Electronic Arts Repeats as "Worst Company in America"

[Brad Shepard]

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

Is this real? I need proof.

 

[bafrali]

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

Is this real? I need proof.

Of course not. It sounds like a compilation of forum arguments rather than an official statement.

OT: I am with Jim Sterling on this one. It is a golden fucking poo. Everybody should just relax and stop tormenting each other's conscience with tales of misery.

 

[Atmos Duality]

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

Is this real? I need proof.

Of course not. It sounds like a compilation of forum arguments rather than an official statement.

OT: I am with Jim Sterling on this one. It is a golden fucking poo. Everybody should just relax and stop tormenting each other's conscience with tales of misery.

Ninja'd. Yeah, that response is very obviously not from EA.
They would never, even sarcastically, tell gamers to not buy their games.

 

[Jmp_man]

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

Spoiler

Nah, looks like it was made by Dorkly. Just look at the watermark in the lower right.

 

[Therumancer]

EA is evil and all, but there's no way they should have won this. When a bank does evil, people go broke and lose their houses and stuff. When EA does evil, we have bad video game-related experiences.

Well, yes and no. As I pointed out in my previous post, when a Bank does something really wrong they inevitably face lawsuits and govermental action. Bank Of America paid out 40 billion in lawsuits for example. Pretty much every company mentioned as a potentially more worthy contender has faced some serious response for it.

With EA they have what amounts to a monopoly on their own IPs, you either deal with their crap, or you go without. No recourse. What's more they have intentionally set themselves up where so in order to even use their products and find out if it's bad you have to give up the right to join any kind of viable class action suit against them, you have to confront them as an individual and put your meager personal resources up agains their veritable juggernaut.

What's more the principles EA is establishing and getting supported in law right now could very well last for generations. The DRM, forced online connections, microtransactions, etc... while not their creation are being spearheaded by them and creating a world where this is becoming the standard way of doing business in this developing medium of entertainment. A Bank might forclose on someone's home unfairly and chance them out, maybe even ruin their entire life, that's bad, and easily understandable, but arguably EA is worse because while more nebulous what they are establishing now is going to victimize people for generations.

If you really think about it, you can see why this is.

To be honest I think what we need to be looking at here is not whether EA will change due to it's label as "worst company in America", but whether the US goverment will take notice and start taking action to render EA and other, similar companies, more accountable. Things like preventing them from forcing people to sign away their rights to a class action suit, making it mandatory that they provide refunds for products, quickly and easily, if such are demanded (like in the case of Simcity), that any kind of server dependant game or one with virtual property involved in it must be backed up by a trust fund sufficent to keep it operating in perpetuity, bans or at least tight controls on things like DLC, microtransactions, and DRM... etc... Not likely to happen of course, because a big part of the problem is that while EA might fight the goverment types trying to regulate game content (to an extent), it works closely with other people in the goverment to ensure that all of these greedy things it does are legal, protected, and action can't be taken against them.... which of course all goes back to "why people hate EA".

People would hate EA less if they were douchebags, but were periodically losing lawsuits to the tune of billions in response. Bank Of America is pretty bad, but again... they do lose, and can be stopped. With EA the big problem is that for all intents and purposes you can't even really fight them.

 

[marurder]

But EA doesn't CARE about it. They why they won, twice.

 

[Tien Shen]

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

Pathetic, gamers.

And BofA have already been hit with class action lawsuits as your example shows and have been forced to pay billions to thousands of Americans they screwed over. EA haven't paid their dues, yet.

 

[JemothSkarii]

Heeey, this isn't the R&P forum...

I kid, I kid.

Look, think about it this way. No matter who got the Golden Poo, the absolute most that would come of it was a moment of thought, You wouldn't have seen distraught bankers leap from windows, or groups of game designers hanging by their ties. The most that would happen now is Peter Moore sitting in his office sipping on a glass of scotch while looking at a note to bring back Westwood and Bullfrog. He then goes ahead to approve a Tali Karaoke DLC with 2 songs for $10 on it and immediately feels better.

That is all.

Also, posted because needs exposure:

Not trying to downplay what EA has done because they are pretty shit in their own right, but out of some of the companies listed I think they are much worse than them. Some of those companies screwed with people's livelihoods and somehow a company that makes entertainment gets the top spot.

Makes me wonder sometimes.

Just goes to show, that vidja gaems are srs bsnss

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.

 

[the_retro_gamer]

Fuck it's embarrassing to be a gamer these days... Fuck the "gaming community"... Whiney, loathesome, bigotted, entitled, self-righteous, detached from reality, mysoginistic and most of all and ever increasingly pompous!

You know that door is right there and you don't have to be here.

OT: Though I think that EA is not the worst company in america they do treat their consumers like mindless cash cows. The consumerist should change their contest name from "worst company in america" to "most hated company in america" in order to avoid people complaining on which company is more evil. Bottom all companies are greedy and "evil"

 

[RedDeadFred]

I'd hardly call ME3 a misstep. Sure the ending sucked (although the major problems for me were fixed with the EC) but besides that, it was pretty widely considered spectacular. Plus they have given out tons of free DLC. Sorry if you don't like the multiplayer but a lot of people do so don't complain about them supporting it. It's highly addictive and actually encourages teamwork on the higher difficulties.

Still, no surprise that they won. I hope they change some of their ways after this but given that this is a repeat win and they recently tried to convince everyone of how undeserving they were of being in the top 4, I think they will win again next near.

Edit: I should probably mention that I don't actually think they deserve this. At least, not compared to the shit other companies have done. Not even close. It's just not surprising because obviously the internet is going to rally against them. Kind of sad really.

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm gonna read the whole of this later, but for the moment I would like to congratulate EA on pulling that Double Turkey.

Mwa ha ha ha ha haaa...

 

[Zombie Sodomy]

I don't know about a three-peat. My vote will be going to Microsoft if certain rumors turn out to be true.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Not trying to downplay what EA has done because they are pretty shit in their own right, but out of some of the companies listed I think they are much worse than them. Some of those companies screwed with people's livelihoods and somehow a company that makes entertainment gets the top spot.

Makes me wonder sometimes.

Just goes to show, that vidja gaems are srs bsnss

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.

That post, my good man, wins a million interwebs, granted by yours truly! That is EXACTLY right~ I wanted to post something, but damn, that ninja'd me pretty bad XD

 

[Joccaren]

Mass Effect 3 a mistep? REALLY? Not in terms of financial success. The only problem that the most vocal of us sited was the damned ending. Do not tell me your sales figures were poor, that is bullshit. I refuse to believe it. Especially since DLC(SOME OF IT FREE) was produced for a full year after release, you do not continue to invest in a failed game. Fucking jerks.

That said, no, not the worst company in reality in terms of fucking people over. No that always goes to big banks and insurance companies. YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY IN GOOD HANDS IF YOU GO TO ALL STATE, DAVID PALMER IS LYING TO YOU

Article never said anything about sales figures.

"EA has repeatedly failed at three core requirements of running a consumer-friendly business," according to The Consumerist, by producing too many rushed, cash-in games, overpricing its products and then failing to properly support them post-release.

Basically, they didn't put enough effort into Mass Effect 3, and you can't really argue with that. The whole game was rushed. Not quite as badly as DA2, but still not great.

 

[Celinis]

Obviously to avoid winning a third time they should move somewhere far away from the U.S. like the moon. I am looking forward to the next Jimquisition.

 

[A Curious Fellow]

Why is Mass Effect 3 cited as a game with no post-release support? Bi-monthly free DLC isn't enough?

 

[likalaruku]

After a nearly identical outcome from last year's Worst Company In America, we continue down the line with the same apples-to-oranges-comparisons with companies dealing in the sales & production of luxury & entertainment coming out as worse than companies that can burden people with steep dept & bankruptcy. (ie EA vs BoA, Sallie Mae vs Ticketmaster).

Will The Consumerist be restructuring the format next time around, or can we expect the same results year after year? Perhaps go the Oscars/Emmys/Academy Awards/Raspberry direction & keep companies segregated by type & make individual winners for each category.