I'm watching the video a second time (to gather my thoughts as I type, not to pretend it's somehow worse when EA does it). It's a shame that Drill Queen is nowhere to be heard.
The problem isn't even just that there is mockery of the consumer for them buying the product. Companies berate us for disliking a game. They berate us for expecting a game to work. They berate us for expecting a game to live up to claims and/or promises. And that's just disturbing. It reads as "what kind of moron actually buys the crap we're selling?" and that's an absurd notion. Further, it comes off as the kind of smug idiocy that led to the Xbone fiasco: gamers will like what we tell them to like. And while it did poorly for Microsoft, other companies have done far better than they probably deserve.
Of course, we do bear some of the responsibility. I know that not everyone's on NeoGaf and I understand that lying to the consumer flat-out is wrong, but at the same time, even when this behaviour is called out we as a consumer tend to reward it. Even informed consumers, even the informed consumers who scream "boycott!" buy the games quietly and hope nobody notices it on their recently played list. I think to some extent, we get what we deserve.
But all things, as they say, in moderation.
For one, we seem to have one of the most deceptive and/or facilitative criticism/review systems in at least entertainment media. Having done the occasional CD review (that's how dated my time as a music reviewer was, people still used these strange silver platters as a media vector), I was encouraged to come up with positive or constructive criticism, but I've never known an editor to encourage someone to outright lie. It seems that not telling a game company that its shit don't stink is something that will have people demanding your head on a platter. And again, gamers do that, too.
I bring up music because of my own experience with it, but also because audiophiles can be hateful, petty, and entitled. And yet, I've only seen one attempt to have a music critic fired for a "bad" review, and I'm not sure that was a serious attempt or hipster irony. In gaming, heads can roll and we help facilitate that by raging against people who don't tell us exactly what we want to hear. On this site we had people say crushing YouTube's gaming section would be a small price to pay to get rid of PewDiePie. And I assume most claims like this are histrionics, or even jokes. But some of the folks I know and have every reason to believe they're serious.
That is to say we, the hardcore, enlightened, edumacatued gamer are still often one of the biggest stumbling blocks as far as gaming goes. We are facilitators. Less so the common gamer, who might not know and honestly, shouldn't be expected to be this unreasonably in the know.
But I digress. Not only do we seem to have a worse system for evaluation of games, we have fewer recourses. Many stores won't even exchange physical copies, and digital services are "all sales final" in most cases. The GOG and Origin refund policies are considered novel selling points, and we're far from seeing it adopted elsewhere. You can pitch a fit for a refund on Steam, but even with broken games they are reticent to offer a real refund. Yes, there are exceptions. So freaking what? Basically, they can be cajoled into making exceptions. That's not a good model for the consumer.
One of the ways we guard against bad products is the refund and warranty system: if something doesn't work, we get to take it back. And the companies have to deal with that.
Meanwhile, addressing both the point of consumers not taking it and the later point that people frequently make an exception for EA, America specifically and maybe the West in general (but I don't know) seems to have raised a couple of generations with a sociopathic streak. Or at least a narcissistic streak: when it happens to someone else, it's all "boo hoo, you entitled idiots, go kill yourself." when it happens to them, it's "this is the greatest injustice in the history of mankind." And we do see a lot of that swing. It's not just "I don't care." It's "I don't care, screw you for caring, and I will berate you for it." There is berating behaviour whether you are just disappointed in a game or disappointed that you were sold a bill of goods.
The Simpsons once had an episode where Homer's attitude towards a gay guy is changed only because said gay guy saved his life. The character jokingly comments that if only every gay could save his life, they'd be set, and that's sort of the principle we have going: a bunch of people who can only relate to things as they directly impact them, hence EA getting so much hate even from the "Buyer Beware" crowd.
A nation of Homers. *shudder*
An extra big "Thank God For Jim" on that note.