7 ms·

We Can Do Better

90 points by BIackSwan 14y ago

rinon 14y ago
Can they do better? If so, why aren't they, and how do they propose to do so? Nice to see they realize that everyone hates them... Now if only they'd provide something other than useless rhetorical spin. Good example of how NOT to run a company.
randomdrake 14y ago
They could've "done better" by actually saying what they will do to improve things. This was an absolutely atrocious PR piece. It didn't address any of the issues people were having. "45 million registered users are proving them wrong." Such a goofy and useless statistic. When you require registration for your products, that doesn't mean people are satisfied users of your service, it means you got a lot of people to sign up. It's not an accurate metric for how many people actually enjoy and use the service. Continuing... "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." Again: just because you have a bunch of people willing to pay you money for your crap, doesn't mean it isn't crap and you couldn't be doing better. This sort of defense mechanism doesn't even address the problems people are having. It's almost insulting to everyone who does, legitimately, have a gripe with EA as a company. Those folks angry with EA's principles, games, or for simply not getting the value of what they paid are being cast aside. It's extremely obvious they're less concerned with addressing issues and more concerned with telling everyone about how many users they have or what their sales are: "But here’s the truth: each year EA interacts with more than 350 million gamers; Origin is breaking records for revenue and users; The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Real Racing 3 are at the top of the mobile charts; Battlefield 3 and FIFA are stunning achievements with tens of millions of players; and SimCity is being enjoyed by millions of passionate fans all over the world." It seems possible to paraphrase the entirety of this press release: "We recognize a lot of people hate us, but hey, we've got a lot of other people paying us who aren't you, so we can't be that wrong, can we?"
- nostromo 14y ago
  As a non-gamer, I don't get it. Why do people buy EA games if they hate them so much?
  - cdash 14y ago
    I am not quite sure but I think it might be along the lines of the fact EA cannibalizes so many studios. If you are a fan of a certain game series and then EA comes in and buys the studio that makes it or the rights to it you are still going to try out the next release of the game. The problem is that EA ruins it almost every single time from what I have heard. You can say that people should know that is going to happen due to their reputation but people will always have hope that it will be different just this time.
  - thethimble 14y ago
    The same reason why people are customers of TicketMaster, BofA, Comcast, or many of the companies competing for Worst Company in America: While EA doesn't have a whole monopoly on their market, they are an unignorable player. People hate TicketMaster but they aren't willing to forego a concert to voice their opinion. People hate BofA but they don't know about the great alternatives they have in credit unions. People hate comcast, but sometimes it's the only ISP available. Similarly, EA touches on all of these fronts.
  - larrydavid 14y ago
    Because on the whole they publish some very good games, even the most staunch EA detractor can admit that. The vocal minority isn't an accurate representation of the millions that buy EA games (and they publish some of the most popular games you can buy, particularly their sports franchises like FIFA & Madden).
  - danilocampos 14y ago
    There's a limited number of people who can publish a AAA title. EA is one of those few. Further, EA's strategy of late has been to acquire IP to which gamers have already developed a sentimental attachment. So you may hate EA, but you really love Commander Shepard, so you do what you gotta do to keep hanging out with her.
unoti 14y ago
> 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. Thing is, customers don't have a love-affair with the products of those other companies. We do with EA's products at their best. A great game is a treasure, personal, forming great experiences and memories in almost the same way a child or puppy does. So when a game maker fails so epically, betrays their customers so thoroughly and completely, it tends to spark a serious reaction. A reaction more akin to a friend betraying you and selling you out. As for oil spills: I can envision how that might happen through mere incompetence and laziness. I have more trouble envisioning how EA can do what they've been doing through mere incompetence; it's far more baffling than that.
ghshephard 14y ago
I stopped reading right here: "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." He's flat out lying. I have no interest whatsoever in what he is saying. SimCity can technically run offline, gamers want to run it offline, but EA won't let you run it offline because you could then pirate their software. They should just demonstrate some courage and admit it.
- misnome 14y ago
  I suspect the argument is more "It's not DRM, it's amazing social interaction, that benefits everyone!" (read: Nobody would use it if it was optional)
  - estel 14y ago
    I think I believe them: the game they wanted to make was one where the "continuous, integrated online world" was integral to the way people played SimCity: only the final product didn't do enough to justify their original intention.
    - drucken 14y ago
      But it is not a question about "belief" (unless you extrapolate that to mean future actions). SimCity has been hacked to demonstrate its completely offline nature. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21802508 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21802508
      - estel 14y ago
        I've no doubt that it can run like that (and given SimCity works for ~30 mins or so without connecting to SimCity's servers, it's no shock to anybody who actually played the game at launch); but that doesn't mean that their intent when conceiving of the game wasn't for the online aspect to be utterly central and integral to how they wanted people to play the game. The always online "requirement" could absolutely have resulted from that desire rather than DRM. If it was just a matter of DRM, then it's plain inconsistent with how they're approaching DRM with every other PC release they've done recently.
shrikant 14y ago
While there are a few valid points raised, by and large this screed reminds me of the last time I worked in IT in a large bank, and took the annual employee satisfaction survey. The IT function had the poorest scores across the entire bank, and the CIO took quite a bit of heat for it from the rest of the CxOs. His approach to tackle the poor employee satisfaction scores was to call an IT-wide "town hall" and explain to each of us why we were wrong in being dissatisfied...
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  I agree. The whole letter is one of the best documentations of large-corporation dysfunctional defensiveness I've ever seen. It's perfect. And not in a good way. The sad thing is that by putting something so self-deluded and defensive out in public, he's guaranteeing a death spiral for corporate morale and corporate recruiting. It's awful leadership.
tiredofcareer 14y ago
Spin 101: Muddy up the legitimate complaints about Origin and the fumbled SimCity launch with anecdotes about conservatives carpetbombing the company with hate mail regarding LGBTQ playables. Notice that was the last bullet point; you move forward to the next paragraph thinking "wow, that's terrible," and you're shocked enough about that to start forgetting the first bullet points. The next paragraph then doubles down on the LGBTQ hate. You've completely forgotten the SimCity bullet point now. Oh yeah, and without you realizing it, he just lightly compared your complaints about SimCity always-on to gay bashing and not liking the choice of a cover athlete for a sports game. Apparently, EA considers all of them equally frivolous. How 'bout that, huh? This is a pretty good example of how to tell your customers that they're wrong but not leave them feeling like you did so (he did get pretty direct on the DRM point, though, which is interesting). Just look at the love pouring in on the comments over there already, which shows you that it's working in the general case. Not to mention completely omitting what you're going to do about the problems, but cleverly disguising the omission itself. A final thought, all of that aside: If I were Will Wright, I'd be genuinely sad about what happened to SimCity regardless of the circumstances of the Maxis sale. He left EA in 2009, which makes you wonder how long this SimCity has been in development; I'd wager about three years. That's a hallowed franchise in gaming, in my opinion, a unique IP that stood among the ranks of Civilization in its own way for many years and spawned really fun games like SimTower and SimAnt, and after this it will never be the same.
- freditup 14y ago
  Wow. That LGBT bullet point and statement left me mouth agape. No matter what opinions and thoughts you have on gay marriage and LGBTQ issues, it's blatantly obvious that there is a current cultural shift in the US. In a max of 10 years, and probably much sooner, gay marriage will undoubtedly be legal. And right now, it's more socially acceptable to support gay marriage and hold progressive LGBT views then to not. So when EA tries to play the 'we will not back down from our core principles!' card, it comes out sounding like a lame cry to try and drum up some good feelings towards EA. Then the conclusion "The tallest trees catch the most wind. At EA we remain proud and unbowed." just reenforces this. A poor decision by EA to write and post that statement.
morsch 14y ago
The basic message seems to be: We're doing fine in terms of strategy, if not execution. The mea culpas are limited to basically fumbling implementation details: games falling short of expectations, server end-of-life schedules, the botched SimCity launch. But not the fact that SimCity is always-online (which we're told is not DRM), or the question whether games need to be set up in a way that EA has the ability to disable multiplayer functionality. Those are strategic decisions, which like F2P games and micropayments and building their own online distribution platform, they are on the right path. Putting those issues along with different sorts of controversies such as LGBT content in games seems a bit odd. All in all, the opposite of an apology, really.
mcintyre1994 14y ago
They're clearly not the worst company in America. They're pretty bad though, and don't seem to contend that at all. Strange PR piece.
jiggy2011 14y ago
What exactly do EA hope to achieve with posts like this? Have they not heard the phrase "the customer is always right"?
larrydavid 14y ago
For anyone wondering how the 'Worst Company in America' is decided upon, check here http://consumerist.com/2013/03/18/here-are-your-contestants-for-the-2013-worst-company-in-america-tournament/ http://consumerist.com/2013/03/18/here-are-your-contestants-.... So it's basically a bracket. Not the most well-thought-out approach. Who picks the companies that are even eligible? Why not just have one big poll at the start? Even if they took that approach, I think it's clear EA would still 'win' since there is definitely a votebomb-like effect (much like what happens with MetaCritic ratings occasionally). Clearly the type of people that were aware of this poll in the first place mainly reside on videogame forums (Neogaf, /r/gaming etc), so the mob mentality is natural. Who can honestly say they were aware of this poll? If you knocked on the door of every household in America and asked them who they thought was the 'Worst Company' in the world, it certainly wouldn't be EA. I am not defending EA as such, I don't agree with some of their business practices, but there are copious amounts of hyperbole and for people to be treating this like an accurate study is ridiculous. There is certainly a first-world problems vibe when a videogame publisher wins a poll like this.
- MBCook 14y ago
  Every year The Consumerist opens submissions for a week or two. Readers submit companies and the 16 finalists are chosen (not sure if it's pure numbers or there is some editorial discretion). At that point it's all voting by readers. It's easy for someone like EA to get high in a bracket like this. They've pissed off a lot of people who are active on the internet, and they've been against some easy targets. AnheiserBusch/InBev isn't a company that people line up to hate (unlike Walmart or some other perpetual nominees) and Facebook, despite often acting creepy as hell, is loved by millions and millions of people. On the other hand, EA keeps making enemies; and their last dustup was just weeks before the content.
gavanwoolery 14y ago
There are obviously many reasons to hate EA, but it is FAR from the worst company in America. Overall EA has had a positive effect on the economy and created many jobs (even if they are not "great" jobs). Many other companies have taken govt. bailouts and/or gambled tax-payer money. Let's be civil and have some perspective.
- jmomo 14y ago
  As a former employee of EA (Tiburon) during the EA spouse days, I feel entitled to say it's okay to hate EA.
  - gavanwoolery 14y ago
    I agree with you - like I said, there are many reasons to hate EA. :) But still I would not vote it for the worst company in America...
biff 14y ago
Do gamers enjoy paying an extra fee to play used games online? There seem to be no end to the accolades thrown your way for centralizing multiplayer on EA servers and shutting them down a year or two after game release. In case you really are kidding yourselves with this press release, you are likely being voted the worst company because your millions of customers are suffering your "innovations" -- not enjoying them -- in order to play series they've come to love: Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and SimCity. You are cashing in the stored value of these brands, not building on them. But look, Microsoft was hated for a long time, too, and it didn't seem to hurt them any. Well, except maybe in the instances where they got into telling their users what they wanted instead of finding out what they wanted. It's not like you folks are going down that road, right?
alex_marchant 14y ago
I was excited by the prospect of seeing a new CEO come in and possibly change the culture of EA, but after reading this piece I'm thinking that idea was probably naive. This lack of user empathy seems pretty pervasive.
- estel 14y ago
  Peter Moore isn't the new CEO, he's been COO for a couple of years, and usually comes across as pretty straight-talking.
  - alex_marchant 14y ago
    I understand this. I meant the lack of empathy obviously goes beyond the CEO and wouldn't be an easy problem to fix.
Mahn 14y ago
"Hey Internet, I know you don't like us, but just so you know, you are wrong about your complains, and we are doing just fine" Well, what a brilliant piece of PR there.
tekromancr 14y ago
Here, I will translate the PR into English. Ahh-Hem, "Go fuck yourselves. Lots of love, EA"
jamesaguilar 14y ago
I've always found defensiveness really unattractive, especially in companies. Unless you are bringing new facts to bear, any piece that tries to make the "we're not so bad as all that" argument will probably be unsuccessful at winning hearts or minds.
- TillE 14y ago
  Yeah. When has trying to convince critics that they're wrong ever worked? EA/Maxis keep trying. They simply can't win this one. They're in the wrong, and for the most part they probably know it. If they can't say anything positive, the best response would probably be radio silence until everything blows over. Stuff like this only fans the flames.
  - jeltz 14y ago
    Indeed, this kind of statements do not make much sense to me. They make the critics angrier and everyone else just wont care. If you instead saying nothing you get the same benefits without making the critics angry.
  - jamesaguilar 14y ago
    Or just honesty . . . I don't know how it would blow over in the press, but personally I would find it really refreshing if they just said, "Yeah, it's always online because you fuckers pirate too much. Deal with it." I guess that the gamers would probably not like that very much though.
macspoofing 14y ago
Maybe have a call with the Microsoft's Xbox division to let them know about the potential pitfalls of "always on" ... err... feature.
alxbrun 14y ago
"At EA we remain proud and unbowed." Enjoy until you go bankrupt, dear Mr Moore. At the beginning I thought it was good piece of humble thoughts: What did we do wrong ? How can we improve ? Then I realized it was exactly the contrary. Atrocious.
nulagrithom 14y ago
I wasn't aware of the poll. Just voted for EA after reading "bring it on." And here I was hoping for something apologetic...
kefs 14y ago
For reference, a list of discontinued EA titles: https://www.ea.com/1/service-updates https://www.ea.com/1/service-updates
cnlwsu 14y ago
Maybe listen to the complaints and adress them instead of just dismissing them as wrong. This article just made me upset, they would of done better just shutting up.
weixiyen 14y ago
I cannot forgive EA for the NFL Licensing deal that ended NFL 2K. You shut down better games to push inferior products. I believe gaming would be in a much better place overall if EA did not exist, despite many early hit titles. The overall effect on gaming as a whole has been negative.
- djKianoosh 14y ago
  specifically in this case with Madden and NFL2K you are absolutely right. It's not even that nfl2k was any good or not. It's just that the loss of competition gave the various madden dev teams over the years ZERO motivation to do what the hardcore madden gamers wanted them to do to improve the game. yes they (we) are a minority and they want to sell as many copies as possible, but seriously, even in their own house Madden is subpar compared to FIFA. FIFA had online multiplayer a good 3 years before Madden. It took Madden about 7 years into "Next Gen" consoles (PS3/x360) to revamp online franchise even though they actually promised it every year. instead they focus on "Presentation" like hand warmers. please. And they justify their decisions by "Telemetry" aka usage stats, but those are extremely misleading. A couple years ago they put out a half-baked online franchise with horrible bugs. Their "telemetry" told them very few gamers used that game mode, so they decided to scratch it and try to completely redesign online franchise from scratch, again. Well of course nobody used that game mode! It was broken!... ay ay ay, dont get me started...
jdwissler 14y ago
"The tallest trees catch the most wind." I hated the article starting there. It is cowardly, evasive and deceitful. It completely ignores the issues people have with EA.
- Gigablah 14y ago
  They might as well have put up an image macro containing "haters gonna hate".
Aco- 14y ago
the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.... and they can't even do that good luck with that one EA
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
kostya-kow 14y ago
Good. EA is scared, and taking the threat seriously. They are not scared enough to actually address the issue (instead of doing fake PR speeches), but hopefully it will soon be too late for that. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
guntursaptap 14y ago
I Really Love Games from EA
michaelochurch 14y ago
I think WCIA is an awesome concept and we should do more to tear down, embarrass, and ultimately dismantle bad companies. That said, the idea that EA would win a WCIA bracket with Time Warner Cable and fucking airlines? Makes a mockery of the whole concept. Especially now. Yes, AAA games are pure dogshit. No question there. Just awful. It's easy to get nostalgic for 1995. Chrono Trigger was excellent, so was Final Fantasy VI. Terranigma-- also great if you could get it. Back then, we only had great games because someone made them for us. We had to get them from Japan, for the most part, because as bad as Japan's corporate conformity is, it's nothing like US-style executive meddling. (Japanese understand capitalism enough not to let incompetent execs ruin the show. The US has rich fatasses who see executive sinecures as a birthright and have the fertilizer-Midas touch: everything they touch turns to shit.) That meant we had to wait for Ted Woolsey to translate them, and he was not a bad translator (actually, his talent is neat and quirky) but he worked under insane deadlines. You spoony bard! Anyway... But it's two-thousand-and-fucking-13 and if you don't like the games that exist, make one that is better instead of pointlessly voting in some poll. Show those fuckers up. (Actually, they're as smart as you are. Some, much smarter. They make crappy games because they have bills to pay and moron bosses. You'll understand when you're older.) Build a 2D RPG, a German-style board game, or a casual game, and get it out there. Or don't, and stop complaining that no one is making good games when there's nothing stopping you. EA doesn't even belong on the top-75 list of worst companies. Where's Xe/Blackwater? Tear them down instead. They convinced the US government to fight an illegal war for their profits, and their CEO is a literal fucking fascist. That is WCIA material. Electronic Arts worse than fucking mercenaries in the 21st century? Seriously, the world needs to get a fucking clue.
- jeltz 14y ago
  I am pretty sure most people voting in the polls a very much aware of this. But voting Xe as worst company of the US? Who would care? Everyone already knows they are that bad and nothing has happened. On the other hand to vote EA as the worst company has a tiny chance of proving a point. There are lots of people out there who buy AAA titles without thinking and if some of them stopped buying the latest AAA crap EA just might have to start care about quality a bit. Now I personally avoid this kind of bogus polls, but I see why it can make sense for people who do have a clue to still vote for EA:
kunai 14y ago
The only thing that was somewhat hopeful in this piece was the title. It just went downhill from there. There was nothing, absolutely nothing of value that they said. Not a word about improving the customer experience in any concrete way.
logn 14y ago
So after being voted worst company in America and writing a post "We Can Do Better" the only thing they acknowledge doing wrong is having the SimCity server crash. ... Companies like GitHub and Google write these posts monthly without such dramatic intros and PR fluff.
n3rdy 14y ago
On the bright side, I don't think EA could possibly be as bad at game production as they are at public relations.
SurfScore 14y ago
This wasn't an apology, it was an excuse.
scott27 14y ago
" 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." This was by far the most aggravating part in his entire "Defense"(as in reading this made go to the consumerist and vote for them as the worst company in America) Ok maybe he's right, maybe it's not DRM. He provides no proof of it but maybe he's right. What doesn't address was the always on line requirment, for whatever reason they decided it was necessary to put in the game, was broken making the game broken. Essentially they sold a broken product.
redthrowaway 14y ago
What a completely and utterly tone-deaf response. "The tallest trees catch the most wind". So EA is hated because it's big? What about Valve? Why doesn't Sony get the same hate? More than anything, I'm confused as to just who his intended audience is, here. Certainly none of the gamers who have had long-standing issues with EA for years would find this "mea culpa" convincing. The only people I can imagine would be convinced or swayed by this would be EA employees and management. Is it part of some internal political battle being played out in public? Either we're not the intended audience for this message, or the C-levels at EA really are so delusional and detached from their customers that they think they can rub a little PR pixie dust on their reputation and make it all better.
dboat 14y ago
Man, talk about not getting it. I don't think EA deserves to be voted the worst company in America by a long shot. But I do think they need to be publicly shamed to the point that they actually listen to why people don't like them (I don't know if public shaming helps people realize things, I'm not a parent, but it seems like a good idea). Their otherwise interesting products are made far less compelling in order to satisfy business requirements. It's just dumb business. Meet your business objectives in smarter ways while creating smarter products and people will like you more. In the field of entertainment software, the user experience is paramount. There's also something to be said for letting customers feel like they "own" their games rather than simply leasing them until you close your servers. If you take this away, you'd damn well better provide some fantastic value in its place. To think that people resent you purely because of your choice of cover atheletes, micro-transactions or support of LGBT rights, polarizing as these can be, is evidence of the same sort of thinking which pervades your product development.
tptacek 14y ago
Jiminy Christmas. Can you get a better illustration of the seething entitlement of gamers than EA being a finalist in a worst-companies bracket that included ABInBev, both AT&T and Verizon, Ticketmaster, credit-reporting agency Equifax, United Airlines, Carnival Fecal Coliform Cruises, Comcast, yes, really, Comcast, Walmart, and Bank of America? There is no parallel universe in which EA is worse than half these companies. The result we have now brings discredit to the whole enterprise of worst-company contests. If EA's COO had a soul, he'd write a long-form blog post about how bad United Airlines, Ticketmaster, Equifax and BofA are.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I think it was "most hated" rather than "worse", you're right there are lots of companies much worse than EA. OTOH I think that people feel that video games should be a source of joy and pleasure so feel especially betrayed when a game company turns around and sprays them with this sort of corporate BS. It's like if my bank sends me a letter charging me for not having enough money + another charge for sending me the letter I just expect that because they are a bank, I just accept them as a necessary evil. They don't exist to make me feel good. OTOH a video game company's raison d'être is to make people feel good so if they are attracting hate then they're really fucked something up.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Who hates a video game company more than a credit agency, or the cable company that packet shapes and MITMs your Internet connection? Just don't play the game, and you never have to think about them. You can't say that about Equifax.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      When people wait X years for a game they really want to play and they find it has all of these problem then they will feel let down. Especially when they have competitors who are known for giving much better service. If you have a shitty ISP who MITMs your connections then either you have the choice of moving elsewhere or if you can't it's because all their competitors are just as shitty. You can't just go and get Sim City 4 from another company.
SkittlesNTwix 14y ago
This reads exactly like the way a high-level exec of a massive company would think - numbers focused without truly understanding the issues that people might have with the company. Unable to separate mindless complaints that should be ignored out of hand (cover choice for Madden) versus the always-on or free-to-play mechanic which represent legitimate complaints. EA is not one of the worst companies in America by a long shot. But they have very little respect for the consumer. Today on HN I see a link to a Gamasutra article where industry people are talking about just how incredible some of the LucasArts games were (20 years ago!) and another link where one of the heads of EA is making excuses for why people hate his company. Some of his points are valid, and people can be immature and ridiculous in their reasoning (or downright horrid). But he overlooks some of the valid complaints that people have with EA. And they are valid. He's throwing out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.
Ellipsis753 14y ago
Stupid website won't even let me comment. First I have to sign up. Then it snubs me with a short character count. Finally it won't even do anything when I press "ADD COMMENT". I've tried both Firefox and Chrome with and without javascript and no luck. Well here: "The customer base as a whole is annoyed because you release buggy unfinished games with horrible DRM. Not because of your LGBT policy. Your post doesn't sound sincere to me. It doesn't even sound apologetic. It sounds arrogant and like you're saying we shouldn't be complaining instead of admitting your mistakes. You don't address people's real complaints. I want my wasted money back; not a free game. I don't want to have to use Origin. I want actual customer support and a longer character lim-"
jpxxx 14y ago
Christ, what an asshole. "An annual web poll shows that once again, Electronic Arts will be named the "Worst Company in America". We at EA understand that we provide a lightning rod for many in an industry that has undergone massive change and experienced a great deal of consolidation. We've acquired beloved game developers, we've put storied franchises to rest, and we've sheparded evolutions in gameplay and game design that have been met with skepticism and rejection. But please believe, we're on the player's side. Tens of thousands of EA employees show up to work every day to create incredible new experiences and polish fantastic new things that the world has never seen. You, your family, and your friends entrust us with time, attention, and money in return for fantastic experiences with characters you love and places that are realer than real. It's an honor to work in this industry. We love these shared stories and adventures, and truly understand what makes videogaming special to hundreds of millions of people every day. That said, we are a business, and all businessess will make mistakes, fail to meet expectations, and poorly communicate. We're no different. XXX EXAMPLES XXX Videogames are unique in that the business environment changes more in six months than most other industries change in decades, and we've struggled to adapt to the new realities just like hundreds of other videogame developers. We feel it's essential that we have an online content distribution system of our own, called Origin. It's clear that we've fallen painfully short of industry standards in terms of technical execution and customer service, and we most certainly are not meeting our own expectations. XXX INSERT HONEST FIXES HERE XXX We also feel that we're failing to incorporate our customer's frustrations, concerns, and desires into the development of our franchises. When some player were disappointed with Mass Effect 3, they had nowhere to voice their opinions where they felt they would be heard. Thus, as of this week we will be employing ombudsmen for each of our major franchises. They'll be superfans who know the games inside and out, and their sole responsibility will be to communicate with you about what's happening with the development and care of your favorite series and franchises. FIFA - @Matthiew Mass Effect - @Jennifer SIMCITY - @Alyssa XXX ETCETERA XXX Feel free to vent, praise, be angry, you name it. They'll be listening. But always be respectful. We're here to have a good time together. Finally, we understand that server shutdowns are a necessary part of the life of any game. No party goes on forever. But we don't want to shut off the lights too early, and we don't want customers to wonder how long the game they've just purchased will be fully functional and connected. So today we're instituting a 3 year server guarantee on every network-aware and network-based videogame we sell. You can purchase an EA game and rest assured that you'll have friends to go on adventures with for a long long time. For what we've failed in, we are truly sorry. We strive to delight one and all, but we can never be perfect. For those who feel we can never do right, you'll find dozens of other talented studios who you can have a more fruitful relationship with. We don't feel there's any shame in being #1, but we do feel there's a great responsibility in it. Let us bring you the best games on Earth, tell us plainly and clearly when we're not meeting that expectation, and let's all have fun together. - EA CEO WHATEVER" I wrote this in literally twelve fucking minutes. What a prick.
Ellipsis753 14y ago
Here is the poll. Now you can go vote for them as the worst company. (I wish they'd linked to it with "bring it on".) http://consumerist.com/2013/04/05/worst-company-in-america-semifinals-ea-vs-ticketmaster/ http://consumerist.com/2013/04/05/worst-company-in-america-s...
- teamonkey 14y ago
  Wow. So of all the companies in the US, the "worst" one will be either EA or Ticketmaster? Not Lodsys or any of the other patent trolls; not any of the banks or oil companies; not any of the weapons manufacturers or dealers. A video games company or a company that sells tickets to gigs online. OK.
  - Ellipsis753 14y ago
    On the internet, out of the companies that people interact with that were entered for the poll. Yes, those would seem to be the worst.
matthewn 14y ago
At the risk of sounding like a grouchy old fart: I still mourn the loss of the old Electronic Arts -- the company that Trip Hawkins founded in order to let the imagination of artists run wild through the nascent world of personal computing. I grew up immersed in EA classics like Skyfox and Archon and Adventure Construction Set and [pause to genuflect] M.U.L.E. The brilliant men and women who crafted these games were actually celebrated in the packaging. You got the sense that the game you bought was truly a creative labor of love. At the time, EA's slogan was "We see farther." Today's EA is by comparison unrecognizable, a giant that has grown too big to care about anything that the original EA cared about, a company whose slogan might as well be "We see the bottom line."
randall 14y ago
Does Peter Moore still have his GTA4 and Halo 3 tattoos?
just2n 14y ago
> 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. And you lost me. Zero credibility.
protomyth 14y ago
I follow a fairly large number of conservatives / Tea Party and libertarians (who would complain about the conservatives in this context) on twitter and the only mention of EA has been Sim City's problems. Must be the same people bitching to the FCC about TV shows.
- protomyth 14y ago
  gotta love down votes for a post like this - shows the intolerant politics of some folks
headbiznatch 14y ago
Hilarious. The world hates you because of how you treat PEOPLE. Yer a record label, idiots - you fuck people over for fun and profit: coders (artists - remember when you pioneered thinking of coders this way?) and players (you understand the analogy at this point, right?)
ishansharma 14y ago
EA is my first blacklisted company. I stopped piracy last year and now every piece of software on my laptop is purchased or Open Source and Free. This in a country where software is still thought to be free by most people. BUT I am pirating EA games. Their policies are anything but customer friendly! So while have a 70 game library on Steam, I still have pirated Lord Of The Rings: Battle For Middle Earth 2 and Mass Effect series. And I can play my games when I want, the way I want without that draconian policy of always on DRM in a single player game. I am sure I am not alone doing this. With Sim City, they have pissed a lot of people. And with PR like this, they are making this worse.
pasbesoin 14y ago
I don't care much about gaming, but even my casual reading about EA has left me with the distinct impression that you (addressed to EA "Management", I guess) have been exploitative... erm, "jerks" for years. (I had a less PC word in mind.) Spare me your Johnny come lately mea culpa. Clean up your act, or don't. I don't give a fuck what you have to say.

90 points by BIackSwan 14y ago

rinon 14y ago

Can they do better? If so, why aren't they, and how do they propose to do so? Nice to see they realize that everyone hates them... Now if only they'd provide something other than useless rhetorical spin. Good example of how NOT to run a company.

randomdrake 14y ago

They could've "done better" by actually saying what they will do to improve things. This was an absolutely atrocious PR piece. It didn't address any of the issues people were having. "45 million registered users are proving them wrong." Such a goofy and useless statistic. When you require registration for your products, that doesn't mean people are satisfied users of your service, it means you got a lot of people to sign up. It's not an accurate metric for how many people actually enjoy and use the service. Continuing... "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." Again: just because you have a bunch of people willing to pay you money for your crap, doesn't mean it isn't crap and you couldn't be doing better. This sort of defense mechanism doesn't even address the problems people are having. It's almost insulting to everyone who does, legitimately, have a gripe with EA as a company. Those folks angry with EA's principles, games, or for simply not getting the value of what they paid are being cast aside. It's extremely obvious they're less concerned with addressing issues and more concerned with telling everyone about how many users they have or what their sales are: "But here’s the truth: each year EA interacts with more than 350 million gamers; Origin is breaking records for revenue and users; The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Real Racing 3 are at the top of the mobile charts; Battlefield 3 and FIFA are stunning achievements with tens of millions of players; and SimCity is being enjoyed by millions of passionate fans all over the world." It seems possible to paraphrase the entirety of this press release: "We recognize a lot of people hate us, but hey, we've got a lot of other people paying us who aren't you, so we can't be that wrong, can we?"

nostromo 14y ago
As a non-gamer, I don't get it. Why do people buy EA games if they hate them so much?
- cdash 14y ago
  I am not quite sure but I think it might be along the lines of the fact EA cannibalizes so many studios. If you are a fan of a certain game series and then EA comes in and buys the studio that makes it or the rights to it you are still going to try out the next release of the game. The problem is that EA ruins it almost every single time from what I have heard. You can say that people should know that is going to happen due to their reputation but people will always have hope that it will be different just this time.
- thethimble 14y ago
  The same reason why people are customers of TicketMaster, BofA, Comcast, or many of the companies competing for Worst Company in America: While EA doesn't have a whole monopoly on their market, they are an unignorable player. People hate TicketMaster but they aren't willing to forego a concert to voice their opinion. People hate BofA but they don't know about the great alternatives they have in credit unions. People hate comcast, but sometimes it's the only ISP available. Similarly, EA touches on all of these fronts.
- larrydavid 14y ago
  Because on the whole they publish some very good games, even the most staunch EA detractor can admit that. The vocal minority isn't an accurate representation of the millions that buy EA games (and they publish some of the most popular games you can buy, particularly their sports franchises like FIFA & Madden).
- danilocampos 14y ago
  There's a limited number of people who can publish a AAA title. EA is one of those few. Further, EA's strategy of late has been to acquire IP to which gamers have already developed a sentimental attachment. So you may hate EA, but you really love Commander Shepard, so you do what you gotta do to keep hanging out with her.

unoti 14y ago

> 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. Thing is, customers don't have a love-affair with the products of those other companies. We do with EA's products at their best. A great game is a treasure, personal, forming great experiences and memories in almost the same way a child or puppy does. So when a game maker fails so epically, betrays their customers so thoroughly and completely, it tends to spark a serious reaction. A reaction more akin to a friend betraying you and selling you out. As for oil spills: I can envision how that might happen through mere incompetence and laziness. I have more trouble envisioning how EA can do what they've been doing through mere incompetence; it's far more baffling than that.

ghshephard 14y ago

I stopped reading right here: "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." He's flat out lying. I have no interest whatsoever in what he is saying. SimCity can technically run offline, gamers want to run it offline, but EA won't let you run it offline because you could then pirate their software. They should just demonstrate some courage and admit it.

misnome 14y ago
I suspect the argument is more "It's not DRM, it's amazing social interaction, that benefits everyone!" (read: Nobody would use it if it was optional)
- estel 14y ago
  I think I believe them: the game they wanted to make was one where the "continuous, integrated online world" was integral to the way people played SimCity: only the final product didn't do enough to justify their original intention.
  - drucken 14y ago
    But it is not a question about "belief" (unless you extrapolate that to mean future actions). SimCity has been hacked to demonstrate its completely offline nature. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21802508 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21802508
    - estel 14y ago
      I've no doubt that it can run like that (and given SimCity works for ~30 mins or so without connecting to SimCity's servers, it's no shock to anybody who actually played the game at launch); but that doesn't mean that their intent when conceiving of the game wasn't for the online aspect to be utterly central and integral to how they wanted people to play the game. The always online "requirement" could absolutely have resulted from that desire rather than DRM. If it was just a matter of DRM, then it's plain inconsistent with how they're approaching DRM with every other PC release they've done recently.

shrikant 14y ago

While there are a few valid points raised, by and large this screed reminds me of the last time I worked in IT in a large bank, and took the annual employee satisfaction survey. The IT function had the poorest scores across the entire bank, and the CIO took quite a bit of heat for it from the rest of the CxOs. His approach to tackle the poor employee satisfaction scores was to call an IT-wide "town hall" and explain to each of us why we were wrong in being dissatisfied...

waterlesscloud 14y ago
I agree. The whole letter is one of the best documentations of large-corporation dysfunctional defensiveness I've ever seen. It's perfect. And not in a good way. The sad thing is that by putting something so self-deluded and defensive out in public, he's guaranteeing a death spiral for corporate morale and corporate recruiting. It's awful leadership.

tiredofcareer 14y ago

Spin 101: Muddy up the legitimate complaints about Origin and the fumbled SimCity launch with anecdotes about conservatives carpetbombing the company with hate mail regarding LGBTQ playables. Notice that was the last bullet point; you move forward to the next paragraph thinking "wow, that's terrible," and you're shocked enough about that to start forgetting the first bullet points. The next paragraph then doubles down on the LGBTQ hate. You've completely forgotten the SimCity bullet point now. Oh yeah, and without you realizing it, he just lightly compared your complaints about SimCity always-on to gay bashing and not liking the choice of a cover athlete for a sports game. Apparently, EA considers all of them equally frivolous. How 'bout that, huh? This is a pretty good example of how to tell your customers that they're wrong but not leave them feeling like you did so (he did get pretty direct on the DRM point, though, which is interesting). Just look at the love pouring in on the comments over there already, which shows you that it's working in the general case. Not to mention completely omitting what you're going to do about the problems, but cleverly disguising the omission itself. A final thought, all of that aside: If I were Will Wright, I'd be genuinely sad about what happened to SimCity regardless of the circumstances of the Maxis sale. He left EA in 2009, which makes you wonder how long this SimCity has been in development; I'd wager about three years. That's a hallowed franchise in gaming, in my opinion, a unique IP that stood among the ranks of Civilization in its own way for many years and spawned really fun games like SimTower and SimAnt, and after this it will never be the same.

freditup 14y ago
Wow. That LGBT bullet point and statement left me mouth agape. No matter what opinions and thoughts you have on gay marriage and LGBTQ issues, it's blatantly obvious that there is a current cultural shift in the US. In a max of 10 years, and probably much sooner, gay marriage will undoubtedly be legal. And right now, it's more socially acceptable to support gay marriage and hold progressive LGBT views then to not. So when EA tries to play the 'we will not back down from our core principles!' card, it comes out sounding like a lame cry to try and drum up some good feelings towards EA. Then the conclusion "The tallest trees catch the most wind. At EA we remain proud and unbowed." just reenforces this. A poor decision by EA to write and post that statement.

morsch 14y ago

The basic message seems to be: We're doing fine in terms of strategy, if not execution. The mea culpas are limited to basically fumbling implementation details: games falling short of expectations, server end-of-life schedules, the botched SimCity launch. But not the fact that SimCity is always-online (which we're told is not DRM), or the question whether games need to be set up in a way that EA has the ability to disable multiplayer functionality. Those are strategic decisions, which like F2P games and micropayments and building their own online distribution platform, they are on the right path. Putting those issues along with different sorts of controversies such as LGBT content in games seems a bit odd. All in all, the opposite of an apology, really.

mcintyre1994 14y ago

They're clearly not the worst company in America. They're pretty bad though, and don't seem to contend that at all. Strange PR piece.

jiggy2011 14y ago

What exactly do EA hope to achieve with posts like this? Have they not heard the phrase "the customer is always right"?

larrydavid 14y ago

For anyone wondering how the 'Worst Company in America' is decided upon, check here http://consumerist.com/2013/03/18/here-are-your-contestants-for-the-2013-worst-company-in-america-tournament/ http://consumerist.com/2013/03/18/here-are-your-contestants-.... So it's basically a bracket. Not the most well-thought-out approach. Who picks the companies that are even eligible? Why not just have one big poll at the start? Even if they took that approach, I think it's clear EA would still 'win' since there is definitely a votebomb-like effect (much like what happens with MetaCritic ratings occasionally). Clearly the type of people that were aware of this poll in the first place mainly reside on videogame forums (Neogaf, /r/gaming etc), so the mob mentality is natural. Who can honestly say they were aware of this poll? If you knocked on the door of every household in America and asked them who they thought was the 'Worst Company' in the world, it certainly wouldn't be EA. I am not defending EA as such, I don't agree with some of their business practices, but there are copious amounts of hyperbole and for people to be treating this like an accurate study is ridiculous. There is certainly a first-world problems vibe when a videogame publisher wins a poll like this.

MBCook 14y ago
Every year The Consumerist opens submissions for a week or two. Readers submit companies and the 16 finalists are chosen (not sure if it's pure numbers or there is some editorial discretion). At that point it's all voting by readers. It's easy for someone like EA to get high in a bracket like this. They've pissed off a lot of people who are active on the internet, and they've been against some easy targets. AnheiserBusch/InBev isn't a company that people line up to hate (unlike Walmart or some other perpetual nominees) and Facebook, despite often acting creepy as hell, is loved by millions and millions of people. On the other hand, EA keeps making enemies; and their last dustup was just weeks before the content.

gavanwoolery 14y ago

There are obviously many reasons to hate EA, but it is FAR from the worst company in America. Overall EA has had a positive effect on the economy and created many jobs (even if they are not "great" jobs). Many other companies have taken govt. bailouts and/or gambled tax-payer money. Let's be civil and have some perspective.

jmomo 14y ago
As a former employee of EA (Tiburon) during the EA spouse days, I feel entitled to say it's okay to hate EA.
- gavanwoolery 14y ago
  I agree with you - like I said, there are many reasons to hate EA. :) But still I would not vote it for the worst company in America...

biff 14y ago

Do gamers enjoy paying an extra fee to play used games online? There seem to be no end to the accolades thrown your way for centralizing multiplayer on EA servers and shutting them down a year or two after game release. In case you really are kidding yourselves with this press release, you are likely being voted the worst company because your millions of customers are suffering your "innovations" -- not enjoying them -- in order to play series they've come to love: Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and SimCity. You are cashing in the stored value of these brands, not building on them. But look, Microsoft was hated for a long time, too, and it didn't seem to hurt them any. Well, except maybe in the instances where they got into telling their users what they wanted instead of finding out what they wanted. It's not like you folks are going down that road, right?

alex_marchant 14y ago

I was excited by the prospect of seeing a new CEO come in and possibly change the culture of EA, but after reading this piece I'm thinking that idea was probably naive. This lack of user empathy seems pretty pervasive.

estel 14y ago
Peter Moore isn't the new CEO, he's been COO for a couple of years, and usually comes across as pretty straight-talking.
- alex_marchant 14y ago
  I understand this. I meant the lack of empathy obviously goes beyond the CEO and wouldn't be an easy problem to fix.

Mahn 14y ago

"Hey Internet, I know you don't like us, but just so you know, you are wrong about your complains, and we are doing just fine" Well, what a brilliant piece of PR there.

tekromancr 14y ago

Here, I will translate the PR into English. Ahh-Hem, "Go fuck yourselves. Lots of love, EA"

jamesaguilar 14y ago

I've always found defensiveness really unattractive, especially in companies. Unless you are bringing new facts to bear, any piece that tries to make the "we're not so bad as all that" argument will probably be unsuccessful at winning hearts or minds.

TillE 14y ago
Yeah. When has trying to convince critics that they're wrong ever worked? EA/Maxis keep trying. They simply can't win this one. They're in the wrong, and for the most part they probably know it. If they can't say anything positive, the best response would probably be radio silence until everything blows over. Stuff like this only fans the flames.
- jeltz 14y ago
  Indeed, this kind of statements do not make much sense to me. They make the critics angrier and everyone else just wont care. If you instead saying nothing you get the same benefits without making the critics angry.
- jamesaguilar 14y ago
  Or just honesty . . . I don't know how it would blow over in the press, but personally I would find it really refreshing if they just said, "Yeah, it's always online because you fuckers pirate too much. Deal with it." I guess that the gamers would probably not like that very much though.

macspoofing 14y ago

Maybe have a call with the Microsoft's Xbox division to let them know about the potential pitfalls of "always on" ... err... feature.

alxbrun 14y ago

"At EA we remain proud and unbowed." Enjoy until you go bankrupt, dear Mr Moore. At the beginning I thought it was good piece of humble thoughts: What did we do wrong ? How can we improve ? Then I realized it was exactly the contrary. Atrocious.

nulagrithom 14y ago

I wasn't aware of the poll. Just voted for EA after reading "bring it on." And here I was hoping for something apologetic...

kefs 14y ago

For reference, a list of discontinued EA titles: https://www.ea.com/1/service-updates https://www.ea.com/1/service-updates

cnlwsu 14y ago

Maybe listen to the complaints and adress them instead of just dismissing them as wrong. This article just made me upset, they would of done better just shutting up.

weixiyen 14y ago

I cannot forgive EA for the NFL Licensing deal that ended NFL 2K. You shut down better games to push inferior products. I believe gaming would be in a much better place overall if EA did not exist, despite many early hit titles. The overall effect on gaming as a whole has been negative.

djKianoosh 14y ago
specifically in this case with Madden and NFL2K you are absolutely right. It's not even that nfl2k was any good or not. It's just that the loss of competition gave the various madden dev teams over the years ZERO motivation to do what the hardcore madden gamers wanted them to do to improve the game. yes they (we) are a minority and they want to sell as many copies as possible, but seriously, even in their own house Madden is subpar compared to FIFA. FIFA had online multiplayer a good 3 years before Madden. It took Madden about 7 years into "Next Gen" consoles (PS3/x360) to revamp online franchise even though they actually promised it every year. instead they focus on "Presentation" like hand warmers. please. And they justify their decisions by "Telemetry" aka usage stats, but those are extremely misleading. A couple years ago they put out a half-baked online franchise with horrible bugs. Their "telemetry" told them very few gamers used that game mode, so they decided to scratch it and try to completely redesign online franchise from scratch, again. Well of course nobody used that game mode! It was broken!... ay ay ay, dont get me started...

jdwissler 14y ago

"The tallest trees catch the most wind." I hated the article starting there. It is cowardly, evasive and deceitful. It completely ignores the issues people have with EA.

Gigablah 14y ago
They might as well have put up an image macro containing "haters gonna hate".

Aco- 14y ago

the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.... and they can't even do that good luck with that one EA

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

kostya-kow 14y ago

Good. EA is scared, and taking the threat seriously. They are not scared enough to actually address the issue (instead of doing fake PR speeches), but hopefully it will soon be too late for that. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

guntursaptap 14y ago

I Really Love Games from EA

michaelochurch 14y ago

I think WCIA is an awesome concept and we should do more to tear down, embarrass, and ultimately dismantle bad companies. That said, the idea that EA would win a WCIA bracket with Time Warner Cable and fucking airlines? Makes a mockery of the whole concept. Especially now. Yes, AAA games are pure dogshit. No question there. Just awful. It's easy to get nostalgic for 1995. Chrono Trigger was excellent, so was Final Fantasy VI. Terranigma-- also great if you could get it. Back then, we only had great games because someone made them for us. We had to get them from Japan, for the most part, because as bad as Japan's corporate conformity is, it's nothing like US-style executive meddling. (Japanese understand capitalism enough not to let incompetent execs ruin the show. The US has rich fatasses who see executive sinecures as a birthright and have the fertilizer-Midas touch: everything they touch turns to shit.) That meant we had to wait for Ted Woolsey to translate them, and he was not a bad translator (actually, his talent is neat and quirky) but he worked under insane deadlines. You spoony bard! Anyway... But it's two-thousand-and-fucking-13 and if you don't like the games that exist, make one that is better instead of pointlessly voting in some poll. Show those fuckers up. (Actually, they're as smart as you are. Some, much smarter. They make crappy games because they have bills to pay and moron bosses. You'll understand when you're older.) Build a 2D RPG, a German-style board game, or a casual game, and get it out there. Or don't, and stop complaining that no one is making good games when there's nothing stopping you. EA doesn't even belong on the top-75 list of worst companies. Where's Xe/Blackwater? Tear them down instead. They convinced the US government to fight an illegal war for their profits, and their CEO is a literal fucking fascist. That is WCIA material. Electronic Arts worse than fucking mercenaries in the 21st century? Seriously, the world needs to get a fucking clue.

jeltz 14y ago
I am pretty sure most people voting in the polls a very much aware of this. But voting Xe as worst company of the US? Who would care? Everyone already knows they are that bad and nothing has happened. On the other hand to vote EA as the worst company has a tiny chance of proving a point. There are lots of people out there who buy AAA titles without thinking and if some of them stopped buying the latest AAA crap EA just might have to start care about quality a bit. Now I personally avoid this kind of bogus polls, but I see why it can make sense for people who do have a clue to still vote for EA:

kunai 14y ago

The only thing that was somewhat hopeful in this piece was the title. It just went downhill from there. There was nothing, absolutely nothing of value that they said. Not a word about improving the customer experience in any concrete way.

logn 14y ago

So after being voted worst company in America and writing a post "We Can Do Better" the only thing they acknowledge doing wrong is having the SimCity server crash. ... Companies like GitHub and Google write these posts monthly without such dramatic intros and PR fluff.

n3rdy 14y ago

On the bright side, I don't think EA could possibly be as bad at game production as they are at public relations.

SurfScore 14y ago

This wasn't an apology, it was an excuse.

scott27 14y ago

" 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." This was by far the most aggravating part in his entire "Defense"(as in reading this made go to the consumerist and vote for them as the worst company in America) Ok maybe he's right, maybe it's not DRM. He provides no proof of it but maybe he's right. What doesn't address was the always on line requirment, for whatever reason they decided it was necessary to put in the game, was broken making the game broken. Essentially they sold a broken product.

redthrowaway 14y ago

What a completely and utterly tone-deaf response. "The tallest trees catch the most wind". So EA is hated because it's big? What about Valve? Why doesn't Sony get the same hate? More than anything, I'm confused as to just who his intended audience is, here. Certainly none of the gamers who have had long-standing issues with EA for years would find this "mea culpa" convincing. The only people I can imagine would be convinced or swayed by this would be EA employees and management. Is it part of some internal political battle being played out in public? Either we're not the intended audience for this message, or the C-levels at EA really are so delusional and detached from their customers that they think they can rub a little PR pixie dust on their reputation and make it all better.

dboat 14y ago

Man, talk about not getting it. I don't think EA deserves to be voted the worst company in America by a long shot. But I do think they need to be publicly shamed to the point that they actually listen to why people don't like them (I don't know if public shaming helps people realize things, I'm not a parent, but it seems like a good idea). Their otherwise interesting products are made far less compelling in order to satisfy business requirements. It's just dumb business. Meet your business objectives in smarter ways while creating smarter products and people will like you more. In the field of entertainment software, the user experience is paramount. There's also something to be said for letting customers feel like they "own" their games rather than simply leasing them until you close your servers. If you take this away, you'd damn well better provide some fantastic value in its place. To think that people resent you purely because of your choice of cover atheletes, micro-transactions or support of LGBT rights, polarizing as these can be, is evidence of the same sort of thinking which pervades your product development.

tptacek 14y ago

Jiminy Christmas. Can you get a better illustration of the seething entitlement of gamers than EA being a finalist in a worst-companies bracket that included ABInBev, both AT&T and Verizon, Ticketmaster, credit-reporting agency Equifax, United Airlines, Carnival Fecal Coliform Cruises, Comcast, yes, really, Comcast, Walmart, and Bank of America? There is no parallel universe in which EA is worse than half these companies. The result we have now brings discredit to the whole enterprise of worst-company contests. If EA's COO had a soul, he'd write a long-form blog post about how bad United Airlines, Ticketmaster, Equifax and BofA are.

jiggy2011 14y ago
I think it was "most hated" rather than "worse", you're right there are lots of companies much worse than EA. OTOH I think that people feel that video games should be a source of joy and pleasure so feel especially betrayed when a game company turns around and sprays them with this sort of corporate BS. It's like if my bank sends me a letter charging me for not having enough money + another charge for sending me the letter I just expect that because they are a bank, I just accept them as a necessary evil. They don't exist to make me feel good. OTOH a video game company's raison d'être is to make people feel good so if they are attracting hate then they're really fucked something up.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Who hates a video game company more than a credit agency, or the cable company that packet shapes and MITMs your Internet connection? Just don't play the game, and you never have to think about them. You can't say that about Equifax.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    When people wait X years for a game they really want to play and they find it has all of these problem then they will feel let down. Especially when they have competitors who are known for giving much better service. If you have a shitty ISP who MITMs your connections then either you have the choice of moving elsewhere or if you can't it's because all their competitors are just as shitty. You can't just go and get Sim City 4 from another company.

SkittlesNTwix 14y ago

This reads exactly like the way a high-level exec of a massive company would think - numbers focused without truly understanding the issues that people might have with the company. Unable to separate mindless complaints that should be ignored out of hand (cover choice for Madden) versus the always-on or free-to-play mechanic which represent legitimate complaints. EA is not one of the worst companies in America by a long shot. But they have very little respect for the consumer. Today on HN I see a link to a Gamasutra article where industry people are talking about just how incredible some of the LucasArts games were (20 years ago!) and another link where one of the heads of EA is making excuses for why people hate his company. Some of his points are valid, and people can be immature and ridiculous in their reasoning (or downright horrid). But he overlooks some of the valid complaints that people have with EA. And they are valid. He's throwing out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.

Ellipsis753 14y ago

Stupid website won't even let me comment. First I have to sign up. Then it snubs me with a short character count. Finally it won't even do anything when I press "ADD COMMENT". I've tried both Firefox and Chrome with and without javascript and no luck. Well here: "The customer base as a whole is annoyed because you release buggy unfinished games with horrible DRM. Not because of your LGBT policy. Your post doesn't sound sincere to me. It doesn't even sound apologetic. It sounds arrogant and like you're saying we shouldn't be complaining instead of admitting your mistakes. You don't address people's real complaints. I want my wasted money back; not a free game. I don't want to have to use Origin. I want actual customer support and a longer character lim-"

jpxxx 14y ago

Christ, what an asshole. "An annual web poll shows that once again, Electronic Arts will be named the "Worst Company in America". We at EA understand that we provide a lightning rod for many in an industry that has undergone massive change and experienced a great deal of consolidation. We've acquired beloved game developers, we've put storied franchises to rest, and we've sheparded evolutions in gameplay and game design that have been met with skepticism and rejection. But please believe, we're on the player's side. Tens of thousands of EA employees show up to work every day to create incredible new experiences and polish fantastic new things that the world has never seen. You, your family, and your friends entrust us with time, attention, and money in return for fantastic experiences with characters you love and places that are realer than real. It's an honor to work in this industry. We love these shared stories and adventures, and truly understand what makes videogaming special to hundreds of millions of people every day. That said, we are a business, and all businessess will make mistakes, fail to meet expectations, and poorly communicate. We're no different. XXX EXAMPLES XXX Videogames are unique in that the business environment changes more in six months than most other industries change in decades, and we've struggled to adapt to the new realities just like hundreds of other videogame developers. We feel it's essential that we have an online content distribution system of our own, called Origin. It's clear that we've fallen painfully short of industry standards in terms of technical execution and customer service, and we most certainly are not meeting our own expectations. XXX INSERT HONEST FIXES HERE XXX We also feel that we're failing to incorporate our customer's frustrations, concerns, and desires into the development of our franchises. When some player were disappointed with Mass Effect 3, they had nowhere to voice their opinions where they felt they would be heard. Thus, as of this week we will be employing ombudsmen for each of our major franchises. They'll be superfans who know the games inside and out, and their sole responsibility will be to communicate with you about what's happening with the development and care of your favorite series and franchises. FIFA - @Matthiew Mass Effect - @Jennifer SIMCITY - @Alyssa XXX ETCETERA XXX Feel free to vent, praise, be angry, you name it. They'll be listening. But always be respectful. We're here to have a good time together. Finally, we understand that server shutdowns are a necessary part of the life of any game. No party goes on forever. But we don't want to shut off the lights too early, and we don't want customers to wonder how long the game they've just purchased will be fully functional and connected. So today we're instituting a 3 year server guarantee on every network-aware and network-based videogame we sell. You can purchase an EA game and rest assured that you'll have friends to go on adventures with for a long long time. For what we've failed in, we are truly sorry. We strive to delight one and all, but we can never be perfect. For those who feel we can never do right, you'll find dozens of other talented studios who you can have a more fruitful relationship with. We don't feel there's any shame in being #1, but we do feel there's a great responsibility in it. Let us bring you the best games on Earth, tell us plainly and clearly when we're not meeting that expectation, and let's all have fun together. - EA CEO WHATEVER" I wrote this in literally twelve fucking minutes. What a prick.

Ellipsis753 14y ago

Here is the poll. Now you can go vote for them as the worst company. (I wish they'd linked to it with "bring it on".) http://consumerist.com/2013/04/05/worst-company-in-america-semifinals-ea-vs-ticketmaster/ http://consumerist.com/2013/04/05/worst-company-in-america-s...

teamonkey 14y ago
Wow. So of all the companies in the US, the "worst" one will be either EA or Ticketmaster? Not Lodsys or any of the other patent trolls; not any of the banks or oil companies; not any of the weapons manufacturers or dealers. A video games company or a company that sells tickets to gigs online. OK.
- Ellipsis753 14y ago
  On the internet, out of the companies that people interact with that were entered for the poll. Yes, those would seem to be the worst.

matthewn 14y ago

At the risk of sounding like a grouchy old fart: I still mourn the loss of the old Electronic Arts -- the company that Trip Hawkins founded in order to let the imagination of artists run wild through the nascent world of personal computing. I grew up immersed in EA classics like Skyfox and Archon and Adventure Construction Set and [pause to genuflect] M.U.L.E. The brilliant men and women who crafted these games were actually celebrated in the packaging. You got the sense that the game you bought was truly a creative labor of love. At the time, EA's slogan was "We see farther." Today's EA is by comparison unrecognizable, a giant that has grown too big to care about anything that the original EA cared about, a company whose slogan might as well be "We see the bottom line."

randall 14y ago

Does Peter Moore still have his GTA4 and Halo 3 tattoos?

just2n 14y ago

> 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. And you lost me. Zero credibility.

protomyth 14y ago

I follow a fairly large number of conservatives / Tea Party and libertarians (who would complain about the conservatives in this context) on twitter and the only mention of EA has been Sim City's problems. Must be the same people bitching to the FCC about TV shows.

protomyth 14y ago
gotta love down votes for a post like this - shows the intolerant politics of some folks

headbiznatch 14y ago

Hilarious. The world hates you because of how you treat PEOPLE. Yer a record label, idiots - you fuck people over for fun and profit: coders (artists - remember when you pioneered thinking of coders this way?) and players (you understand the analogy at this point, right?)

ishansharma 14y ago

EA is my first blacklisted company. I stopped piracy last year and now every piece of software on my laptop is purchased or Open Source and Free. This in a country where software is still thought to be free by most people. BUT I am pirating EA games. Their policies are anything but customer friendly! So while have a 70 game library on Steam, I still have pirated Lord Of The Rings: Battle For Middle Earth 2 and Mass Effect series. And I can play my games when I want, the way I want without that draconian policy of always on DRM in a single player game. I am sure I am not alone doing this. With Sim City, they have pissed a lot of people. And with PR like this, they are making this worse.

pasbesoin 14y ago

I don't care much about gaming, but even my casual reading about EA has left me with the distinct impression that you (addressed to EA "Management", I guess) have been exploitative... erm, "jerks" for years. (I had a less PC word in mind.) Spare me your Johnny come lately mea culpa. Clean up your act, or don't. I don't give a fuck what you have to say.