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EA Responds To Its Appearance In the 'Worst Company In America' Poll
beerdragoon writes "Electronic Arts CEO Peter Moore has responded to the company's appearance in the finals of the Consumerist's Worst Company In America poll. Moore accepts some responsibility for some of EA's past failings: 'I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve made plenty of mistakes. These include server shut downs too early, games that didn’t meet expectations, missteps on new pricing models and most recently, severely fumbling the launch of SimCity. We owe gamers better performance than this.' However, he ignores or contests many of the common complaints about the company — issues that earned it a spot in the finals for the second year in a row. Quoting: 'Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period. ... Some people think that free-to-play games and micro-transactions are a pox on gaming. Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games."
This isn't the first time they've received such honors and they're still complete and utter bastards.
Don't like EA and where they're herding the gamers? Don't buy their wares.
Simple,
Steve (from beyond).
News at 11.
There was plenty of proof that the Always Online was purely a form of DRM not necessary for the gaming aspect of the product.
Track IP - Remotely track the IP address of a machine via email or MySQL.
Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme ... We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. We did it because we're a**holes.
Fixed that quote for you.
"Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not."
If the always-on thing isn't there as a copyright enforcement thing, a crack to remove it won't run afoul of the DMCA. Thanks for giving your blessing on that, EA.
"When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck" -James Whitcomb Riley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_typing
In the end, it doesn't really matter what you say or how often you deny that it's a DRM scheme. It's how your customers see it now, it's how they react and interact with it, and that's what it will be. Your ineptitude & outright idiocy brought this on yourselves, so you can stop calling your customers liars & ignoramuses - and just fix your crap. You know, try to do something competent and classy to improve your image. Or you can just keep doing what your doing and see yourself on this same list next year and every year, EA.
So it wasn't for DRM at all? Well then they truly are out of their minds for implementing an always online requirement...
This is the same poll that last year judged us as worse than companies responsible for the biggest oil spill in history, the mortgage crisis, and bank bailouts that cost millions of taxpayer dollars.
There is a lot wrong with EA, but saying they're the worst company is fundamentally bullshit.
Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games.
9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape.
Always-on is absolutely necessary for them. They make WAY more money by forcing everyone to trade privacy for functionality. Everything else is completely secondary.
Good-bye
I bought SimCity in the preorder, and I've only been able to play twice. $71 for two hours of poor game play will piss off people enough to never buy your products again. By refusing to give refunds for what is obviously broken and unplayable, you have lost customers for life.
The vapid DRM "argument" aside, the ridiculous take on micro-transactions is actually shocking. Is it that hard to believe that people can like a game, but hate the micro-transactions in it? I guess putting his fingers in his ears is what he's paid for, but still..
Why is there nothing about refusing to honor the free game offer? The only reason I didn’t return the game to Amazon was because EA originally offered a free game to make-up for the game being unplayable so far. Now I have no free game, can’t play SimCity, and no refund. I will never trust EA again.
I'm voting for Ticketmaster, at least EA makes stuff.
I think it is pretty sinister for him to dredge up "US vs THEM" protesting in his "apology".
Remember, one thing EA does is to hire fake protestors to get controversy for their game!
Stay classy EA. Even in your apologies, you ooze evil.
God spoke to me
They've had products with glaring bugs that exist for years, yet never seem to shame them into fixing. Their multiplayer games are hopelessly hacked and they only release rare patches. I was a big fan of BF2142 and while the game play was excellent, the 1st release was so bad you could only play 1 or two rounds in a row before the game crashed. The update system is so bugged, I couldn't even play it now if I wanted to.
EA is like a guy who beats the crap out of his wife, but doesn't think it's a big deal because she hasn't left him...yet.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period.
EA continues to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is not a DRM scheme. It is. EA still wants to lie about it. We can't be any clearer - it is. Period.
Ask me how the Heisenberg Principle may or may not have saved my life.
'Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. Itâ(TM)s not. People still want to argue about it. We canâ(TM)t be any clearer â" itâ(TM)s not. Period. ... Some people think that free-to-play games and micro-transactions are a pox on gaming. Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games."
Failure as a Jedi, you are, yes. Convince us not for DRM, you try. But to the dark side your company has gone, yes, ooh. Doomed you are to fleeing customers, endless propaganda. Always there are two, the incompetent and the enslaved. Profit-mongering leads to DRM. DRM leads to falling consumer confidence. Poor reviews... lead to suffering.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
This is the same man that screwed up the Dreamcast by refusing to negotiate with EA for sport games. I believe his line about EA support was "we don't think it's important to have Madden on our system."
He's not exactly gamer friendly or customer friendly.
We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period.
No, not "Period." Tell us what it is then! Simply ending the discussion isn't received well by the 8 and up crowd.
I stopped buying EA games entirely after spending over $100 on Battlefield 2 software that I never really got to play. Spent weeks getting bounced around their tech support queues: "It's their fault!" "No, it's punkbuster's fault!" "No, you need to reinstall everything!". The game would work flawlessly exactly once after a fresh install of Windows XP 32-bit (their only supported OS), after which the only way I could get the game to not hang at the load screen as a server started a new round was to completely reinstall Windows. Uninstalling only BF2 was insufficient to fix the problem.
It's too bad--they've made a lot of games I've really wanted to play, but I no longer trust them to deliver a working product. Seeing the experiences of friends who still buy their games has only solidified my anti-EA position. They seem to have trouble making so much as a cell phone game that provides a playable experience.
Good luck changing my mind, EA. Maybe in 5 years ago if your behavior is really good I'll think about lifting my boycott.
To say nothing of what the company is like to work for.
Looking at the videos I was really excited for it.
But when I found out it would be always on I decided to wait for a bit before buying.
Then the whole launch fiasco happened, and I decided I'd wait even longer.
Then I read about the gameplay and I decided the game sucked anyway, so i won't even bother trying it.
The last EA game I bought was generals zero hour.
And that was only because a friend of mine insisted we play multiplayer.
I seriously doubt I'll buy any games from them in the foreseeable future.
EA or Ticketmaster for the final in worst company. Wow, that's one difficult decision.
Because now it doesn't matter if they are wrong.... they've completely screwed the pooch with the people who expressed their negative opinion on the matter.
Eventually, of course, they'll have to rationalize the whole thing to themselves by concluding that these people's opinions simply don't matter to them anyways.
Way to go there, EA. Awesome PR. You will, I'm afraid, be eating those words eventually. Unfortunately, probably not before a whole lot of people lose their jobs.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
When a "worst company in America" competition doesn't have corporations such as Monsanto, Phillip Morris, etc, as contestants, then you know it is a load of shit.
Is he also going to skweem and skweem and skweem until he's sick?
Look, nobody's saying anything about the employees, who are all fine people that I've met.
It's the management.
Specifically the Board and the Senior Management and CEO/COO/CFO.
There's your problem.
They think we're cattle. Or sheep.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
if he says it's not DRM, that's good enough for the plebes who work for him, and it should be good enough for you too. Why do you hate capitalism?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
'Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period. ... Some people think that free-to-play games and micro-transactions are a pox on gaming. Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games."
Translation: It's not DRM, because we have a number of customers that don't hate it enough to leave!
No, DRM is DRM. It doesn't matter if some people can put up with it or not. It is what it is, popularity contests notwithstanding.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
EA is considered the worst company???? Get real! They are a video game company. Gee, if the worst thing that ever happens to you in your life is that your video game did not work properly a few times.... Then your life is really OK. It is more than just OK. YOU DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM SO QUIT YOUR BITCHIN Nobody died in your family. Your children are not sick, You have plenty to eat. You have a roof over your head. You have a computer, TV and internet service. And obviously plenty of money to blow on playing games. Life is OK.
"'Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not."
BULLSHIT.
The root problem with the new SimCity is not the always-on DRM crap (regardless of what it might actually be), its the fact that they took the game that basically created the god-simulation genre and ruined it by making it multiplayer-only with limited city sizes and other crap.
Dudley Cook.
There is a lot wrong with EA, but saying they're the worst company is fundamentally bullshit.
I liked Mass Effect 3, except the ending. They have issues, but like, the worst company? Monsanto and Blackwater/Xe/Academi are far, far worse.
Even in video games, EA isn't the worst: look how bad Sega's Colonial Marines was, or the crap Sony has pulled with the PS3.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
It is especially egregious because they are lying, and they know they are lying.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
They basically claim they didn't push the dev team hard enough, even though they are pushing them way too far as it is, and most of the problems have come from horrendous decisions at the corporate level.
4chan (specifically /v/) hates EA enough that they rallied their extremely large amount of users into voting for EA in this, and knowing 4chan I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are using proxies and similar stuff to register even more votes for EA. And of course we already know that they have no problem with significantly influencing polls.
After years of not using a signature, I am going to make one to say the following: Fuck Beta
"Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games."
[citation needed]
~Jarmihi
Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period.
A skunk by any other name still stinks.
I have a simple philosophy I adapted after getting screwed one too many times by game companies. I vote with my wallet. I don't buy EA, I don't buy Blizzard, and so on. While it has caused me to miss the occassional good game, it has saved me far more headaches I would have had. Companies like this need to close shop and let someone who is not a thief take over the games they had. Yeah like that's gonna happen. ;)
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.
Exactly. If the customers feel it is DRM and you can't easily explain how it's not (just saying it isn't doesn't count) than no matter what is true, you need to change the perception because that is the reality current/interested gamers are living in.
I love playing Sim City, but I won't touch that game with a 10 foot pole if you want me to "buy" something that I'm actually just renting. Give me something that I can easily use and OWN and you can have MY money. I will shove it in your hands. A good game that will play on my devices how I want them to, when I want them to. Why is this so hard to request?
Man comments like "Tens of Millions enjoy Playing like this" really tick me off. First of all. All of these tens of millions of people are they playing your games? No. You are reading this from some other company. Right now, YOUR company is in the spotlight and you seem to FAIL at delievering what the customer wants, but you know BETTER than the customer than what they want. REALLY?
Then it's DRM. Period. We can't be any clearer on this.
EA management's chronic inability to understand such basic things is truly remarkable.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Say no more:
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/granularity
"Some claim there’s no room for Origin as a competitor to Steam. 45 million registered users are proving that wrong." 45 million carried on the back of Steam (and others). I seem to recall -requiring- an origin account in order to play Farcry3. Though I have to admit it wasn't near as annoying as windows games in playing the Batman series. Pah.
'I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve made plenty of mistakes. These include server shut downs too early, games that didn’t meet expectations, missteps on new pricing models and most recently, severely fumbling the launch of SimCity. We owe gamers better performance than this.' However, he ignores or contests many of the common complaints about the company — issues that earned it a spot in the finals for the second year in a row. Quoting: 'Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period. ... Some people think that free-to-play games and micro-transactions are a pox on gaming. Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games."
To rephrase EA's CEO's words into how customers see things, you get this:
"Yeah, you all know we suck, so we have to admit it, finally. We screwed you by shutting down servers we knew you were still rightfully using, some of our games were complete crap, we gouged you on price (and we'll continue to do that, duh!), and we totally fucked up with SimCity. But too bad, suckers. You can suck it. And oh yeah, stop bitching and buy the next game, cause we wuv you, or whatever. Where else ya gonna go? So like, sorry or something?"
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I always say: If you find yourself in a BIG-ass hole, stop digging, or you'll look like a big asshole. Apparently Peter Moore disagrees with me, or just likes looking like a big asshole. Way to use an apology to make yourself look like an even bigger asshole, Pete.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Perhaps their microtransaction model doesn't appeal to those who enjoy(ed) their games. Just a thought from someone who used to enjoy their games.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
I remember buying the original Need For Speed back in the 90's, & it did not have Network play (TCP/IP). I bought it (for approx $50) & I was under the impression from all I had read that EA was gonna release a patch that included Network play. Welll, a bit later, here comes NFS SE with all that the patch was supposed to have, costing another $50... I complained to the company & they offered me a $25 off coupon towards NFS SE.........
It was like a slap in the face. Because I never would've bought the original if I knew a better version with networking was coming out not too long after I had bought it. Sooooo, it was in essence gonna cost me $75 to get what others were getting for $50 was the way I saw it.since I had already paid for the original.
Hated EA ever since. And, did Not use the coupon. I'm not going to say I've never bought anymore of their games. But I did pirate Medal of Honor AA & the Spearhead expansion. Never bought 'em. And still play Spearhead online on occasion even though most of the public run servers are gone now. That was my little payback.FWIW...
BTW, another little example. Spearhead *Still* has a bug, when you shoot someone they go to a squatting position as they run away, looks like they're scooting along on the ground & I've died & missed many a frag because of that heh. They *NEVER* fixed that bug. Too busy rushing to shove out the next MOH game...
FU, EA. Hope you go the way of the Dino. And you will.
c0AX
Funnily enough something I said yesterday rearding the MS tweet applies here as well.
Telling your customers they're wrong isn't going to convince them.
And look, they do not support Linux yet! LOL EA!
We don't know how to make this clearer. Always on internet is DRM. Period.
If it won't start without internet, it's as much DRM as "CD needs to be in the drive after a full install".
Being EA, or buying their products and encouraging them to continue business as usual?
Your assertion is incorrect. There are many games that do not like being offline and will nag you and Steam itself will do so and if it decides you need to re-assert you are not a pirate or it NEEDS an update, you CANNOT play offline until the Stam client does what it wants.
And offline mode is superfluous. Why should you have to set it to offline mode at all, if it can go offline?
Because they can't market your eyes if you're offline. And because you still have to, despite proving you bought the bloody thing, prove you haven't pirated what you just proved you bought.
Yes, the negative reviews are still coming in thick and fast for Sim City 5 at Amazon. Mostly problems with the server still. I can't imagine how broken the game/DRM must be for them not to have fixed that yet.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
"No, it works fairly well"
It works as DRM "fairly well", but the OP said it was the same pile of shit DRM. YOU thought the important bit was the "shit" not the "DRM". You thought that as long as it's "OK DRM" that it's fine. It isn't. It's still DRM.
Why should you have to set "offline" for a single player game?
Why is "you don't need to keep original media around" a plus point? Do you lose your shit so often?
And NO, YOU BOUGHT THE GAME. Though Steam allows Valve/Producer to ensure that you never get the benefits of your purchase. You bought it. You do not need a license to copy something copyrighted in a manner that is not covered by copyright, and the right to install and play the game you bought is not a right controlled by copyright.
DRM should not be.
Your "No" is bullshit: you mean "Yes", but you don't mind. That's not "No".
...... Most people still trust Google and think the company has the best interest in them.
All of these people are out of touch with reality and suffer from a rare disorder of selective stupidity and ignorance to be able to live under the rainbow!
Yep, I can confirm this. I even took part in it. Why? Because I know EA would respond to such an obvious troll. FOR THE SECOND TIME.
As is a common saying around large parts of the internet these days, Successful Troll was Successful. (hell, even that might not be common these days any more)
Not only that, they made themselves sound like bigger douches in their reply to it.
I really cannot believe they would reply to it again. But I guess it is true that EA are so fragile right now that any remote hints of insult against them as a company can cause damage to them.
Such a silly, pointless poll at that. Polls are always silly, but come on!
The funniest part is the fact that nobody botted for EA so they never won. That is what really stands out. Not even one remotely large-ish community cares, and the others are too small and/or have no clue about programming.
COO not CEO?
"Its not. People still want to argue about it. We cant be any clearer â" its not. Period."
Arguing like a 4 year old. Wooo adding the world period make it all sound final . --- is a period already.
Is too. Period to the infinity. I win!!!
"45 million registered users are proving that wrong."
Um... how many would be registered if the games can be played without an Origin account.
"Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games."
Tell that to Zynga. That's your future.
"Over the last three weeks, 900,000 SimCity players took us up on a free game offer for their troubles. "
What other choices did they have? It's not like you would refund their digital purchase.
'Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period"
We gamers, Your customers, are telling you WE DO NOT WANT the Always-On function in Sim-City or ANY GAME. You can say its not a DRM scheme all day long.We dont care if you call it a DRM Scheme or a function or a bonus or whatever. WE DO NOT WANT ALWAYS-ON CRAP.
You want our money? Remove the always-on crap. If you don't remove it you will NEVER get a penny from us PERIOD.
How thickheaded can you possible be. People are telling you you don't want it and you are arguing with your customers about what it is.
Who in the hell do you think you are?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I like to call it the Cheney effect, after the American Vice President and political pundit that perfected it. Strictly speaking it was Karl Rove's idea though. You just lie brazenly and publicly about something nobody really wanted to believe in the first place.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"We're going to try to stop and think before doing and saying stupid things."
(a small amount of time passes)
"This game that refuses to run unless you connect with our servers has no DRM, you're an idiot for thinking so, and we refuse to change it".
"People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period. "
In order to understand what a thing is, or what motivations and intentions are, we look to the action of an entity. We listen to the entity when it speaks because there is a chance it will point out some nuance of behavior we have missed. However, we do not accept assertions regarding action when those assertions are incongruous with those actions.
EA is a member of the set of companies that believe they can do whatever they like so long as they claim they aren't doing anything wrong.
Please, everyone, do the gaming community a favor and stop buying EA games.
Screw us, what about the development companies that spend years trying to get on board with ea only to be ground into the asphalt by their bullshit? We're complaining we don't get a fun game to pay? Screw us.
...Different day.
So lets get this straight EA: The fact customers don't want microtransactions in single player games and actually want offline, single player games is immaterial because other FTP games are successful, never mind the fact those FTP games are MMOs?
How in the name of [Insert deity you worship here or leave blank if you don't] has EA games not only survived this long with this level of incompetence AND beat Zynga for worst company?