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.
We Can Do Better
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#12What exactly do EA hope to achieve with posts like this?
Have they not heard the phrase "the customer is always right"?
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#13For anyone wondering how the 'Worst Company in America' is decided upon, check here 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.
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#14There 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.
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#15They 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…
As a non-gamer, I don't get it.
Why do people buy EA games if they hate them so much?
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#16Do 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?
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#17They 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…
To be fair, people werent exactly happy when they had to sign into Steam to play HalfLife2 in 2004 either. Times are different i know, but people tend to forget that Steam was forced upon us in quite similar ways and really wasnt everyones darling like it is today.
I agree with the rest of your comment though.
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#18I 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.
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#19"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.
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#20They 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…
As a non-gamer, I don't get it. Why do people buy EA games if they hate them so much?
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.