I'm not defending EA on the Simcity launch. Anyone can see that it was less a failure, and more Finangle's Law in action.
That said, I am no EA apologist. However, when EA is considered the worst company in America over Bank of America, and when people are still bitching about the ending to ME3 a year later, it gets quite ridiculous. I was irritated with the ending when I played it, I'll admit. There really seems to be a double standard, though. When a developer does something good while being published by EA, it is the developer being awesome. When they make a game that is bad, it is all EA's fault.
Man, I should get hired at Bioware or Maxis. That way, when I screw up, I can just blame EA and have gamers support me because they hate EA.
Oh, and for everyone complaining about how EA kills off gaming studios, let me tell you something: if you had a studio under your control that was losing you money, you wouldn't keep it open because they people who buy their games likes them. They are costing you money. EA wasn't being Snidely Whiplash, twirling their mustache when they closed down Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, and so on. They made a business decision. It wasn't like they waited for them to make one flop, then pounced on the mistake because they eagerly wanted to kill off the companies. Not to mention the tiny detail that they admitted they screwed up with Westwood, but hey, people don't care when companies take blame. They only care when they deflect it.