EA. The only answer is EA. Online passes, every flavor of shitty DRM you can imagine, Origin, requiring EA accounts in addition to your Xbox Live or PSN account to play multiplayer EA games on your consoles, promising customers a free game and then taking it away and replacing it with nothing, followed by "giving it back" by making everyone in each region try to get onto a website on the single day they will hand out redemption codes, buying up studios only to immediately lay off half the staff which ruins that studio's current game and then shutting the entire thing down after that now ruined game fails, a bunch of public figures that flat out flame their competition and the games they are making without having the decency to actually back up their trash talk (what's that? Battlefield 3 didn't put a dent in MW3's sales at all and MW3 is the best selling entertainment release EVER?!), and the just plain general douchebaggery of their CEO (such as mocking Microsoft for having one celebrity guest at E3 in the form of Ice T before later bringing not one but THREE celebrity guests in the form of NFL players to his own E3 conference, and the aforementioned flaming of the competition and not backing it up).
*takes breath*
Fuck EA. I'm getting Mass Effect 3 and then I'm done with them. And it's really getting harder and harder to justify Mass Effect 3: I just hope they behave from now until the game's release.
Capcom and Ubisoft are both putting up a great fight for second place, though. Capcom for constantly promising games and then snatching them away from us, for constant rehashes of the same game with a few minor improvements, and recently for selling fucking CHEAT CODES as DLC for Dead Rising 2 Off The Record (don't think I didn't notice you trying the same shit for Saints Row The Third, THQ! Even if everything in your paid cheat DLC is unlockable in the game via other means, it's still a shit move to pull and I've got my eye on you). Capcom's so busy trying to milk us with the few games they actually release because they cancel all of the other ones. And Ubisoft? DRM up the ass and other general douchebaggery to PC gamers (we can't have whatever this "I Am Alive" or whatever thing is because PC gamers are all pirates? kiss my dick), being completely out of touch with the game industry (releasing mountains of shovelware for the DS and then claiming that only big budget console releases make money), and just missing the point about why people don't like their DRM in general.
217not237 said:
Activision. What GOOD did they ever do to their developers? Last time I checked, none, unless you count practically ruining the Call of Duty franchise.
If by "ruining" you mean "enjoyed by millions of fans everywhere and making craploads of money", then yes, Activision ruined it. Those bastards. And what "good" would you like them to do for their developers that other publishers do for their developers?
Honestly, Activision doesn't even register on my evil scale anymore. I can't remember the last time Kotick ran his mouth and said something stupid, so either my memory sucks or he finally learned to keep his mouth shut. If it's the latter, then I applaud him and hope his counterpart at EA can pick up on the technique sooner rather than later. And if it's the former, it's a good thing I disabled that awful "send PM if quoted" feature because I'd be buried in notifications otherwise.
Farther than stars said:
Either way, the reasons I dislike EA most of the ones on that list is because of the same reasons that a lot of people dislike them. They're purely money-driven and will even fire companies that still make a profit but not enough in their eyes. What else? They start controversies about their own games to generate press so that they can make a quick buck, but that gives gaming a bad rep in the long run.
So yeah, unethical and/or bad business practises like that.
Oh yeah, their stupid advertising campaigns where they generate controversy by paying people to protest or putting out dumb commercials about how your mom will hate the game. I forgot about that one, thanks for the reminder.
