Is EA no longer the worst company in America?

[Daveman]

First of all, for those who don't know, here's some old news. EA has been voted the worst company in the world two years running in an internet poll.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123161-Electronic-Arts-Repeats-as-Worst-Company-in-America

Lately however there seems to me to be an up-surging of extremely positive news related to them with them recently doing a humble bundle effort which raised millions for charity and took zero cut for themselves. Similarly there is news today of massive sales on Origin and also offers of full refunds for games.

I myself was attempting to make a point to my friend of how terrible Origin was recently by showing how huge the prices are for their digitally distributed games. Unfortunately I was caught in a different sale and the prices were on the whole quite reasonable, leaving me with egg on my face.

I still haven't got Origin, in fact I just got Dragon Age 2 for Xbox to avoid purchasing it on Origin, but on the whole I'm starting to feel their publicity stunts taking their toll and I can't seem to muster as much dislike for them, not that I ever had the extreme hatred others had.

Obviously there are still dickish things they're doing that they could change but I was wondering how many other people have already been swayed to "forgive" EA. Ultimately I may have to wait a bit longer before I fully decide on them but what do you think?

Do you think that EA has lost it's title now and if not what more would you need to see from them?

Also, no poll. I want verbal opinions here!

Edit: So looking through the comments I feel I should say that this thread was intended less to discuss whether in fact EA are the worst company in America and more to discuss changing opinions about gaming's most hated symbol of evil. I honestly just thought it was a neat title to the thread.

 

[Legion]

First of all they should never have gotten that "award", because they are nowhere near the worst company in the entire country. Worst games publisher could be argued, but not company overall.

If EA keeps doing the good things and doesn't come out with any more of the crap that has made them infamous then I'd say they could recover from their bad reputation. They clearly have some good ideas, and they know they need to get some good press after the Sim City issues and other similar problems.

Personally my issues are purely that they seem to be the embodiment of games being products rather than "art" or "entertainment". Their goal seems to be exclusively to make as much money as possible, regardless of what that means for the games they make. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make money, but not the way they seem to go about it.

But like I said, they seem to be doing a pretty good job of heading in the right direction, and if they can keep consistent with this, and not come out with something stupid like they normally do, then I think they can win back a lot of fans.

 

[Rack]

I don't think anyone actually seriously considered EA the worst company in America, it's just a vocal shout against a highly visible company that treats its customers in a crappy fashion. As nonsensical as the title is they can't lose it in any relevant fashion till next year. As to whether they will, that depends on if there's actually a change in priorities or just a bit of emergency PR.

 

[Archangel470]

Like the others have said, I don't consider that EA is the worst company in America.

They've got a long road to walk on, due to controversial stuff like SimCity, but if they keep up the pace they're currently at right now, they might get more respect from gamers in the future.

 

[Genocidicles]

Large sales on origin, and that charity thing they did with the Humble Bundle leads me to think they may have turned a new leaf.

But then I see what they're doing to Dungeon Keeper, and I still don't trust them.

And then I remember when John Riccitiello first took control back in... 2007 was it? and they published new IPs like Mirror's Edge, Dead Space and Brutal Legend, and for a while it looked like they were finally turning around and were trying to be good publishers. Then they later regressed and became worse than they ever were before.

So I reckon they probably won't win the worst company award next year, but give it a few years and they'll probably be a contender again.

 

[CloudAtlas]

First of all they should never have gotten that "award", because they are nowhere near the worst company in the entire country. Worst games publisher could be argued, but not company overall.

Exactly. The whole voting procedure is a joke. Calling EA the "worst company" would mean that Americans, as a whole, care more about some consumer-unfriendly business practices of an entertainment company than about, say, oil companies spilling their gulfs or financial firms crashing their economy.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

First of all they should never have gotten that "award", because they are nowhere near the worst company in the entire country. Worst games publisher could be argued, but not company overall.

Exactly. The whole voting procedure is a joke. Calling EA the "worst company" would mean that Americans, as a whole, care more about some consumer-unfriendly business practices of an entertainment company than about, say, oil companies spilling their gulfs or financial firms crashing their economy.

The thing is everyone knows what those companies have done so the award means nothing to those companies.EA has some of the worst consumer practices that if they were a bank or oil company people would be giving them ten times the hate.

I still don't understand this idea that just because you create entertainment that somehow you aren't capable of doing fucked up shit.

It's not about not being able to do fucked up shit, it's about the impact the company as on life. No matter how bad EA gets, it's never going to impact life significantly. All people have to do is not buy their games if they get too bad.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

First of all they should never have gotten that "award", because they are nowhere near the worst company in the entire country. Worst games publisher could be argued, but not company overall.

Exactly. The whole voting procedure is a joke. Calling EA the "worst company" would mean that Americans, as a whole, care more about some consumer-unfriendly business practices of an entertainment company than about, say, oil companies spilling their gulfs or financial firms crashing their economy.

The thing is everyone knows what those companies have done so the award means nothing to those companies.EA has some of the worst consumer practices that if they were a bank or oil company people would be giving them ten times the hate.

I still don't understand this idea that just because you create entertainment that somehow you aren't capable of doing fucked up shit.

It's not about not being able to do fucked up shit, it's about the impact the company as on life. No matter how bad EA gets, it's never going to impact life significantly. All people have to do is not buy their games if they get too bad.

Tell that to the people who film people getting tortured or raped as entertainment,tell that to the child pornographers who ruin thousands of children's lives with their videos.Just because you think entertainment isn't capable of ruining lives does'nt mean it's true.

Also most of the things I've mentioned are commited by companies that are underground and in other countries.

Wait, what? Aren't we talking about EA here? When has EA done any of that?

 

[TKretts3]

Well, for EA to no longer be the worst company in America, it would first have to hold the position of 'Worst Company in America', which it never has. Simply because it got a majority in a poll (An internet poll with a pool of voters comprised primarily of gamers and other nerds) does not mean they are the worst. There are companies out there who have committed serious crimes and ruined peoples lives, and some little kids with a false self of entitlement are going to vote for EA because they have bad customer support? Because they make a few bad games? Because they're not too customer friendly?

It's ridiculous, really.

 

[CloudAtlas]

It's not about not being able to do fucked up shit, it's about the impact the company as on life. No matter how bad EA gets, it's never going to impact life significantly. All people have to do is not buy their games if they get too bad.

Tell that to the people who film people getting tortured or raped as entertainment,tell that to the child pornographers who ruin thousands of children's lives with their videos.Just because you think entertainment isn't capable of ruining lives does'nt mean it's true.

Also most of the things I've mentioned are commited by companies that are underground and in other countries.

And all this is related to what EA does... how?


If you genuinely believe that EA has "some of the worst [imaginable] consumer practices", you have no idea of the business world. So they're forcing you to use Origin and want to milk their customers a bit more by implementing micro transactions in all their games. But, yea, that's totally on the same level as insurance companies not wanting to pay you damages after life-changing accidents or banks granting you loans you won't be able to repay... to name just two examples.

 

[Fappy]

First of all they should never have gotten that "award", because they are nowhere near the worst company in the entire country. Worst games publisher could be argued, but not company overall.

This. You realize the internet is a petty and childish place when EA beats out banking and pharmaceutical companies.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I still don't understand this idea that just because you create entertainment that somehow you aren't capable of doing fucked up shit.

Tell that to the people who film people getting tortured or raped as entertainment,tell that to the child pornographers who ruin thousands of children's lives with their videos. Just because you think entertainment isn't capable of ruining lives doesn't mean it's true.

Annnnnd that has what, to do with games? You say entertainment is capable of ruining lives, but only go on about film. The worst someone could do with games is...create the game and use someone's likeness without their permission. Which is nothing more than a mere fantasy of what could be, not something that is, like in film. Not to say this kind of creation can't be scarring, I'm sure it can be. But if you're going to drag games into the capability of ruining lives, care to bring up some examples of games forcefully ruining lives?

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

The "Worst Company in America" thing is a big misnomer. It was just a poll that butthurt consumers manipulated in order to lash out at EA. There is no actual way EA is the worst company in America, especially when you stack them against people like Wal Mart and the Bank of America (the latter of which has unlawfully thrown people out of their homes).