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EA Repeats As 'Worst Company In America'

Posted by Soulskill on from the show-what-our-priorities-are-at-least dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Electronic Arts has successfully defended its title as the 'Worst Company In America.' Consumerist finished its annual tournament for bad companies, pitting notorious companies against each other in a single-elimination bracket where readers vote on which is worse. EA won last year, and today Consumerist announced the results of this year's final vote. EA was voted worse than Bank of America by 78% of participants. 'A made a royal mess of the SimCity release by failing to foresee that the people who would buy the game — and who would, per the game's design, be required to connect to the EA servers — might actually want to play at some point in the week after making their purchase. But that's just the latest in EA's long history of annoying its customer base with bad support.' Of course, EA saw this coming, and its CEO pre-emptively responded last Friday. Of course, many of his explanations and promises rang hollow for gamers who are sick of the company's practices: 'Until EA stops sucking the blood out of games in order to make uninspiring sequels, or at least until they begin caring about how much gamers hate their lack of respect for our money and intelligence, this is going to continue. We don't hate them because we're homophobes, we hate them because they destroy companies we love. We hate them because they release poor games. We hate them because they claim our hate doesn't matter as long as we give them our money.'"

32 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. Simple by Locke2005 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your hate doesn't matter as long as you keep giving them your money. Here's an idea: stop giving them your money!!!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Simple by tatman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      mod this up.

      --
      I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
    2. Re:Simple by eksith · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Rephrase: Better to be rich than loved

      If people showed their disapproval with money rather than vitriol on social media, EA would have been a completely different company... or out of business.

      --
      If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
    3. Re:Simple by eksith · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not so sure about #2. There are now quantitative (though, not comprehensive) ways of measuring piracy these days. Researchers would debunk a claim like that in short order, I think.

      But I'm pretty sure if EA keeps going the same direction, #1 will be followed by more and more people. Likewise, I feel indie studios/developers will be getting more exposure.

      --
      If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
    4. Re:Simple by TWiTfan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No only that, but it seems like everyone is either selling their company to them or working for them. I realize that companies go under and people need work, but if they end up owning all the decent IP, there is going to be nowhere else to turn BUT to buy from EA.

      --
      The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
    5. Re:Simple by Merk42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      GPs point isn't that people are ignorant of the reasons to dislike EA, it's that they come out and say they dislike them by voting in the "Worst Company in America", but don't act as if they dislike them by not buying their games.

    6. Re:Simple by PRMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I often tell my kids, "I can only vote with my dollars."

      One day, my 13-year-old responded, "But dad, if everyone did that, they would go out of business. So why don't they?"

      Exactly.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    7. Re:Simple by Hatta · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The gaming market is largely children or teenagers who are too young to know they deserve better.

      The age of the average gamer is 30.

      They're the ones throwing $60 at whatever game their friends are playing as soon as it hits

      How do you figure that children have more disposable income than adults?

      I agree with the rest of your analysis. I just blame adults who don't know any better instead of children who don't know any better.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    8. Re:Simple by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If people showed their disapproval with money rather than vitriol on social media, EA would have been a completely different company... or out of business.

      Sadly, in the modern context, they'd go to lawmakers and say that piracy is killing their business, and then concoct some scheme to make someone else pay them. They'd produce fake statistics and graphs to support their position. Kind of what the *AAs did.

      Companies are incapable of thinking "Gee, have we pissed off our customers", and go straight to lobbying to make sure their revenue stream is untouchable.

      I'm just not confident that a modern corporation would be capable of recognizing and responding to an actual boycott of their products.

      Ads showing up in EA games on my XBox is what made me disconnect it from the network, and why it sounds like I won't be buying an XBox 720 because of the always on internet requirement.

      I seriously doubt they'd be able to arrive at the conclusion that the reason their product is not selling is because of their own behavior.

      I can pretty much tell you right now, XBox 720 has already lost any chance of a sale from me, and by extension, so has EA. Which is a shame, because Tiger Woods is one of the few video games I actually play. Many of us don't play on-line games, and see no value for us in having a gaming console connect to the internet.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    9. Re:Simple by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1. I haven't bought an EA game in years. 2. If everyone follows my example, they won't change their policies, they'll blame it on piracy.

      Not if you (and therefore everybody) in addition to not buying it, also don't pirate it. A game company can tell if there is just nobody playing at all. No support calls, nothing in forums anywhere. It would be obvious that just nobody was playing the game legitimately or illegitimately.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    10. Re:Simple by DutchUncle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      all logic and reason goes out the window, . . . and capitalism falls apart.

      No, capitalism is working, with unanticipated inputs. That's the problem, and it's been discussed before. Economists expect people to act rationally, in their own interest, yet people don't. Economists also fail to factor in the multiple competing interests involved, like "How much cash will I burn so I can play with my friends". If economists were right, nobody would ever drink at a bar or eat at a restaurant because taking a bottle home and cooking for yourself is so much cheaper, which misses about 90% of the point.

    11. Re: Simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are doing a good job teaching them why libertarianism ultimately leads to a hypercapitalist dystopia. The vast majority of people making up "the market" are not informed, do not want to become informed, and probably cannot become informed in any meaningful way for any appreciable percentage of the product categories they participate in.

      You might be the smartest, most savvy consumer around, always rationally voting with your dollars--but most people aren't, and they're going to dilute your good choices with their bad, uninformed, irrational or random ones.

    12. Re: Simple by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hey, you act as if it was different in politics. The only difference is that rich people get more say when it comes to voting with your... erh ... never mind. It IS the same.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    13. Re:Simple by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It should be pointed out that EA did lose a ton of money last year ($45 million quarter 4 2012, $381 the quarter before that). If they keep on track they should go out of business pretty quickly.

      You're assuming that their business model is rooted in a capitalist economy. You couldn't be more wrong. See also: "Too big to fail," vendor lock-in, copyright, patent troll, "right to profit"...

      You're arguing that EA will be bailed out because the government sees its continued existence as too important to jeopardize?

      --
      "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
    14. Re:Simple by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As if. In this time and age, voting with your money fails on more than one level.

      What happens when you vote with your money and don't buy their crap anymore? Didn't we learn anything of the antics of the RIAA, and later the MPAA? Their products sucked, we turned away from their overhyped crap and went on with our lives, we voted with our money. So now they claim it's not that we don't buy their stuff anymore because it sucks, no, it has to be that we're accessing it illegally. You really think EA's reaction would be any different if people just up and went away, if people ignored their latest and greatest invention because they already know how bland, nondescript and simply not worth the money their "Whatever 2013" will be? You think they'd go "gee, maybe we overdid it, we should reconsider and try to offer what people want so they'll buy it again".

      No, the reaction would simply be "they don't buy it, so they pirate it. Lobbying machine to the rescue, we need laws to prop us up".

      And they'll get them.

      Where's that delusion coming from that we're still living in a capitalist world?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    15. Re: Simple by RabidReindeer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You are doing a good job teaching them why libertarianism ultimately leads to a hypercapitalist dystopia. The vast majority of people making up "the market" are not informed, do not want to become informed, and probably cannot become informed in any meaningful way for any appreciable percentage of the product categories they participate in.

      You might be the smartest, most savvy consumer around, always rationally voting with your dollars--but most people aren't, and they're going to dilute your good choices with their bad, uninformed, irrational or random ones.

      Even worse. Many of the ones who are informed don't care enough to do something. They want their Lower Prices Everyday and their "you-can-only-get-it-from-here" name products and so they collude to feed the beasts.

    16. Re:Simple by magisterx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sadly, not everyone knows. Lots of gamers just buy the games without really paying any attention to who the publisher is much less whether that publisher treated its customer's well or not.

  2. EA is right about one thing, though by Applekid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They're right about claiming our hate doesn't matter as long as they get money.

    Because for whatever reason, people still keep buying EA software no matter how buggy, no matter how user hostile, no matter how demeaning, no matter what the price.

    I think it's just proof positive that the majority of gamers are, at heart, masochists searching for a sadist.

    --
    More Twoson than Cupertino
    1. Re:EA is right about one thing, though by Hentes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The majority of gamers are fanboys reluctant to part with their favourite series of games. EA owns many titles that were once good.

  3. Sadly, it doesn't matter... by Stormwatch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We hate them because they claim our hate doesn't matter as long as we give them our money.

    Guess what: it doesn't, because tons of idiots keep buying EA's DRM-laden excrement.

    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.
  4. so, don't buy the games by alen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    i haven't bought or pirated a big publisher game in at least a year

    if you give them money then all they hear is "Thank you sir, may i have another?"

  5. Sense of proportion by blarkon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gotta love sense of proportion. You've got companies like Monsanto and Academi (formerly Blackwater) and a raft of multinationals polluting and doing bad stuff - but the one that causes the outrage? EA. You want to know why politicians don't bother fixing real problems? It's because people passionately believe that EA is the worst corporate citizen.

    1. Re:Sense of proportion by Applekid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gotta love sense of proportion. You've got companies like Monsanto and Academi (formerly Blackwater) and a raft of multinationals polluting and doing bad stuff - but the one that causes the outrage? EA.

      Monsanto, Academi, and Polluting Multinational #32, Inc. don't market to the public. I would doubt the average person has never heard of any of the biggest offenders. Their customers probably like them a lot, and the problem is really that the government oversight is lacking or just plain looking the other way.

      Of course, you could nominate them next year and see how they do.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
    2. Re:Sense of proportion by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unfortunately, Monsanto and Blackwater weren't in the tournament.

      The site is called CONSUMERIST. So, you know it's going to be about CONSUMER concerns. It's not going to be a sounding board for every random Chomsky wannabe.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    3. Re:Sense of proportion by Applekid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Monsanto doesn't market to the public"

      You do eat, right?

      I don't buy Monsanto products. I buy vegetables from a number of names of companies which may or may not use Monsanto products. They're not required to be labeled in my country as such, so aren't. Even if they were, I doubt they would have a big Monsanto logo on the back proudly proclaiming they provided the seeds, or the seeds that produced the vegetables used in my purchased soup, or the seeds that produced the grains that were fed to the animals that provided the meat for my burger.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
  6. sad, really by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    EA does suck. They did screw up SimCity in a big way. But they won because gamers are loud, not because they are the worst.

    As another forum (I can't remember which now) pointed out, they were up against a company that has foreclosed on houses they don't even hold the note on.

    EA screwed up a game. BoA has destroyed lives.

    1. Re:sad, really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not about EA screwing up a single game. It's about EA's entire corporate attitude towards its competitors that it buys up, and towards its customers. BofA obviously has several bad practices going on as well, but the hate that people direct towards EA is not based on their disappointment with a single game, it's based on their disapproval of the entire way that EA runs itself.

      ...when they make GAMES. When all they do is MAKE GAMES. In their own tiny, tiny international market, they're terrible. And only in that market. They're highly influential in the GAME market, they treat GAME DEVELOPERS like shit, they run GAMES into the ground, they screw up GAMES, and they suck to GAMERS.

      BoA is a bank. They fuck up people's livelihoods, homes, investments, etc, etc, even if they've never touched a video game in their lives. Those shitty interest rates? BoA's fault. Foreclosing on mortgages they knew were bogus to begin with? BoA's fault. Using connections to mess with international trade for their own benefit? BoA's fault. BoA will screw up EVERYTHING — real-world shit, too, not your damn DLC — from shelter to food to clothing to trade to, oh look, GAMES. Game companies deal with money, too.

      EA, on the other hand, are entertainers. They don't even have the clout of the **AA. A bunch of noisy fucking spoiled gamers are all butthurt because they've been conditioned to waste money on a luxury based on the pretty pictures and a name. That's why EA was voted the worst company. Not because they actually are. When EA screws you over, you have a substandard luxury that you can trivially ditch and go with someone else. When BoA screws you over, you don't have a home or money to get a home .

      Now, if this were about the worst GAME COMPANY in the world...

  7. Re:FIRST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They may suck, but they aren't evicting people or profiting off of an economic downturn that they engineered. That people consider EA worse than the banks is disappointing.

  8. Utopia by blarkon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh that we live in such a utopia where the thing that outrages the populace the most about the totality of American corporate behavior is the inclusion of always-on DRM in SimCity.

  9. Misdirected criticism. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Why blame EA? It's not like they're selling food or water.... they're pretty much selling crack.

    As far as I'm concerned, 100% of the blame lies with gamers who still choose to give money to EA.

  10. This is pretty stupid by Ambassador+Kosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure EA is not a great company. Actually I think they are pretty bad but they are not even in the top 10 for the worst companies. Given that we have companies like Monsanto around there is no way that EA is actually worse. We have companies like BP that deal hundreds of billions of dollars in environmental damage and the taxpayer gets most of the bill and somehow EA is worse because they have DRM and crappy servers? We have some drug companies that have made fraudulent journal articles in order to push medications that they know are lethal but are very hard to trace back to them and even when they are caught pay tiny fines compared to the money they made and somehow EA is worse?

    Yeah I just don't buy it at all. This is more like some kind of internet popularity contest and it is popular for people to hate EA. Most people have no clue about what evil companies actually do because they don't really look around them. If EA is the worse company you know of then grow up and look around the world a bit and find out what worst really is.

    --
    Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD! :)
  11. WTF nerds by Snotnose · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Company A screws people out of their homes with shady business practices. Company B prevents people from playing a video game after paying $50.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd rather be out $60 than out my house.