Electronic Arts Repeats as "Worst Company in America"

[Aeonknight]

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.

That's what EA claims. Consumerist says they didn't get any comments or anything from the anti-LGBT community.

P.S. Thanks

Is it really that far fetched of a claim that the internet hate machine wouldn't hop on the EA hate bandwagon with the rest of you?

Even if you don't include the example I mentioned, how about the gamers who voted for EA, but won't admit that they supported said business practices they hate so much, by buying their games anyway? Do those votes get filtered out for having 0 validity? Of course not.

But you know what, I'm going to actually take some of the advice I've seen in these threads: "It's a stupid poll that won't make a difference."
Those posters are absolutely right, any website that tries to incite negativity and even models an award after fecal matter is a website that's not worth listening to in the first place.

 

[dalek sec]

PURE ANAL PAIN
http://www.dorkly.com/article/51363/eas-reponse-to-being-named-the-worst-company-in-america

I read that and had a good laugh at it. Is that real or is that just a gag? Cause if it's real he has to give enough of a shit to actually post something like that in response to winning. Every other dirtbag company would just shrug and not answer but EA took the time to write this up and post it, that's gotta mean something.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I WOULD say "Cue the whining about gamers being petty and BofA is SOOO much worse," but I think I'm a bit late to the draw.

I'm glad regardless.

BofA sucks, it's true, but I feel this kind of chart topping horridness will have more of an effect on EA's practices than it would on BofA's practices.

 

[blalien]

Can people stop freaking out over how stupid gamers are? Please, for the love of god

I'll keep my mouth shut until the next time a woman gets death threats for speaking her opinion.

You need to stop taking the opinions of vocal minorities so seriously.

Except all the video game forums were flooded with people directing more anger at the woman than at the people sending the threats. And I'm not just talking about Anita Sarkeesian, this shit happens all the time. If we want the public to think better of us, we need to clean up our own community.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Is it really that far fetched of a claim that the internet hate machine wouldn't hop on the EA hate bandwagon with the rest of you?

Occam's Razor suggests EA has more bias to make that claim than the Consumerist has to reject it.
That is, EA has more to lose than the Consumerist stands to gain.

Whatever the cause, EA really should have just kept their mouths shut and ignored the Consumerist poll entirely like every other company in the brackets, but instead they bit.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Bullshit. As much as I hate EA for what it's done to video games, that this company beat out both Bank of America and the Monsanto Corporation is a travesty. EA's a company full of incompetent nincompoops who don't understand the market or the products they create, but there are companies in this country who routinely ruin lives, steal homes and lobby the government to pass laws that make them immune to legal prosecution while they put out GMOs that may very well have carcinogens in them, but don't want to go through proper testing to prove their safe.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

EA now won't let me download Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 without installing their egregious Origin client, even though it's a pre-Origin game.

BURN, ************, BURN!

238U

 

[Nachtmahr]

EA is right about one thing. They release a lot of games. Many of them big AAA titles. So they get a lot of press and attention and are very visible in the games industry. Which is probably why they ended up in this ridiculous poll, rather than Ubisoft. Which is a far worse company in my opinion.

I do hope that Dragon Age 3 will be a hit, so EA and BioWare can finally get some good press again. All this internet hate against one publisher is getting old.

 

[Bleidd Whitefalcon]

EA is right about one thing. They release a lot of games. Many of them big AAA titles. So they get a lot of press and attention and are very visible in the games industry. Which is probably why they ended up in this ridiculous poll, rather than Ubisoft. Which is a far worse company in my opinion.

I do hope that Dragon Age 3 will be a hit, so EA and BioWare can finally get some good press again. All this internet hate against one publisher is getting old.

Would Ubisoft even qualify for this? I think they're French after all - and it is about the worst company in America

 

[Busard]

The amount of mad from social justice inturrrweb crusaders over the internet makes this absolutely worth it. EA's answer will be icing on the cake

 

[Gearhead mk2]

I'd like post something from another thread about this, I think it's a rather good point.

The reason EA crushes it in a competition like this is because people have been conditioned to expect that utilities, banks, and energy companies are just going to be evil. Malice for mankind is built right into the type of business they're in. Nobody buys a plane ticket sure that their experience is going to be rosy. Nobody takes out a loan and expects to walk out of the bank smiling, feeling like they're a valued customer. We go into those businesses expecting to be bent over, and we're usually happy if the company uses lube first.

EA, however, is supposed to be selling us products that make life happier. They're selling a product that's supposed to be a pure positive. Not only that, but they are so big that their business practices are leaking over into and influencing the rest of the video game market, an area of business that is deeply important to many people. So when a company is evil there, we expect it less, and so the betrayal hurts more.

Bank of America lost (and lost big) because everyone expects them to be assholes. They can be proud of that; that they got the #2 worst company in america because everyone expects them to suck and they didn't disappoint. But EA won by a landslide because they're not supposed to suck, but they do it anyway. Not only that, they do it with an open contempt that even banks and utilities have learned to at least try and mask. EA is so new to the "being evil" game that they're naked and obvious about it, and that's doubly insulting.

That's why they won. Because they're not supposed to be able to trade punches with BoA and Comcast and Ticketmaster, but they do it anyway, and do it well. They're the Rocky Balboa of shit companies. A well deserved win.

Good point, well made. But it's a sad state of afairs when we expect the companies that make society function to be assholes.

 

[Nachtmahr]

Would Ubisoft even qualify for this? I think they're French after all - and it is about the worst company in America

Ah yeah, you're right. My bad. Still, I think there are worse American publishers than EA. ActiBlizzard, or whatever they are called, are pretty terrible when it comes to customers. Diablo 3 was a massive letdown, worse than anything EA had done around the same time.

 

[Do4600]

Yes. Alright. We know. Yes. We get the idea. You're correct. Yes you're right. Yes.

EA is not the worst company in america, not even close to the worst company in america but they happen to be the only company that's paying attention to this poll.

Why vote for BoA if they literally will never hear about winning this internet poll. EA is the obvious choice if you want to have any impact.

EA does nearly all it's business online, through reviews, through metacritic, through their own online services. The infrastructure of video game companies has slowly been shifting online. When you want to know if a game is good, you check internet reviews, it's how we buy games it's how we preorder games and it's how companies advertise to us, through websites like this very one. Also the customers of video game companies are almost exclusively people who are internet literate, who have places they frequent on websites. In return video game industry people all have twitter accounts, they all have facebook statuses they all use forums and they all respond to online new stories in all of these mediums.

Bank of America doesn't do that at all, they don't have a quarter of the exposure online as EA does. How many Bank presidents have twitter accounts? How many use them to respond to forces within their own industry? How many bank reviews have you read online recently? Banks primarily use television to respond to other television or newspaper stories if at all. When was the last time a bank responded to an internet news story? How about Union Carbide?

If The New Yorker or The New York Times did the same poll the results and responses of the companies would obviously be different, you might have a chance to stick it to BoA, but then again your audience would be totally different, EA wouldn't stand a chance, as it should be in the world of television and newspapers.

For this medium, the internet, this result has a chance to affect EA. EA's investors get their information from online sources, because that's where EA gets criticized and graded, it's the only place where people can get a whole picture on the response consumers have to their products and thus the company overall. It weakens confidence and might force them to change their business practices or lose investors. Hit them in the wallet, it's the only way to get their attention.

So, yes, EA is not even close to being the worst company in america, but it's the best possible result for this poll because EA is one of the only companies on this list that should care what the internet thinks of them because the consumerist has just literally taken a "Golden poo" close enough to their place of business for their investors to smell it.

 

[saintdane05]

I think this is the official EA response. It is HILARIOUS! I'm not sure if it is Official, though.

 

[subtlefuge]

It doesn't matter, as long as EA is the only one one the list that doesn't at least feel some humility by its appearance, it'll keep marching right up to the victory podium. BP didn't come out and say "Soon you will learn to appreciate the oil spill." They became pathetic, begging for forgiveness and crawling around, but at least they understood their situation.

It doesn't matter that they aren't the worst company in America, they are the one who has some hope of redemption, but they are not listening to their customers, and worse yet, are learning the wrong lessons from their failures.

 

[Pebkio]

Dammit, guys... I really didn't want them to win.
...because I "purchased" their stock as a college project with the theme of "Video Game Publishers". Now their stocks are going to drop and I'm going to be poor and destitute.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Mad World]

You gotta love it. Banks and insurance companies are causing actual homelessness and are ripping off people and literally ruining their lives in this current economical climate. EA makes us play games with a constant internet connection and puts microtransactions into their games. And people proclaim EA worse than these companies that actually ruin actual real lives of actual families because MUH GAME IS RUINED BY DIS MICROTRANSACTION ;___;

First world problems on a GALACTIC scale.

And before the instant knee-jerk reaction, I'm not defending EA's shit business practices. They are shit, that's a given, boohoo waah. But comparing a gaming company making you unhappy with their style in the industry of video games against companies that force people out of their homes so they have to live on the street is paste-eatingly, mouth-breathingly, banging-your-head-against-a-wall retarded.

Shows what kind of world we live in. While I definitely consider EA to be a very bad company, it is not the worst in America.

Many people vote without thinking and/or knowing enough about what they're voting for. Or, maybe this is representative of society's priorities. Maybe people really do care more about things like microtransactions than that of the atrocities carried out by oil companies and banks. Hopefully, though, it's just ignorance.

 

[LiquidGrape]

Allow me to sum this up. [http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=53223780&postcount=480]

Pathetic, gamers.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

I don't agree but heres hoping EA will take something away from this, right AJ?
Fair play, screw erm. Evolve or die EA, its how nature works.

EA... learning? That is funny to me.

On a serious note, I expect that the only conclusion EA will come up with is that a lot of gamers have really jacked up priorities or just voted to spite EA; and thus aren't worth paying attention to in either case. For once in my life, I'd actually have to agree with EA here if that does end up their conclusion (which is the case, judging by Moore's response to this), and now I must take a good shower as saying that makes me feel unclean.

Captcha: "let go" I agree, Captcha. It's time to just let it go.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Well I'll never forget where I was when I heard the news...

I view the results more as a symbolic gesture by customers of EA who feel their concerns have been ignored and have used this poll to send EA the message that they really need to shape up as a company to satisfy their customers, rather than it actually saying EA are a worse company than group of robbing bankers, which obviously they are not. Even I will defend EA at their worst before I say anything nice about bankers who've made people homeless.

Just take it as it is, people just trying anything to make EA pay attention to how it is perceived and do something to improve that image.