Well now that EA has won this year, can we all make a promise and vote for Microsoft next year if their new console is always online? I mean sure there's Monsanto and BoA and Walmart.. But shit, this is my gaming we're talking about.
Electronic Arts Repeats as "Worst Company in America"
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
I'm going to avoid the general route this thread is taking and not bash EA while offering good advice.
Good Advice:
-LOWER YOUR GORRAM PRODUCTION COSTS!!!
-Open up an "Indie Branch" and find teams of recent college grads/indie devs willing to make unconventional games at smaller budgets
-If there's one thing Kickstarter proved, it's that there is a AA-sized market for games.
-Make shorter games with better core mechanics that sell for lower prices. See also: Bastion
-Diversify your products. Right now, you're only known for sports games and shooters. Invest in some strategy, platformers, and adventure games. People want those kinds of games.
-Grow neither complacent nor arrogant. Those two virtues are what caused Sony to lose terribly in this generation's console wars.
-Make products with the customer in mind.
-Create new and interesting IPs. 2007 is often lauded as a wonderful year for gaming, and it brought us Bioshock, STALKER, Portal, Assassin's Creed, and Mass Effect. All wildly successful, all new IPs.
Good Advice:
-LOWER YOUR GORRAM PRODUCTION COSTS!!!
-Open up an "Indie Branch" and find teams of recent college grads/indie devs willing to make unconventional games at smaller budgets
-If there's one thing Kickstarter proved, it's that there is a AA-sized market for games.
-Make shorter games with better core mechanics that sell for lower prices. See also: Bastion
-Diversify your products. Right now, you're only known for sports games and shooters. Invest in some strategy, platformers, and adventure games. People want those kinds of games.
-Grow neither complacent nor arrogant. Those two virtues are what caused Sony to lose terribly in this generation's console wars.
-Make products with the customer in mind.
-Create new and interesting IPs. 2007 is often lauded as a wonderful year for gaming, and it brought us Bioshock, STALKER, Portal, Assassin's Creed, and Mass Effect. All wildly successful, all new IPs.
Meh, EA isn't as bad as others but the trophy is kinda pointless anyways so going for maximum effect to piss off the one company actually caring about all this isn't bad either ^^
Note that this poll is made by the consumer-focused Consumerist. Their intended audience is people that buy stuff.
Haliburton's oil spills and BoA's illegal foreclosures on military families don't affect the majority of consumers directly. They affect families and are poor business practices, but they don't affect the products they sell (note many of BoA's foreclosures were made on mortgages they inherited from companies they bought).
The true focus of The Consumerist is companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable that throttle their internet or offer a "premium" service and charge monopolistic amounts of money due to their geographic monopoly. Ticketmaster belongs here. EA certainly belongs here.
EA won. Done.
As an aside, EA's stock took a noticeable dip last year when they won. This time, it's unaffected. They didn't learn then and certainly won't learn now. Keep buying those Battlefields and SimCities and Maddens, kids!
Haliburton's oil spills and BoA's illegal foreclosures on military families don't affect the majority of consumers directly. They affect families and are poor business practices, but they don't affect the products they sell (note many of BoA's foreclosures were made on mortgages they inherited from companies they bought).
The true focus of The Consumerist is companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable that throttle their internet or offer a "premium" service and charge monopolistic amounts of money due to their geographic monopoly. Ticketmaster belongs here. EA certainly belongs here.
EA won. Done.
As an aside, EA's stock took a noticeable dip last year when they won. This time, it's unaffected. They didn't learn then and certainly won't learn now. Keep buying those Battlefields and SimCities and Maddens, kids!
It's exposure. Exposure is more important then you may realize. Sure, this poo trophy isn't huge but when you can't trust media outlets to cover the shady dealings without significant coercion from the public they keep in the dark, a forum where you could vote an outlet into admitting how bad these companies can be would be pretty nice if you didn't have a bunch of disgruntled gamers who don't have their priorities strait mucking it up.amuasyeas said:
This, a hundred thirty-four times. EA is the worst company in terms of its treatment of consumers, not worst overall. This is a company that consistently struggles or fails to meet basic customer expectations, and in a "worst company" poll on a consumer-oriented blog, that's exactly the sort of thing that deserves to win.Scars Unseen said:
I think it's also worth noting that they have more direct competition that isn't pulling these stunts. Bank of America may screw over customers, but it's somewhat of an industry standard; people are so used to it that they (sadly) don't even think twice about it. EA, on the other hand, has the likes of Mojang and Valve to compete with. Their shortcomings are far more egregious for the games industry than Wal-Mart's or Comcast's or whoever's are for their respective industries. Realistically, this is probably the fairest way to compare companies that do entirely different and unrelated forms of business.
P.S. Thanks
It is online poll so it is simple demographics. People who got really screwed by Bank of America do not have as much presence on the web as the people who could not connect to the SimCity servers or did not like ME3 ending.
Objectively the bank should have won it but internet is not objective.
Objectively the bank should have won it but internet is not objective.
Well, EA will either dig its heels in further or reexamine its priorities. Only time will tell...
I think they keep winning cause gamers are trying to send EA a very stern message that we're sick of their shit.Fiz_The_Toaster said:
You know what the sad part is?
EA didn't just win this award for the right reasons (if you can even consider the absolute lack of perspective a "right reason"), they won it for some of the things they did right as well.
Example: the anti-LGBT groups actually voted for EA in this poll too for their stance on letting you create LGBT characters in their vidja games. Yet no one points this out, instead they just focus on "well my game had DRM in it" or "they actually care so surely more bad PR is going to help them change" or "banks are naturally evil, so being evil in nature can be downplayed because at least it's expected" or "well EA affected me personally."
Go ahead and justify this all you want. At the end of the day you're still just jumping on the hate bandwagon and giving a free pass to companies who have killed or destroyed the lives of others.
EA didn't just win this award for the right reasons (if you can even consider the absolute lack of perspective a "right reason"), they won it for some of the things they did right as well.
Example: the anti-LGBT groups actually voted for EA in this poll too for their stance on letting you create LGBT characters in their vidja games. Yet no one points this out, instead they just focus on "well my game had DRM in it" or "they actually care so surely more bad PR is going to help them change" or "banks are naturally evil, so being evil in nature can be downplayed because at least it's expected" or "well EA affected me personally."
Go ahead and justify this all you want. At the end of the day you're still just jumping on the hate bandwagon and giving a free pass to companies who have killed or destroyed the lives of others.
It's all relative. EA is a shitty company. The companies they won out against are also really shitty companies, but they are all really shitty in their own ways. Sure the ybeat Bank of America, but the lesson is that Bank of America is a piece of shit corporate bank who doesn't make videogames. Gamers are more internet savvy and ready to go than anyone who patronizes Bank of America. It doesn't make sense to put them in the same category because they aren't the same thing at all. Just like BP shouldn't be included with either company, and it goes on and on.
Opinions matter for shit in the real world. Bank of America, BP, EA, they are all hugely successful companies run by inept pieces of crap who don't care about you.
Opinions matter for shit in the real world. Bank of America, BP, EA, they are all hugely successful companies run by inept pieces of crap who don't care about you.
That was Peter Moore's party line; the folks at the Consumerist deny that there was any evidence of anti-gay sentiment in the polling.Aeonknight said:
EDIT: Ninja'd! That'll teach me to read to the end of the page.
Seeing as it's just an award given from public opinion I seriously doubt it's something that EA doesn't already know.Frank_Sinatra_ said:
Personally, I think some other companies listed should've won since they what they do is more damning.
But this is the award of public opinion, and gaming is srs bsn.
And thus once again it's shown that people can be a little too serious about things that don't really matter and not so serious about the things that do