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Continuing the backlash over EA's recent blunders, users have voted the publisher as America's worst company of 2012. Conducted by Consumerist.com, the annual poll pits 32 companies against each other in a weekly faceoff. To earn its title, EA trumped Sony, Best Buy, Comcast, AT&T and the runner up, Bank of America. As the "winner," the gaming outfit will receive a "Golden Poo" trophy. In previous contests, other finalists received equally demoralizing Bronze and Silver Poos.
Readers have mixed feelings about the outcome, with many noting that companies like Bank of America have undoubtedly had a greater overall negative impact on consumers. It's tough to argue that a bank's worst offenses outweigh a game publisher's. In that respect, it's safe to say EA isn't necessarily the "worst" company in America, but it's certainly one of the most hated. Recent controversy surrounding Mass Effect 3 surely contributed to and perhaps clinched EA's position in the polls.
Gamers who voted for EA over Bank of America believe "award" might change the former's behavior, whereas the latter would casually dismiss such criticism. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. "We're sure that bank presidents, oil, tobacco, and weapons companies are all relieved they weren't on the list this year. We’re going to continue making award-winning games and services played by more than 300 million people worldwide," said EA representative John Reseburg.
Contrasting the Consumerist poll, Reseburg noted that EA subsidiary BioWare recently made it to the finals of Escapist Magazine's "Best Developer" competition, beaten only by Valve. He also mentioned praise from the Human Rights Campaign, which is distributing a petition supporting EA's "decision to have developers include same-sex relationships in recent games." It was to be expected that EA would downplay the hostility, but hopefully it's quietly taking the criticism to heart.
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User Comments: 35
Got something to say? Post a comment-
Darth Shiv said:
Finally an award EA has worked hard to earn.
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Obviously none of these voters had ever worked for Indian hotel owners. There is absolutely no way EA could be as torturous even despite their horrible reputation.
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Guest said:i know this as i live in india
Obviously none of these voters had ever worked for Indian hotel owners. There is absolutely no way EA could be as torturous even despite their horrible reputation.
and i am loving EA's Battlefield 3
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Leeky said:
Maybe they'll shove this one centre stage in their trophy room as a reminder of how epically they've failed those buying their products.
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bielius said:
That is what they deserve to be.
Even though I really enjoy both BC2 and BF3.
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&@£$! what about Bank of America, yep naah that aint bad ^@£$! it EA is way worst coz it effects everyone, even those who do not play games ... yeh snap
EA is $^£$! but cmon this is a stretch... EA top 5 or 10 but top 1... cmon wake the &@£$! up...
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EA has no reason to treat this with any kind of seriousness. I don't know why a news site would waste bandwidth posting this. Or to use the statistics term for polls like this, it's "total bullshit".
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ETF Soldier said:
A news website such as Techspot has every reason to post this, considering that half of it's views are from gamers, and people interested in the technology behind having a gaming computer.
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So if I run a poll that asks which company is worse than Hitler and EA conveniently wins by a landslide, I should be on the front page too, then.
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EA doesn't care if people support them or not because to them we are all replaceable.
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EA deserves this award, that doesn't mean other companies don't as well.
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Timonius said:
:facepalm: EA took the bait too. Should have just ignored this one.
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captainawesome said:
OK, you seriously need a 'like' button (but it's probably patented by them FB mongrels
) coz I saw this article and immediately thought "at this moment, everything is right with the world" 
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captainawesome said:
on that note, where the hell is your twitter button?
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EA actually doesn't care about mouthy forum-users because they make up a such a minuscule portion of their customer base that they can be ignored. The average video game consumer will never even hear about this.
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TekGun said:
This made me laugh, good job EA you really deserve it.
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What everyone complaining about this poll fails to acknowledge is, it's an online poll. Everyone already knows most corporations are corner-cutting, underhanded scumbags, but only gaming companies are the ones that get by without any press.
Admit it, videogames makes more money than most industries and is an integral part of the economy, regardless of your opinions on whether or not they are art or for kids, or any other definition you have for them.
And again, it's an online poll, anyone who matters doesn't care and anyone who cares doesn't matter.
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treetops said:
Guest said:Obviously none of these voters had ever worked for Indian hotel owners. There is absolutely no way EA could be as torturous even despite their horrible reputation.
Totally love Indians and all people but
Wow I thought I was the only one who had a bad experience with a Indian hotel owner. Wouldn't pay me over time for 60 hours weeks, when I brought it up I was scheduled for 2 days a week. Super 8 eloy ftl.
I don't care for EA over pricing for the same game they pooped out 7 years ago, but I also don't buy them, so it doesn't effect me.
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treetops said:
Totally love Indians and all people but
Wow I thought I was the only one who had a bad experience with a Indian hotel owner. Wouldn't pay me over time for 60 hours weeks, when I brought it up I was scheduled for 2 days a week. Super 8 eloy ftl.
I don't care for EA over pricing for the same game they pooped out 7 years ago, but I also don't buy them, so it doesn't effect me.
I don't use or buy from [insert corporation here], so it doesn't affect me.
Obviously sane logic.
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EA has no reason to treat this with any kind of seriousness. I don't know why a news site would waste bandwidth posting this. Or to use the statistics term for polls like this, it's "total bullshit".So if I run a poll that asks which company is worse than Hitler and EA conveniently wins by a landslide, I should be on the front page too, then.EA actually doesn't care about mouthy forum-users because they make up a such a minuscule portion of their customer base that they can be ignored. The average video game consumer will never even hear about this.
Could I take your last quote to include, "mouthy forum users" such as yourself, for "example"?
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EA's customer service is quite bad, I rarely get my issues resolved quickly and efficiently with them. So this does seem fitting for that aspect of the company. However one thing I think people forget is EA doesn't actually make a lot of the games they publish, so problems within the game aren't necessarily EA's fault. But since EA is the medium between the developer and the community, it is their responsibility to find the issues and report them appropriately, Clearly this doesn't happen all the time.
It's quite obvious they care more about money than supporting their products and keeping their gaming community happy. Sure, they've been making an effort with BF3, and we all appreciate that. Unfortunately you can't please everyone so you're going to always have a bunch of whiners out there.
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EA's customer service is quite bad, I rarely get my issues resolved quickly and efficiently with them. So this does seem fitting for that aspect of the company. However one thing I think people forget is EA doesn't actually make a lot of the games they publish, so problems within the game aren't necessarily EA's fault. But since EA is the medium between the developer and the community, it is their responsibility to find the issues and report them appropriately, Clearly this doesn't happen all the time.You could apply this logic to virtually anything, in any industry. Were you to complain about an Apple product, it's very easy to say it's Foxconn's fault! Or for that matter, for EA to tell their customers that, "you're holding it wrong".It's quite obvious they care more about money than supporting their products and keeping their gaming community happy. Sure, they've been making an effort with BF3, and we all appreciate that. Unfortunately you can't please everyone so you're going to always have a bunch of whiners out there.Well first, who else would you expect to complian about EA? The gaming community is their only customer. And BTW, just because a sheep doesn't bleat, that doesn't mean it's not getting butchered. It was EA that started the "digital only policy", that enraged many people, wasn't it?. Clearly people have moved on. There's no reason EA won't quickly put this behind them. Then too, there's the old adage, "any press is good press".
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"We're going to continue making award-winning games " -- but they are not MAKING any games, they are just selling them.
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I remember a time when EA was great at customer experience. Stepping in my wayback machine.......I remember Bards Tale. I had to call EA about 20 different times. Finally the reps I was talking to just sent me a printed list of all the information I needed. Now they would have charged both arms.
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Darth Shiv said:i know this as i live in india
and i am loving EA's Battlefield 3
Did you play it when it first came out? Did you play it on punkbuster servers? Granted it is a fantastic game but EA delivered a beta product, stinking multiplayer server reliability, origin is a farce - it can't detect and repair damaged installations nor does it have a native backup facility, punkbuster doesn't install properly and you need to find the damn plugin and repair the install!
Also Battlelog is the WORST game launch system ever invented. Whoever thought an online page for launching even the single player mode was a good idea ought to be shot.
We had outages in Australia in PEAK gaming periods of 2-3 hours. I cannot remember another multiplayer game in living memory that had problems like that.
So they even managed to stuff a fantastic game's delivery. Takes talent to do that.
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