http://skitch.tawmu.co.uk/originwhy.PNG

Origin Systems shouldn't have been pushed to become online only, true. But again, they were shut down due to poor sales. Bullfrog wasn't really shut down as far as I can tell, as they were absorbed into EA UK.

Westwood Studios was shut down after Command & Conquer: Renegade and Earth & Beyond didn't sell as well as expected. All willing staff was absorbed into EA Los Angeles.

So out of those three, Origin Systems was the only one that was truly shut down.


You DO realize how easy it is to Photoshop a screen capture, right? My Process Monitor has never shown Origin snooping around my computer, not now, not ever.

I don't know why you give EA so much credit. Even if you like their games, that doesn't mean the bad decisions should be ignored/sugar-coated.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/02/riccitiello/

Good sir, this is the internet. WHY would anyone LIE to us here? That would be deceitful and crude. I believe every picture I see on the internet as truth!

No, they didn't. They didn't take any bailout money, and weren't anywhere close to causing the mortgage meltdown. For that you can look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehmann, Goldman Sachs, AIG, Bear Stearns, Indy Mac, Countrywide... I could go on... They're one of the few banks that have remained liquid through the recession, and I can tell you from experience that they don't charge any more fees or do anything more underhanded than any other commercial bank. You always have to watch the fine print, but that's the way it goes.

Not that I think EA really deserves to be called the worst company in America, either, in the grand scheme of things.

Ugh, I can't sleep. May as well finish this:


Yes, all of this is just a giant conspiracy against EA.

They close servers down after 18 months, buy up and shut down studios, day-1 DLC, etc. etc. etc.

They can't possibly have originally not have executed Origin 100% correctly.


Basically half of your arguments boil down to "but everyone else is doing it too!" and the other half to "I refuse to see it."

EA's the worst out of a bad bunch. EA > Activision > Steam/Valve > Ubisoft, at the moment. That's crazy, right? I'm seriously reconsidering my position on Ubisoft's practices in the light of the other companies. All Ubisoft needs to do now is lighten up on its DRM, and I may actually consider buying from them. Nuts.

Thankfully, there's gog.com and indie developers. Also, friends who are willing to buy the stuff I'd want to play but can't because of such practices.

Did I ever say they didn't make bad decisions? Not as far as I'm aware. The problem is that the only thing everyone sees is the bad. That's why I always argue this point. There's always two sides to the story.

Do I think they've screwed up? Yes. Do I think they're the most vile and evil corporation ever? Not by a long shot.


Not quite, it's just a prime example of herd mentality.


Do you really expect them to keep servers up for games few if any people still play? And? And?


Wat?


Yes, but it is a valid point. Why? Because other companies use similar practices, yet for whatever reason, the only one people actually pay attention to is EA. Why is this? Why pick EA out of all the other companies? That's what I want to know.

And what exactly do I refuse to see? That EA is clearly run by the devil himself? EA is a company, which is being run like a company. If you can provide a more substantial point than "you just don't get it, do you?" then I may be persuaded to change my point of view. But as it stands, you're just butthurt over something that you have no stake in.

No, it isn't. AT&T is the first company to do it. Before that everyone offered unlimited here. It wasn't until after them that the other mobile carriers followed suit. You can say "but there are caps elsewhere", which is true. However, mobile data caps elsewhere in the world are much more generous than ours (as in more of an allowance), don't come with a contract, and allow tethering for free. None of these are true in the US cap system because AT&T set the bar so low.

That's generally agreed to be a fake.

It was supposed to be "pass savings on" but autocorrect changed it (was one my phone up until now).

Yup. And something that only does a fraction of the evil another company does cannot possibly be as evil as another company. EA is just following in the bad footsteps other companies have already made, but nothing they are doing is new in the evil business front or even nearly as bad as other companies.


If you don't have any experience with them then you cannot make an informed decision and shouldn't vote.
It's hardly all apply, some of them are impossible to apply as EA's scope is far too small. BoA and AT&T are basically monopolies in power, whereas EA isn't (heck, they don't even have their own platform and cannot establish their own digital distribution channel).

AT&T has had that for eons, wouldn't be surprised if BoA did too. Lot's of companies do, including lots of gaming companies. EA isn't the first to do it even in their own industry and they most certainly won't be the last.

That image is by and large to be agreed as a fake as no one (I remember reading through the thread after I heard about it where it was originally posted) has ever been able to replicate it.


I'm not saying EA is a good company by any stretch of the imagination (I don't like them at all), but to say they are on equal footing with the evils AT&T and BoA have done is incredibly naive and overlooking far too many things.

Capcom should get this purely due to their ignorance with Azura's Wrath downloads, especially because it was during the EA and BioWare crap storm

You could've fooled me. I'm not talking about them being evil, I was refuting your point that it was mainly the fault of the developers that they were closed/assimilated.

If you're going to preach about there being two sides to the story, then consider them both equally.

That they are the worst of the worst Western developers.


Fixed.


I'm trying to change your view? No. I'm just corresponding with you. Which makes that last bit all the more unnecessary...

Who won/lost, whatever way they'd take being crowned the worst company

What is the cap there? I assure you it's a lot higher than it is in a lot of other places.


Again, the reason I changed my vote is because I focused on the company, and not its product. Obviously a badly-run bank is going to have a more adverse impact on its customers than a video game publisher. But which one has been run more poorly? I'm starting to think it's EA again, but I'll stick by my coin toss this morning and leave my vote with BoA.


But not everyone -- not even Americans -- will have had an experience with all of the companies listed in that poll. Except, they can read up on them. I knew about the capping and bad service of AT&T, for instance. The way I see it, the poll is a mix of which-company-has-been-run-so-badly-that-they've-gotten-into-the-news-and-their-[censored]-exposed-so-much-that-everyone-knows-how-bad-the-company-is, and what-has-your-experience-with-that-company-been.


Yes, I agree that EA functions on a much smaller scale in some regards. But in others the scale is much bigger. For instance, it's international, and AT&T isn't. But again, you're focusing on external qualities, not internal ones. I decided to focus on internal qualities following that quote I read. ( And then I just flipped a coin. )


Again, you're focusing on the external, instead of the internal.

Just saw http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/560590_415525568476902_205344452828349_1499879_499247458_n.jpg on Facebook. Courtesy of George Takei.

Brilliant... !

How big of a deal is the competition really? Some people seem to be taking this voting really seriously as if whatever company wins this will take a big blow to their reputation or something. It looks to me like little more than a fun little gimmick to draw people to the website.

Because there's something wrong with the world when a video company that has done nothing a good many other companies have done over the years is considered more evil than an illegal information sharer that instituded the US mobile data cap (just one of their most recent offenses) and a major contributor to the current recession and screwer of countless peoples.

EAs stocks are in very bad shape. Being voted the worst company in America, could make them even worse.
I hate EA dont get me wrong, but it dosent deserve to win this.
Its kinda pathetic isnt it.

But you see this competition doesn't represent any significant amount of the population. The reason EA is getting so many votes is because the people who visit and stay active on that website are more likely to be the younger, gamer crowd that is just voting up EA...as they might say...for the 'lulz.'

This isn't something to be taken 'seriously', I mean the winning company gets a trophy called the "golden poo." Its something that is done primarily for fun, and really doesn't have any significant meaning or impact.

And as that younger audience grows up, if they still feel that a gaming company is worse than the likes of monopolies in fields that actually matter we have a real problem.

http://consumerist.com/2012/04/congratulations-ea-you-are-the-worst-company-in-america-for-2012.html

Not sure how I feel about that. I'm still ambivalent about the poll because The Consumerist didn't really define the criteria for judging "worst company".

Well, at least we all get to point and laugh at EA now.

The article ends on this note:

How does EA win over an organization that TOOK PEOPLE'S HOMES without reason and then was forced by the government to give them back. As much as I hate EA, BoA deserved the award more. BoA is by far the largest blight on the US people and should have had every last employee fired and the company disbanded after what it has done and continues to do to it's customers.

Yes, I hold a mortgage written by BoA so I have first hand experience with their slimy unethical underhanded practices. BoA should rot in hell for how they treat people.

Ballot-stuffing angry gamers on the Internet that don't have to worry about real-world problems.

http://kotaku.com/5899092/worst-company-in-america-ea-says-halliburton-must-be-relieved-it-wasnt-nom has EA's reply:

Or maybe people with enough real-world problems that they're not happy about their escapism being undermined. I think the "entitled whiners" thing has been done to death already.