Electronic Arts named the worst company in America again
polycounter lvl 11
Not surprised
http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/electronic-arts-named-worst-company-america-again-170932002.html
http://consumerist.com/2013/04/09/ea-makes-worst-company-in-america-history-wins-title-for-second-year-in-a-row/
Theres a pretty big discussion on the BF4 thread about un-justified DLC, so this announcement is good timing
Heres some of the comments:
Alot of people wont post in this thread so they don't ruin their chances with EA by agreeing. I wish we had an "anonymous post" option, it would bring new light to this forum.
http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/electronic-arts-named-worst-company-america-again-170932002.html
http://consumerist.com/2013/04/09/ea-makes-worst-company-in-america-history-wins-title-for-second-year-in-a-row/
Theres a pretty big discussion on the BF4 thread about un-justified DLC, so this announcement is good timing
Heres some of the comments:
Alot of people wont post in this thread so they don't ruin their chances with EA by agreeing. I wish we had an "anonymous post" option, it would bring new light to this forum.
Replies
please use common sense ,grow up, go outside, see the world ...
All your comments and attitude toward EA make your intention for creating the thread pretty obvious. I for one have worked at EA and loved every minute of it. They're an awesome company to work at, and most games that I buy from them are fuckin great. Ya there's some stuff to gripe about, but it doesn't change the fact that they make good games, and for the most part treat their employees pretty fairly. To me, anybody entertaining the thought that there is any validity to this poll has literally no idea what they're talking about.
I've never heard anything about working for them being bad, interesting
"and most games that I buy from them are fuckin great. Ya there's some stuff to gripe about, but it doesn't change the fact that they make good games"
Are you rating before or after you buy the rest of it?
Also if a gamepublisher is voted the worst company in the US i think people voting have their priorities wrong. Theres a lot more nasty practices going on in food/pharma/banking etc that influences peoples life much more on a daily basis.
i know someone who would literally get calls from producers at 1am in the morning to come back into work. and that was in the animation dept. some of the others even worse.
they have also been in numerous lawsuits for not paying overtime etc. they lost.
http://news.cnet.com/Electronic-Arts-settles-overtime-suit/2110-1047_3-6065011.html
id guess that a good number of the people voting are artists that have been fucked over by them.
They won out against Bank of America.
I mean between certain private organization, food companies, banks and Gov't equity establishment that affect both our future and our parents, how exactly is a company that isn't forcing you to buy a game, and you have something like the option of buying 3,000 other games in a single year alone = worst company?
Yes, EA policies can be dickish sometimes, but frankly, it's more the consumers fault then anything in this day and age where a 5 minute search will give you everything you need to know.
EA makes Mirror's Edge; almost no one buys it and expects them to make almost a month in a sequel.
EA tries and improves their sport titles games; people complain that it's too different and that the updates are too big.
EA smack-talks Activision with BF3; people don't complain and the fan the flames even more, while still White Knighting about DS2 Ads.
Seriously, every step EA tries to take and improve their games ended up in disaster, and that point, why even bother trying?
Remember folks, the more you complain about something, the less meaning it will have.
Thus the "ya there's some stuff to gripe about" quote.. If you're talking about Dead Space, you must've finished the game to have that opinion. Why did you finish the game if it was such shit? You obviously liked it enough to get to the end. Wasn't it almost a 20 hour game?? Sheesh
Ill be honest and say that since the link was "games.yahoo" I thought it was a vote among entertainment companies.
I didn't know they were competing with companies in different industries. But in that case id say the internet presence of the players is much higher than those concerned with the other companies.
The top 10 worst companies usually covers everything, EA probably just came first because of reddit and all that other social garbage. It still doesn't change their (mostly) valid opinions.
Never played a single dead space, never cared
While you are correct in that there are worse things that effect the world. This was specifically a consumerist website. Its goal would to be point out issues for consumers, nothing more.
In that sense this voting should be looked at the standard of customer service. In which case according to the public, EA is worse than other more harmful industries.
Then which game are you referring to?
To be fair, Gray, that article is from the "EA-Spouse" era, over half a decade ago. I too had heard nothing but horror stories from those who worked for EA (or for an EA-owned studio) at that time, however I think they got bit hard enough that it changed their attitude, at least somewhat.
Most of those I know who have worked for EA more recently said that their overtime policies were improved considerably since those lawsuits, whether by pay, by comp time, or by bonuses. Of course, the amount of improvement probably depends on the studio and the project.
Anyway, employment-wise there are other big name publishers that I'd put higher on my 'don't work for these guys' list than EA, at least these days. I could see them getting voted up (er..down?) for their DLC and releaseday troubles though.
The internet still really remembers EA Wives story. In reality work conditions vary studio by studio in a large publisher.
Also the huge Simy City debacle that happened last month, and it still has a lot of core gameplay issues. Just look at http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/.
EA has killed a lot of beloved studios, sometimes cutting the fat is a good thing. *cough* Such as Disney killing LucasArts *cough*
But killing studios gives gives a publisher a bad reputation. Also people are not fans when EA buys a studio they like.
EA has forced multiplayer into games such as Dead Space 3, Mass Effect 3, and Sim City. Games that are mostly single player by nature.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ea-voted-worst-company-in-america-peter-moore-responds/0113754
.......Aaaaaaaaand here we go:
Holy fucking LOL. first off if you have never worked for them, you really have no idea, people like to bitch so ofcourse at industry parties and stuff they are gonna tell you all the shit that goes down, and Ive seen that stuff happen at 99% of other studios ive worked at even "glorious" little small studios. Ive heard Naughty dog called a slave shop before too, its all subjective and totally comes down to individual opinon based on experience. some people like to work on huge titles and put in 70 hour weeks non stop cause they enjoy it, others want a normal balanced life.
I worked for EA montreal for a while and have friends who worked at EA vancouver and everyone had pretty decent experiences. Mine in particualr was awesome and met some great talented people and even during crunch the office was usually empty by 6:30.
Infact the worst experiences I have had in this industry have always been at small companies. when the money runs out you are left holding you dick in your hand, usually with no severance or notice and there isnt much you can do about it. atleast then a large studio lays you off they usually give you a huge severance package. I wouldnt mind being hired for a year, laid off and being able to float for 2-3 months or find a new job right away and have an extra $20-30g in my pocket, but thats just me. Ill take a cash payout over a fist up my ass any day.
I wont deny there are problems with EA,especially 5 years ago or whenever that big unpaid overtime suit came out(even though almost every studio does unpaid overtime...). There are problems at every studio, even ones like valve, blizzard and epic, who people love to get on their knees and gobble their balls like a gift from the gods. the thing is though at any of those studios chances are you are going to be working mad overtime as well.
Things like this survey are exactly the reason why people see gamers as little babies. becuase 99% of the time they act like it. "ohhh noo EA supports gays!? VOTE THEM THE WORST COMPANY GAYS ARE ICKY!" which unto itself is a completley fucked up response. Maybe if consumers would stop being so reactive and chill a bit the perception of us being a bunch of squabbling little cry babies might change. The other problem with this internet whining bullshit is I would really love to know the actual percentage of people who finished mass 3 and were
Oh no your sim city doesnt work for the 1st couple days? time to throw a tantrum and boycott everything. you realize most of the people in the world wish they had those kinda problems right.....? instead of things like ummmm o dunno......starvation and genocide and opression as their daily troubles. same goes for the people bitching about the end of mass effect 3. well if they are so passionate about it, obviously they loved the franchise and up to the last 10-20 mins of the game probably thought it was great. then their little nerd rage of indignification got tickeled and they dive onto the internet to be a tough guy behind their screens, wasting huge amounts of energy spounting vitrol towards EA, completley forgetting they were awesome enough to create this amazing universe for an insanley cool trillogy of games to exist in for them to enjoy.
The biggest problem I see is the consumer vs publisher dynamic. consumers feel entitled to everything and seeing them bitching and moaning while publishers (not just EA) are trying to get more money out of them to expand their business and profits. I could go on and on about this but I im not going to waste any more energy arguing.
TL: DR
at the end of the day......who gives a shit? do something productive, make art, go out side and just dont buy their games if you dont like them. sitting here gnashing your teeth and pointing fingers with trembling lips at some highly overblow injustices is pretty weak. and to the people claiming they never want to work for them.......If you had just been laid off or work at Mcdonalds and were offered a position at EA.....would you seriously turn it down?
pretty much the last 2 panels is how reading this stuff makes me feel:
Love you guys
they were forced to change. would they be back to there old tricks if they did not have a squad of labour lawyers and attorneys breathing down there neck as they do now?
i think the letter by peter moore sums up the mentality of the upper management. seems they have the mentality of a gang of 13 year old yobs who just give you the the finger and throw rocks at your car when you catch them spray painting tags on your apartment building or breaking bottles in the parking lot. that kind of attitude just does not cut it anymore. from the consumer perspective. people have less money to spend and its a hard economy for most people. they want you to go the extra mile to give them value and when you mess up they want you to apologize and try to fix you mistakes. i think a lot of management is stuck in the 1990s where everyone was making money and they had extra cash to throw around. these executives have no connection with what most people are going through now because even if they did lose money it has not effected there lifestyle at all and there still in the party boy 1990s mentality.
as a consumer i really do not have the time or the money for peter moore to wave his dick in my face. and i think most people even if they make there living in 3d graphics don't appreciate that attitude either.
I kinda understand where you are going with this, and i partially agree. I mean, I gotta say mass effect might even be my most fav game.
And when i saw the ending the first time....i gotta admit, i wasn't really disappointed, but i can't say i was totally amazed either. I mean, the entire series had such a high standard (storywise and in general), that last 5 mins just felt rushed and not up to those standards.
So, from what i saw, a lot of anger was directed at the fact, that they made such a great 3 games, and it's just such a shame that they rushed the last 5 mins, which should be one of the most important parts of series.
From this perspective, i can completely understand people who complain about the ending...
But it is true that people are overreacting, just because they didn't like last 5 mins, all of sudden, they are giving scores like 1/10 on metacritic and such....
I guess it's hard to be objective for those guys....
Similar with Simcity...If you take a game, that was always (among other) single player, and then suddenly put always online thingy, atleast be sure people will be actually able to play, once it's released. I mean, games are not cheap, 60$ is quite a lot. If i pay that much money for game, and i can't play (otherwise singleplayer mode) it, because of their own fault? I mean....of course i'll be ticked off at least a bit.
I mean, minor bugs here and there, that's to be understood, be the whole situation with SC, for regular player, was understanbly annoying to say the least. Ofcourse they wll get angry.
So, while people are overreacting and all that, there is still good reason why EA gets this kind of award. Again, from my perspective as a player, i just really dislike the way they do business, and there is reason why i prefer Valve much more over EA, and i'm not half life fan or such at all....
So, while you do have some points, i do think you are watching the whole situation a bit too black-white....Nobody is forcing EA to make dozens of day 1 DLCs, or put very important parts of the ME stories into DLCs, or forcing player to have always online for single player game, only to later not be able to play it for that same reason......
Now, should BOA win this instead? I dunno, but i can't say EA didn't earn this mostly all by themselfs....
do you really think a letter like that addressed to customers who are upset with your product is going to satisfy them and make your relationship with them better? the man knows nothing about customer service and seems quite stupid really. not the sort that should be making public statements. getting burned on a 60$ purchase is a big deal for a lot of people. most people don't have lots of money to throw around on AAA games now and will not for the foreseeable future.
no, no letter is going to do that. thats what the free games they gave to everyone was for. multiple times when they have screwed up they have given people free games, which is more than they have to do. an apology is good, admitting you screwed up is cool, but giving people free games like dead space 3 instead of just apologizing and moving on is pretty cool. the rest of it was a pretty logically worded statement, with vaild points most people will scoff and ignore.
@ Zocky: nice post man
and like they say for every 1 person up in arms there are another 10 doing micro transactions and enjoying their products. you just dont hear them posting online becuse they are happy about it. its like watching the news.....all you usually hear is the bad.
My ultimate point I guess would be : Why would you even let something like a video game company's decisions hold so much power over you and your emotions? if you are getting such a horrible negative vibe from something designed to entertain......why even pay attention to it and not just move on to a different game...?
A large part of this dishonor is the way in which EA is run. It is about the business side of things, not just the end products they are delivering. And in this area EA has the potential to fall short of companies in other industries. You really have no farther to look than The Old Republic (the MMO).
EA knowingly purchased the MMO rights to one of the biggest IP franchises of all time, then they purchased a critically acclaimed developer to make an MMO for that IP, then they spent hundreds of millions to actually complete the game. Then the game failed to perform anywhere close to their projected expectations. Then they completely failed to salvage the situation by botching the transition to the free-to-play model.
At the end of the day, we're talking about an unholy amount of money down the toilet, with almost nothing to show for it. The developer they purchased to make all of this happen has had its founders leave the industry. And you know shareholders aren't going to be happy. They were promised World-of-Warcraft levels of revenue, and instead are left with depreciated shares.
It's not about the games, its about the business. And EA has been screwing the pooch on the business side of things.
BINGO, we have a winner.
Because hype train. People actually do want to play and enjoy EA's games, and they do. But for some people some of the decisions EA have made about their games make this a less enjoyable affair. We of course rationalise why they make those decisions but if the only reasonable rationale is to increase profit then there's the disconnect.
I mean they are allowed to they are a business but nobody is exclusively buying their games for this reason. I want my local farmers to make more money but I don't want to see advertisements excusing a price hike on their need for more profits since then I'll only be thinking about when buying it is how it's so much more expensive.
Call me entitled or whatever but I'm not happy with their response. Free games is a nice bonus when apologising company is one that was the victim of hacking and lost tonnes of account details and needed to save-face (Sony); but what EA are apologising for here is entirely their own creation. What the upset people here want is not free games but simply an acceptance of wrong-doing and a removal of the problem. I don't know if that's reasonable but EA are the only ones with the power to do so. - and these free games like literally cost them nothing to give away.
Not only that but this letter just reeks to me of spin and double-talk. It's that fake humility "we're so sorry, that we're perceived to have made mistakes. We can apologise because we're the kind of company with the fortitude to do so! Look at all the good we're doing!"
This whole poll and fight is rather petty, but I do think it's hard to dismiss that EA have practically hit a "wrong-place wrong-time" for a poll like this. Also I don't think the gaming community is seen as a bunch of cry-babies because of situations like this, I've seen plenty of this kind of thing from avid movie/music fans - it's just directed at directors/actors/artists more than the companies behind them.
seriously, as long as people keep paying for their shit, why the fuck would they care?
So antagonizing other users only serves as fuel against the person who provided the item so to speak, I wish more people would realize such talk doesn't benefit anyone, Black Knighting and White Knighting for a product only ends up harming everyone and causing confusion, no resolve will come out of this.
I think a friend of mine summarized it best:
"I didn't experience any problems, so there aren't any issue".
Also known as;
"I'm not an amputee, so people who are amputee's don't exist".
I mean if this voting system was only limited to the people in EU and gamers, rest assured that EA wouldn't see the day of light, considering they still haven't fixed the EU issues with Sim City, a large portion of the users last I checked about a week or two ago still had issues logging into the game, NA users are kind of better off, effectively putting them in a position of a 60$ has been giving your back any entertainment for well over a month.
And considering how certain shops have already dropped the price of the game all the way to 30$, it's not exactly fair for early buyers, is it? Especially if I haven't played it so far.
My only pro-argument for this on my side would be people had the choice to go on Steam and buy well over several dozen games better then Sim City, but that opens a new can of worms about how they would have done so if EA didn't Ban them for asking a refund on the game via force Credit Refund via the bank, etc.
Also, EA right now:
Not saying they've changed, but I have some friends who worked at an EA studio recently and didn't have too many bad things to say about the company, just the management was a little shit. I've never worked for a bad company, so I'm horribly biased, but it does seem a little silly EA getting the worst company in America award... again.
I wonder how many companies dump gallons and gallons of chemicals into rivers and oceans, or put out pharmaceuticals that are technically unsafe for humans... I'm sure there would be a better company to nominate.
The last couple of days have been filled with so much stupid I can't even parse it
EA's John Riccitiello declared that the firm sent Vancouver studio Black Box on a "death march" between 2004 and 2007 - when its team was expected to work "24 hours a day".
When a company makes you work 100+ hours a week you remember.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/265540/ea-we-ruined-need-for-speed-with-studio-death-march/
I wouldn't say that Mr. potato Head party games is exactly a AAA title (the sort of titles they ship from EA SLC), but hey, it's a secure job.
These gripes are about the huge corporate machine as a whole, and it doesn't really reflect on ALL branches and districts. Heck, it doesn't really relate to the working conditions. It's customer relations and product quality. Big deal, but not so much for the people working there.
Hmmm, I starting to wonder if maybe being less then nice to your key studios full of human beings which are putting up your heritage IP's, which pretty much are what keep them afloat in certain cycles, isn't on par being of Newscorp and Halliburton, ExxonMobil, BP, etc, level of 'not-nice'.
Meh, there is always BOA to compare to, until EA starts taking Schools to Court and suing them, I would say they're still in the clear.