind of attitude that allows people to ignore the complaints as companies like EA to nickel and dime consumers to death.
For years, while movies and music became more affordable and publishers piled on bonus content ? or multiple modes of delivery ? as added value to entice customers to buy, video games have continued to be priced like premium goods.
'So what if EA is directly responsible for the vampirism of wonderful developers and wyrmish hoarding of popular IPs? So what if EA are directly responsible for laying off hundreds of skilled employees and outsourcing QA and entry-level design and programming work overseas, thus further denying new entrants into the industry the opportunity. So what that their staff are forced to work sweatshop hours without benefits due to unrealistic release schedules? THERE ARE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR HOUSES!!!!!oneeleven!!!11' This appeal to worse problems strawman is not an acceptable argument.
Yeah, forget the argument that some of those people are clearly living beyond their means. Forget that there is a legal framework designed to protect people who are the victims of improper foreclosure. Forget that there is an oversight body designed specifically to forward serious complaints about the actions of the banking industry. Clearly a web poll (that they already 'won' 2 years running) is the right way to stop them.
So That aside, BoA is still arguably worse than EA. So what? We've got to meta-vote what few means of expressing our dissatisfaction with a company's behaviour we've got left (that don't result in DING DONG BANNU) just because another company we might not have any dealing with whatsoever is an arguably bigger dick?
Fuck that, I'm going to vote for the company that pissed me off the most. And, and this is important, notice I haven't even ONCE mentioned the game with the Neopolitan ice-cream ending?
To Paraphrase Jim Sterling: You can turn your nose up at people who do this as childish, but at the end of the day, they're the ones who get results. I'm going to go with the ones who get results.
