Why is EA the worst company in America?

[Yo_Mama]

The main complaint I find is people were angry Mass Effect 3 didn't have a happy ending. Is it possible this makes EA worse then the Banks that put millions of people out of their homes or the Oil Companies that start wars? Does EA get so much hate cause some whiny gamers didn't get enough rainbows and bunnies in a game ending?
Cause if you look objectively at it, EA's business practices aren't that different from most other large game companies.
(example: Everyone's favorite company)

I'm asking this now because of the reaction to the recently canceled Generals 2 game. Everyone was bashing EA all the way.
"EA is making another Generals game, that's dumb, EA sucks".
"EA is canceling the Generals game, that's dumb, EA sucks".
This mixed with "EA ruined the Command and Conquer series" (never mind the fact that EA created Red Alert 2 and the entire Generals series).



This thread has devolved into something way off topic. Locked.

Anandtech Moderator
KeithTalent

 

[TeknoBug]

EA has a long track record of being a bad company, it has nothing to do with whiny gamers. In the past 10 years they've been obtaining sub-companies and basically destroying them and Bioware is their last victim. So far EA hasn't gotten in DICE's way.

There is a lot more than to what you've "heard", just look it up.

 

[Destiny]

REpost... there are already several threads about this... please use the search...

 

[CPA]

Banks didn't put millions out of their homes, people making stupid financial decisions did. And it wasn't millions, either way, but nice exaggeration.

 

[Yo_Mama]

EA has a long track record of being a bad company, it has nothing to do with whiny gamers. In the past 10 years they've been obtaining sub-companies and basically destroying them and Bioware is their last victim. So far EA hasn't gotten in DICE's way.

There is a lot more than to what you've "heard", just look it up.

Well yeah but Bioware was liquidated after they had been given the largest budget in gaming history to make SWTOR, and they ended up making a crap game that lost a lot of money.
All publishers do this, what makes EA so special?

 

[Conscript]

EA is like the Borg

 

[TeknoBug]

Well yeah but Bioware was liquidated after they had been given the largest budget in gaming history to make SWTOR, and they ended up making a crap game that lost a lot of money.
All publishers do this, what makes EA so special?

The main "doctors" of Bioware left because of EA's mismanagement with Bioware, quite a few people in BW left, same thing with Infinity ward leaving that company because of Activision. Why stick around when they mistreat you.

Bioware started the SWTOR project in 2005, EA picked up on it in 2007, I followed the SWTOR since then and their plans for the game changed a little after EA picked them up, during beta we told Bioware NOT to turn SWTOR into a WoW clone and they did anyways and an EA rep (not a Bioware rep) responded.

 

[Veliko]

Banks didn't put millions out of their homes, people making stupid financial decisions did. And it wasn't millions, either way, but nice exaggeration.

Well, it was the people in the banks making the stupid financial decisions.

 

[Yo_Mama]

The main "doctors" of Bioware left because of EA's mismanagement with Bioware, quite a few people in BW left, same thing with Infinity ward leaving that company because of Activision. Why stick around when they mistreat you.

Bioware started the SWTOR project in 2005, EA picked up on it in 2007, I followed the SWTOR since then and their plans for the game changed a little after EA picked them up, during beta we told Bioware NOT to turn SWTOR into a WoW clone and they did anyways and an EA rep (not a Bioware rep) responded.

What exactly did they change in SWTOR?

 

[John Connor]

Banks didn't put millions out of their homes, people making stupid financial decisions did. And it wasn't millions, either way, but nice exaggeration.

And oil companies don't start wars. LMAO!

 

[mikeymikec]

EA is like the Borg

Fictional species responsible for multiple fictional genocides. I totally see the connection there!

PS - I don't like EA much either, but let's keep the hyperbole to a minimum...

 

[BrightCandle]

My list of concerns about EA:

1) Their push towards worse an worse DRM did nothing but screw the customer. They repeatedly have been shutting down relatively young games from their servers and taking products away from paying customers just a few years after they were released.

2) Origin and the drastic move to remove their games from all other sale stores other than physical disks is anti competitive and locks in customers to Origin.

3) EA seems to be forcing the developers of games to make a lot of sequels and driving its talent away with the requirements it is placing on the developers.

4) EA is forcing in multiplayer features into games that don't need them, where they don't make sense and calling those games MMOs purely as a way to hide the fact they are pushing always online DRM onto their customers.

5) EA isn't deploying enough DRM servers which just makes the amount of DRM across all of their games worse. Its bad enough they have this stuff and it keeps going wrong, its worse that a new game is unplayable due to insufficient server capacity.

6) The quality of games on release day has been pretty bad. Games like Sim City are still broken even now. EA's current strategy seems to be to release really broken games, fix them a bit until everyone gives up and then leave them in their sorry state before shutting out the few remaining fans next year when they release a sequel.

7) EA has been acquiring studios all over the place. Initially it seems to just force branding but the nefarious intent comes a little later as they integrate the studio and destroy all its ideals. Multiple studio heads have left with disputes over pay and conditions and the horrid situation EA management put them through.

8) EA on its own having created a monopoly on the supply of its games has increased the price on PC to more like console levels, and set a higher price for its games on the consoles as well.

9) When a studio inevitably fails to make huge sales after all this rubbish has dragged their sales down EA will fire all the staff.

The end result is as customers we get sequel after sequel, each more buggy than the last all coated with the worst forms of DRM at a higher price than everyone else. It destroys great studios within a few years and along with it great game series. Very few companies seem to survive this process and come out making good games in the end. What is there to like about this corporate strategy exactly? It has no redeeming qualities as a business really, its the very worst of corporate culture.

One thing going for EA is its created a lot of Kickstarter projects and startup games companies. The refugees from this process are banding together and creating games without the evil hand of a publisher.

 

[Maximilian]

The main complaint I find is people were angry Mass Effect 3 didn't have a happy ending. Is it possible this makes EA worse then the Banks that put millions of people out of their homes or the Oil Companies that start wars? Does EA get so much hate cause some whiny gamers didn't get enough rainbows and bunnies in a game ending?
Cause if you look objectively at it, EA's business practices aren't that different from most other large game companies.
(example: Everyone's favorite company)

I'm asking this now because of the reaction to the recently canceled Generals 2 game. Everyone was bashing EA all the way.
"EA is making another Generals game, that's dumb, EA sucks".
"EA is canceling the Generals game, that's dumb, EA sucks".
This mixed with "EA ruined the Command and Conquer series" (never mind the fact that EA created Red Alert 2 and the entire Generals series).

Yes Red Alert 2 which threw the story out the window... epic! Dont get me wrong I had a ton of fun online with both RA2 and Generals and at the time 11 year old me quite liked the story of RA2 but looking back now... I see it was not a particularly well done sequel to the original, wrecking the story was step 1 to wrecking the series.

C&C3 story was boring and also didn't link to the previous game and the online play was dull as well. Nothing but symmetrical boring maps designed for "competitive play".

EA just makes everything... well... shit for lack of a better word :| And thats just C&C! Never mind all the other BS they pulled with DRM, cancelling DK3 for a harry potter game (fuck you EA), buying out other companies and doing sod all with the franchises, theme park, populous, dungeon keeper like i mentioned already, theres probably others, if they dont do nothing then they run it into the ground like simcity. Im surprised the sims hasent followed suit tbh.

 

[HeXen]

At least EA games work. There was a time a few years back when other publishers had games that you couldn't even execute...Like Ubisoft and their hardcore DRM's like starforce..etc.
Oh how many times I had to see "please insert original CD instead of copy" with an original disc I could murder kittens. EA games never did me like that but of course SIMCity 5 sounds like a similar scenario anyway.
They are bad about breaking teams apart and shuffling them around. They can't be consistant at making a simple franchise like NFS.

Banks didn't put millions out of their homes, people making stupid financial decisions did. And it wasn't millions, either way, but nice exaggeration.

Well the banks told people that couldn't afford it that they could. They also falsified and rushed documents among other things including some shady activity in getting people out of their homes from what I heard from Rush. For others that lost their jobs and no one was hiring also did not help.
It wasn't always about buyers ignorance but inflated house prices and high rental prices left some without options but to maximize their finances.

 

[mmntech]

EA buying up studios is a common corporate practice now. Big businesses don't compete. They just buy out any up start competition before it becomes a threat, or use patent trolls to sue them out of existence.

Though despite all the whining the gaming community does about EA, their games are still selling. Not just their casual titles either. Battlefield is still a massive series. Everyone loves to talk about how awesome Crysis is. Also despite all the negative press around SimCity 5, it still sold 1.1 million copies in the first two weeks, and 2 million overall. That makes it one of the best selling PC games of all time, selling as many copies as SimCity 4 has. As long as games like SimCity are released in a broken state, and people still buy them, what incentive do they have to change?

I do agree though that EA isn't the worst company in America by far. That poll was the result of the internet mobilizing itself to do what it does best. Troll. You can't honestly say with a straight face that they're worse than the banks, who were tossing around toxic sub-prime mortgages like dollar bills at a strip club. Thousands rendered homeless, millions put out of a job. EA just sells bad video games. They're like the modern day LJN.

 

[Grooveriding]

EA being the worst company in America via a random internet poll is a joke. If you want the worst look to the huge financial titans and some of the big contractors for the government.

The idea that some random game publisher is the one doing the most harm is ridiculous.

 

[p0rkguy]

Well the banks told people that couldn't afford it that they could. They also falsified and rushed documents among other things including some shady activity in getting people out of their homes from what I heard from Rush. For others that lost their jobs and no one was hiring also did not help.
It wasn't always about buyers ignorance but inflated house prices and high rental prices left some without options but to maximize their finances.

In other words, "People making stupid financial decisions"
Oh banks told me this, banks told me that. This guy told me I should sell my house to him because it won't generate anymore money.
In case you haven't noticed, Americans don't really plan for sh*t. We just use whatever is available or disposable. People don't have "in case sh*t happens money"
See it from the other side (the sellers) and you would see that Americans are dumb as sh*t financially.

 

[HeXen]

Everyone loves to talk about how awesome Crysis is.

Huh?
A history full of threads talking about how Crysis runs like crap maxed out, too linear, poor story, AI complaints. At least I havn't seen any threads where very many people praised it.

They're like the modern day LJN.

Hey I really liked Jaws, MLB and Friday the 13th. Had a lot of fun playing those when I was young. Their games were fully functional unlike some titles.

 

[dguy6789]

Fictional species responsible for multiple fictional genocides. I totally see the connection there!

PS - I don't like EA much either, but let's keep the hyperbole to a minimum...

EA has destroyed more great game franchises and companies than any other game company I know of by far. Command & Conquer anyone?

 

[alcoholbob]

EA ran Origin Systems, Bullfrog and Westwood to the ground, and this is only half the companies they've acquired that they've ruined. And these companies were market leaders that produced epic games, not little startups that have no effect on the industry.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Well lets put things in perspective. EA is pretty much a predatory company that has destroyed a lot of good gaming franchises. I would not argue with that. OTOH, a lot of companies have done hugely more damage to the economy, environment, and individuals than EA.

As for those who are defending the big banks, come on get serious. There is plenty of blame to go around. Yes, consumers made bad decisions, but the big banks and mortgage companies were the ones who relaxed standards and made and promoted the financial instruments that made those decisions possible.

 

[Veliko]

In other words, "People making stupid financial decisions"
Oh banks told me this, banks told me that. This guy told me I should sell my house to him because it won't generate anymore money.
In case you haven't noticed, Americans don't really plan for sh*t. We just use whatever is available or disposable. People don't have "in case sh*t happens money"
See it from the other side (the sellers) and you would see that Americans are dumb as sh*t financially.

It was the people working at the banks making stupid financial decisions.

If a man goes to a doctor because he heard that eating rat poison was good for his health, the doctor would be jailed if he went ahead and sold the man some rat poison.

Yet, bizarrely, banks selling loans to people who couldn't afford them gets defended and even applauded in some cases.

 

[Dumac]

As bad as EA is, all they do is make videogames.

I think that has less meaningful impact than a lot of other companies, but a bunch of kids whose life revolves around videogames took the poll.

 

[Carfax83]

As bad as EA is, all they do is make videogames.

I think that has less meaningful impact than a lot of other companies, but a bunch of kids whose life revolves around videogames took the poll.

This pretty much. The idea that E.A is the worst company in America has got to be some kind of idiotic fantasy. There are far more corrupt and predatory companies that actually do plenty of harm to the U.S..

 

[Dumac]

This pretty much. The idea that E.A is the worst company in America has got to be some kind of idiotic fantasy. There are far more corrupt and predatory companies that actually do plenty of harm to the U.S..

Like Carfax