Poll: How do you feel about the denial of EA being the Worst Company in America?

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

As you may know, with EA almost certain to get the WCIA golden poo there are people being sycophants to the EA cause. How does the Escapist feel about how there are people who willingly embraces EA's horrible practices and not take a chance in bringing down low hanging fruit when one can see it.

 

[DoPo]

How does the Escapist feel about how there are people who willingly embraces EA's horrible practices and not take a chance in bringing down low hanging fruit when one can see it.

I don't care and I don't know why this thread was necessary. I don't like EA - I don't hate it either, I'm at most mildly irritated. I don't feel invested enough for more. I'm actually more annoyed by people taking every opportunity to shout EA IS TEH EVILZ!

What discussion did you hope to get out of this thread? I can say right now, you'll get people shouting EA IS TEH EVILZ, few that go NUH-HUH, and some explaining why other companies need to get the "award", because EA may not actually be the bastard spawn of Satan and Cthulhu. Oh, and some would question the reason for the thread - I'm one of those.

 

[Esotera]

EA are potentially one of the worst game companies around, but there are definitely worse companies in America than them.

Anyway, they can buy their products if they want, as I'm never going to buy them directly. I'll either get a used copy or just not play it...nothing is worth installing Origin onto my PC.

 

[madwarper]

No, it doesn't bother me. But, all of your poll options are awful so I shan't vote.

I have no idea who or what the WCIA is or why they're naming EA the worst company.
Sure, EA is full of dipshits making dipshit decisions, but there are far worse companies out there.

 

[hazabaza1]

They're a shitty company but nowhere near the worst. Stuff like this along with metacritic bombing are some of the many reasons why gamers still have the reputation of being immature idiots.

 

[ResonanceSD]

They're a shitty company but nowhere near the worst. Stuff like this along with metacritic bombing are some of the many reasons why gamers still have the reputation of being immature idiots.

"We raged about a substandard product which was broken on day 1 by giving it an appropriate rating on metacritic" = immature idiots?

I'll either get a used copy or just not play it...nothing is worth installing Origin onto my PC.

What's the problem with Origin? It's a game launcher. It's the least offensive thing that EA has done recently, yet makes up a staggering proportion of EA hate.

 

[NightmareExpress]

I despise EA, but I find it hard to label a video game company as the worst American company.
I'm certain that say...a certain bank would be a far more viable target for hatred. Something that actually effects your country, rather than something that you fall for time after time. Something that you can say is fucking your country up, rather than "I din' liek this vidya gaem".

I don't care if you sympathize EA.
Though...it baffles me why people would sympathize any big company.
Financial Stockholm syndrome, perhaps? Anyway, these options are pants and I don't feel as though my stance is thoroughly represented. Voter apathy all up in this *****.

 

[Comocat]

I suppose I fail to see how making lousy games nets you "worst company" status. Failure of perspective is so enormous whenever these threads roll out they make me angry, which few threads actually do. It blows my mind that conflating always online-drm with corporations that profit from making people ill or even kill is even a possibility. You know why EA can publish shitty games, because people who vote in polls like these apparently live on a sunshine and rainbow planet where the worst thing that happens to them is a game about building a city turns out to be poorly made.

 

[hazabaza1]

They're a shitty company but nowhere near the worst. Stuff like this along with metacritic bombing are some of the many reasons why gamers still have the reputation of being immature idiots.

"We raged about a substandard product which was broken on day 1 by giving it an appropriate rating on metacritic" = immature idiots?

Didn't say I always agree with it, but look at some of the other metacritic bombings. Mass Effect 3 had a bad ending, 0/10!!!!, A new Call of Duty was made 0/10!!!!!!!!, Portal 2 has purchasable cosmetics, [HEADING=1]0/10!!!!!!!!!!![/HEADING] (I wish I was fucking kidding)

There's some reasons to do metacritic bombing or boycotts or whatever but EA being EA is not the worst thing a corporation could ever do.

 

[tippy2k2]

I am just going to post the exact same thing that was posted in the original thread about the WCIA:
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I still can't believe people consider EA the worst company in America when companies like Monsanto and Dow Chemical exist.

EA do some stupid shit yes, but for Christ's sake get some perspective.

Amen brother! Preach it [User Name Retracted]!!!

Also, I'm happy that my bank isn't on here! Go US Bank!!! The horrible things we do are not quite horrible enough!

Hell, looking at this list...this is kind of a pathetic excuse for a "Worst Companies" list. A lot of these charge you for shit and have silly practices but there are very few "Our product literally kills you", "We took your house and will do nothing to help you out", or my favorite, "We just dumped a shit ton of our product in the ocean and fucked up the Gulf Coast for decades" groups.
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As to "embracing their shitty practices"...there is nothing EA has done that I think is so horrible that I would not purchase their products (although they like to say some pretty stupid things). Now granted, I am on the console so maybe all their genocide and pillaging occurs on the PC...

So I suppose I'm perfectly alright with "EA Defenders" since I am a self-proclaimed EA Defender. But even that's not 100% true for I don't really care about EA; they're a company.

EDIT: You know what, I'm changing my Title to "EA Sympathizer". Why? For funsy.

Spoiler

 

[mbkgen]

Most gamers are idiots, thats just the truth of it. EA isn't an evil company, they made their own digital distribution platform instead of paying Valve for putting their games online on steam so that makes them evil ?. Yeah right.

They made a huge blunder with their sim city launch but as anyone who has the slightest bit of idea about how a product release works, they would know EA aren't entirely to blame. You can't predict the amount of users you will get for your product and they have stabilised their servers for now. But they will keep getting the hate for eternity.

I like games made by EA more than other crap companies these days except ubisoft. Their sports games are the best games i can play with my friends and girlfriend on a console and no other company bothers or makes sport games as good as EA does.

So nah, EA isn't the slighest bit evil. Monsanto on other hand is an evil company in the whole wide America and people should hate them

 

[The Selkie]

It's not evil, but it's certainly quite a bad company from a consumer standpoint. I don't like them but I won't boycott their games over it. It's not like they're going to use the money to take over the world or anything.

To mbkgen, people's issue with Origin isn't that it's a rival to steam, it's that it isn't very good. At all. The initial server issues were frustrating, but as you said - that's to be expected from the initial launch of a large online game. Why people were upset is there's no reason the game couldn't have worked offline despite the connection difficulties.
Other points you've failed to consider is how EA does pretty much everything that's bad in the industry right now. Day one DLC, microtransactions, buying out smaller studios, shutting down servers and online passes - EA loves 'em all.

 

[AD-Stu]

As others have said, if people honestly believe that EA is the "worst company in America" then I don't think they've taken a very hard look at some of the other options. That's not to say EA is always a "good" company, but to call them the worst is to admit that you haven't even tried looking for alternatives.

 

[generals3]

As you may know, with EA almost certain to get the WCIA golden poo there are people being sycophants to the EA cause. How does the Escapist feel about how there are people who willingly embraces EA's horrible practices and not take a chance in bringing down low hanging fruit when one can see it.

The title and poll are misleading actually. EA is by far not the worst US company, i think apple and some banks would take that place. However EA is a horrible gaming company.

 

[Treeinthewoods]

When companies like Phillip-Morris, BP and Bank of America exist I see no valid reason that any sane person could choose EA as the worst company in a straight up vote. It's silly.

 

[Danceofmasks]

I'd go so far as to say the political parties are the worst companies in the US.
'cos that's all they are. Companies.
Money rolls in, they do what the special interest groups say.

 

[BrotherRool]

Your title bears no relevance to your question. There are companies that are polluting the world, exploiting the poor, uses dangerous practices and flouting regulations, abusing lawyers and loop holes. There are companies with important jobs to do and they don't do them. Nursing companies who don't even clean up the elderly's messes.


It's a game company. The worst they can do are make some games that aren't very good. On the things that actually matter in life EA doesn't do too bad
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Electronic-Arts-Hyderabad-Reviews-EI_IE1628.0,15_IL.16,25_IM1076.htm
http://www.csrhub.com/CSR_and_sustainability_information/Electronic-Arts-Inc

There are plenty of companies that do worse (I think Nintendo have an awful environmental record and Apple an awful factory employees record?)


And even if we pretended that games are important compared to human lives and environmental damage, treating EA like some unspeakable evil overlord is still silly. And not even really funny silly because there are too many people who actually believe that. People need to stop playing KotoR and Mass Effect and accept a non binary moral system into their lives every now and then

 

[Tom_green_day]

It's nice to see OP is objective.
I don't really mind, they've done right by me with the few games I've bought from them. Mass Effect 2 gave me Cerberus pack, Mass Effect 3 gave me extended cut and multiplayer DLC, Battlefield gave me... uh, an online pass? IDK I haven't played it much.
I understand they can do bad things... but they haven't done them to me. They must love me.

 

[Voulan]

I've always hated the DRM practices and shenanigans that EA has done, but I've actually never personally been effected by them at all. Granted I only have a few EA games, but in reality I've never seen any of the things EA supposedly does to their customers other than through extreme news articles. I'm not denying some customers get the short end of the stick at times, but a lot of the time these complaints seem overblown.

It's nice to have a scapegoat though, and EA happens to be just that. Granted, sometimes they deserve it.