Yeah, this is getting kind of ridiculous. A gaming corporation shouldn't be winning over an international bank.

My feelings exactly.

How is Facebook a bad company? I know some people [censored] about their privacy intrusion, but that's B.S. I've never had any issues with Facebook since I joined 5 years ago.

Facebook has one of the lowest consumer satisfaction shoes of any company (search this if you don't believe me) most users are unsatisfied with the service but still use it to keep in touch with people. Lots of factors are a part of this and privacy concerns are one of the bigger ones. They are most certainly not bs like when they updated their phone app and if synching was enabled it would upload into off your phone for non-Facebook contacts. To say nothing of timeline, beacon, and places (backlash against Tue last two were so bad they had to remove them).

Just because you like them and see no privacy concerns doesn't change the fact most don't like them and do have concerns

As a smart man said on the Steam forums:

Either "Oh no, I'm going to lose my house."

Or "Oh no they made a bad game."


Kinda simple.

While I agree that BoA should win, it's not as simple as "Oh no they made a bad game." Do some research on EA. Try googling "EA spouse", "EA ruins developers", 'EA nickle and dime", "EA shuts down servers", for starters.

This. They aren't even all that bad, many companies are much worse. The problem is there's a sort of anti-EA hive mind out there.


This is different from other companies how?... Every company that makes any kind of online game has the right to shut down their servers, so I don't know why that's on your list. Secondly, every business on the planet will attempt to get as much money as they possibly can, so that's not limited to EA. As for their ruining developers? That's an opinion, not fact.

As for the EA spouse bit, sure, that applies to that single department of the company, but it's not representative of the whole company. Shady things happen in EVERY business, not just over at EA, and not just at corporations either. It doesn't mean the whole company is operating in the same questionable manner.

So what makes EA so deserving of the wrath of the internet?

EA do it as soon as 18 months after a game has come out. Just in time -- surprise -- for the next installment in that franchise.


Okay?


No, it's a fact. Look up how many studios they've bought up, then closed.


Class action law suits from several different departments beg to differ.


See above. See also: Bioware (and other developers) before and after EA-fication; the low quality games; the day-1 DLC; Origin (incidentally, also the name of a studio they disbanded).

Yes, it's that simple. No house, no nothing....including being able to keep tabs on EA.

I was reading through the comments, and noted this one:


Good point. Vote changed to EA. It is actually the worse company.

Wait, can I do that? I tried, anyway.

If people were voting that way, ea would have lost to att. Att introduced the us mobile data cap, separate tethering plans even on limited data accounts, kept illegal archives of emails of customers who used their email service. Introduced the land internet bandwidth cap to the USA, supposedly allows grey-area phone taps, and countless other things.

Then, going on to boa: played a major role in the savings and loans scandals of the 90s, played a major role in the cause of the recession, do not pittas savings on to customers, charge customers convenience fees for things that save them money, introduced various nickel and dimming schemes, won't be automatically replacing credit cards potentially compromised in the recent credit card leak (it's cheaper for them to not do so untilthe fraudulent charges start appearing), change the order of payments to sneak in overages (notice that note about how banks may not process deposits until up to 30 days? This is why), and countless other things.

Ea bus up and ruins companies but so does att and boa. In fact att was broken apart for antitrust reasons only to pull itself back together by gobbling up companies it's assets were given and broken into.

Anyone who thinks ea is more evil and has wronged consumers more than att or boa doesn't know what they are talking about or is just an angry gamer

Thats not it at all. Do you know anything about BofA? They're part of the reason the economy was brought to it's knees.

Has nothing to do with product.

Be cool. Stay in school.

Don't know what this is. The capping stuff seems par for the course.


EA had Origin scan your entire PC.


I don't know what this is.


Sounds like EA.


Okay, this svcks.


Am I an angry gamer just because I haven't had any experience with AT&T or BoA?

The things you've listed basically apply mutatis mutandis to EA. They're doing their best to cause an industry crash, on top of everything else. And the gaming sector isn't even regulated like everything else is, so there's a lot more leeway for them to be evil about things.

It looks like a tie to me.

I have an idea. I'll flip a coin and vote appropriately.


You're 1. being really hostile about an online poll, and 2. don't bother to engage with the substance of my posts. You're not really adding to the discussion.

What games are you talking about? Because all of the games that they've shut down the online for are either old, or barely sold at all. I mean really, the latest list includes Create. http://www.vgchartz.com/game/46530/create/


Alright, say you're the head of a video game company. You then decide to purchase a studio. Said studio makes two games which don't sell all that great, has issues with management, and turns out costing you money. What do you do? Do you keep the studio open, hoping their next game will be a big hit, taking the risk of losing several million dollars? Or do you cut your losses and close the studio?

From the mouth of a former Pandemic employee:


So in the case of Pandemic at least, there were other issues which led to their shutting the studio down. More than likely, they would have gone under anyway. (On a side note, a lot of former Pandemic staff now have a home at 343i).



Links please, I know it happened, but I'd like the source.



That's your opinion. All EA games I've purchased I've thoroughly enjoyed, so again, your opinion. As long as the DLC isn't on the disc? Whatever, it's more content. In the case of "From Ashes" BioWare started working on it after they had sent the core content off to be certified. Some content was located on the disc for technical reasons, but you still have to download most of it. http://www.neoseeker.com/news/18564-mass-effect-3-from-ashes-dlc-found-on-disc-bioware-explains/ I also don't see what's wrong with Origin, unless you're talking about it supposedly spying on you. Which, by the way, it doesn't. Not outside of system specs and programs installed through Origin.

So tell me again why EA is such an evil company.

EA's http://www.ea.com/1/service-updates

Also, http://www.qj.net/xbox-360/news/ea-shuts-down-more-servers-some-for-games-with-online-passes.html.


Was that management former Pandemic management, or new EA management? He says not to blame EA executives. He said nothing about EA management. And general consensus (among those in the know -- and no, I'm not talking about me) is that EA's management is its biggest problem, with the next-biggest being its executives.


I'll try to track one down.


Obviously. (Except for DA2.)


Yes.


Not touching this one. Let's just disagree here. Anyway, I'm against day-1 DLC, full stop.


Actually, originally Origin scanned your entire PC. They've fixed it since. I'm against DRM, and publisher-locked content, so I'm against Origin.


See above.

Fixed, but anyways, I like Steam. When it comes to things like microtransactions, I don't care about them so long as they don't add new gameplay. Hats? A weapon faster than if you waited for a drop? Hat dye? That's not new gameplay. If people are crazy enough to spend their money on stuff like that, go ahead, let them. It's their money, and their choice, it doesn't make a company evil.

I try to be optimistic about companies and people, though, to me there's no such thing as evil, even. There are companies with questionable business practices in some areas (EA, Paypal) but to call them evil is to degrade them without purpose.

Wow....you're really sensitive.

i don't know how in the world I was being hostile. Well, at least I'm right.

Generally, being curt and not engaging with the substance of the post of the person with which you're interacting is a sign of hostility.

You mean like explaining the fact that BofA is partly responsible for the bad economy.

Justify your pal all you want, but I did nothing wrong.

I forgot this gem:

http://loudmouthedgamers.com/blog/2011/09/26/ea-also-updates-tos-to-forbid-class-action-lawsuits/



If I did actually misinterpret you, my bad.

Oh, and Morrowind Fanatic, I can't find a more substantial link right now, but here's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA_Spouse. It's 3.45 so I'm giving it a rest for now. I'll see if I can find the more meaty bits again, tomorrow.

And?


Former Pandemic I believe.


Personally I enjoyed Dragon Age II more than the first game.


Actually it didn't. I've kept an eye on Origin, it doesn't. The only reason people suspected that it was scanning your computer is because they didn't have it worded very clearly in Origin's ToS. They reworded the ToS, and now it's clear as to what the program does/does not scan. Steam does the exact same thing.


That's fairly standard. http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/microsoft-forbids-class-action-lawsuits-within-new-xbox-live-terms/ http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Sony-SCEA-Playstation-PSN-terms-of-service,news-12554.html

I'm not Morrowind Fanatic by the way, unless you were addressing me as such for defending EA.

And what?


But he doesn't actually say former Pandemic. I'll give you that one. And all the other studios?


That's right, it doesn't -- anymore. Only because enough people kicked up enough of a fuss about it.

No, there's some person here who's called Morrowind Fanatic, I mixed you two up. I'll get to the rest of this tomorrow or something. It's now 4.00.

From what I can find it seems to be the same case. Studios were purchased, their outlook grim already, and subsequently closed.



Nice try, but no, it never did. I've had Origin since it was known as the EA download manager, so I'm pretty sure I should know.

Bullfrog, Westwood, and Origin were effectively killed by EA.