EA: 'We Never Want To Be Worst US Company Again'

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EA's new CEO says he never wants his company to be crowned worst company in America ever again. Well sir, I'd say you have a lot of work ahead of you.

Like its great rival, Activision, EA is sometimes seen as a soulless corporate monolith, interested only in frisking players for as much cash as possible. For two years running – in 2012 and 2013 – it was voted the worst company in America by readers of the Consumerist blog, beating banks as well as corporate tobacco and weapons manufacturers.
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In before the, "Well, get rid of Origin and sell all your stuff on Steam!", crowd shows up.
 
Generally, when I no longer want to be considered shitty, I stop doing shitty things. How about when I play NHL 14, a game I paid $60 for, I'm not spammed by advertisements and offers for dlc. There's a start.
 
How about EA finally stops trying to make the gaming industry worse like sim-city. The fact that it went backward instead of forwards is incredible.
 
They have set the bar so, SO low, that "doing better" is probably not all that hard.
 
So their grand idea is to delay battlefield hardline.... It seems the upcoming litmus test is whether the new star wars battlefront game is going to launch like battlefield 4.
 
Here's an idea:

1. Stop focusing your games on DLC DLC DLC DLC (See Sims 4).
2. Allow your games to be bought on non-origin stores, Steam, GoG, etc).
3. Actually update your games/fix bugs!

Do those three and people might not put them as the worst company (IMO while I might not like what EA does there are far worse companies already that actually do real harm to people).
 
Their solution to this problem is probably hiring a third party marketing company that has a botnet that will vote for the other company when the time comes again.
 
Stiler said:
Here's an idea:

1. Stop focusing your games on DLC DLC DLC DLC (See Sims 4).
2. Allow your games to be bought on non-origin stores, Steam, GoG, etc).
3. Actually update your games/fix bugs!

Do those three and people might not put them as the worst company (IMO while I might not like what EA does there are far worse companies already that actually do real harm to people).
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2. Why would they ever do that, the whole point of origin is that it reduces their overhead by not having to pay for a distributor.
 
Stop forcing origin then. When I buy a BOX I want the game.

Feel free to require origin when the game is purchased through origin.
Feel free to require Steam if the game is purchased through steam.
Don't require either when I buy it off a shelf, just take my CD key and leave me the hell alone so I can just play the fking game.

Also..stop releasing buggy unfinished shit, stop shuttering developers and shifting their projects to someone else and Bring back UO2 you assholes.
 
Stiler said:
Here's an idea:

1. Stop focusing your games on DLC DLC DLC DLC (See Sims 4).
2. Allow your games to be bought on non-origin stores, Steam, GoG, etc).
3. Actually update your games/fix bugs!
4. Listen to your customers and implement their needs and wants!

Do those three and people might not put them as the worst company (IMO while I might not like what EA does there are far worse companies already that actually do real harm to people).
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Added to your list. Primarily for things like (and I'm going to pick on SimCity again) off-line mode (which they did, but probably because initial sales were so low that they are now never planning to upgrade the servers to handle the real-world load), larger maps, etc...
 
Go private, and kick out all of their CEOs/ Marketing/ Other crap that came from other company with nothing to do with games.
 
Perhaps they could start by treating their employee's well. All the one's I've met, only a few, have had nightmare stories working for EA.
 
If they release a battlefield game with mod support and the ability to host your own server(s). And then stop with the nickel and diming dlc and just release expansions I will be greatly pleased. I'd also prefer no unlocks as its really just there to help with selling dlc but I could live with them. I really miss the 1942 and Vietnam days.

Then if they put this kind of mentality to all their products rather than being profit first they might just turn that rep around. But they won't.
 
He's also missing a major mark: employee abuse. EA is one of the worst companies for mandatory 20+ hours of overtime and horrible timelines for software development. They've already been sued twice for it, and haven't changed a thing. Abusing employees doesn't get faster products. It results in screwups, buggy code, and inferior products. Sticking to a 35-40 hour work week has shown to get far better results than a 45 hour work week in nearly every industry, and 60 hour work weeks are shown to get far worse productivity.

http://www.realbusiness.com/2013/12/big-ideas/is-the-40-hour-workweek-too-long/

Only incompetent managers force such working conditions.

Of course, screwing over your customers also tends to backfire, another strategy of incompetent managers.
 
Stiler said:
3. Actually update your games/fix bugs!
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Agreed. Please just make SimCity work as it is - forget all the other problems with it. Just make the existing stuff work correctly for fucks sake! Traffic, schools, regional play and so much more are still broken, and EA's only answer was to release an Offline mode and allow mods - that was sometime earlier this year and they've gone completely silent since then. My friend and I like doing regional play, which unfortunately doesn't allow mods, but the game is so bug-ridden anyway that it makes playing near impossible.
 
Ok then EA, let's see how serious you are about that desire.
List the following corporate goals in order of importance to you, EA.

Providing good customer service.
Providing a working product.
Providing a fun and compete product.
Treating your employees like human beings.
Treating your customers like human beings.
Making every penny possible without regard to product quality, customer or employee relations.
Achieving bonus goals for C-suite execs.
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The only guaranteed way for EA to not be the worst company in America is if they change their name. :D
 
Yes ... they are designing their products to be just that, the worst gaming company out there. And they are doing an amazing job.

When I see a game is coming out from EA I actually feel distressed now / bad knowing I can't buy it.

NHL 2015 .... an utter cluster-phuk with tons of options omitted, removed that were in 2014's addition. Why? To resell you these features in DLC.

My GF's sister was a massive Sims 3 fan, had nearly all the addons ... she was so excited about Sims 4 and talked about it off and on for months and everyday that last few weeks before release.

She bought it, installed the game and text'd me later that day how utterly disappointed she was and got a full refund from Origin.

The reviews on Sims 4 over at Metacritic are just horrible at 3.5 or something out of 10. Everyone feels ripped off.
 
dgingeri said:
He's also missing a major mark: employee abuse. EA is one of the worst companies for mandatory 20+ hours of overtime and horrible timelines for software development. They've already been sued twice for it, and haven't changed a thing. Abusing employees doesn't get faster products. It results in screwups, buggy code, and inferior products. Sticking to a 35-40 hour work week has shown to get far better results than a 45 hour work week in nearly every industry, and 60 hour work weeks are shown to get far worse productivity.
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As bad as that sounds - every thing I read about the gaming industry from Atari to new releases, overtime is very common place. Especially as you get closer to launch.

EA needs to do a lot of stuff to get better - slow down on the DLC. I get that they think it's the new model, but when I see ads for the new DLC before the game even launches? I'm pissed. I want to buy the game, not buy the base pack and buy a lot of little add-on's to complete the game to be how it was supposed to be at launch.

Take more input from the consumer. SimCity was a huge clusterfuck with that one. From "We can't make an offline mode, it's just not possible". Some modder did it, then Maxis finally released an update that allowed it. Bigger maps. "Not possible". Modders have done it (to a degree, it's not perfect, but it's not slow like Maxis claims, either). Just something that they screwed up on, big time.

Lastly - quit treating consumers like idiots. We see right through it. See SimCity above - "Not possible", yet modders do it. It is possible. Same with console ports to PC. It's obvious that it's a console port.

I don't mind Origin. It's annoying at times, but it gets the job done.

EA just seems like it went from a gaming company to a company that makes games, which is a big difference. You can tell which companies are gamers that want to create games vs. which ones are business people that want to sell games.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Yes ... they are designing their products to be just that, the worst gaming company out there. And they are doing an amazing job.

When I see a game is coming out from EA I actually feel distressed now / bad knowing I can't buy it.

NHL 2015 .... an utter cluster-phuk with tons of options omitted, removed that were in 2014's addition. Why? To resell you these features in DLC.

My GF's sister was a massive Sims 3 fan, had nearly all the addons ... she was so excited about Sims 4 and talked about it off and on for months and everyday that last few weeks before release.

She bought it, installed the game and text'd me later that day how utterly disappointed she was and got a full refund from Origin.

The reviews on Sims 4 over at Metacritic are just horrible at 3.5 or something out of 10. Everyone feels ripped off.
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+1 on everything you said man. My GF was so stoked for the Sims 4, and she too bought nearly all the DLC for Sims 3, over $400 worth (fuck, maybe we're part of the problem). The Sims 4 they have clearly removed normal features from the base games of previous generations presumably (almost assuredly) to sell them as DLC content.

I LOVE BF4, but I feel dirty for buying it due to EA's involvement.
 
pothb said:
Go private, and kick out all of their CEOs/ Marketing/ Other crap that came from other company with nothing to do with games.
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I think this would solve a lot of their problems. Get rid of the need to answer to your shareholders, and focus solely on the games and creating memorable experiences. All your shareholders care about is if they make money. They couldn't care less for the quality of the product you put out. The culture shift of such a change would be painful, but it will benefit you in the long run. Enough of this "games as a service" bullshit.
 
Ha. These companies act all tough like they don't care about the voting, but in truth they're really crying themselves to sleep at night.

I still think they need to mix the Worst Company system up. I know they set it up like the college bracket. But I'd like to see sub categories for ISP, Financial, Energy, Retail, etc .. Doesn't even need to change the system. The last remaining of a category that goes the farther gets the "Worst *Category* of America" award.

There should be an additional vote for Evil. Most Evil Company of America. The internet tends to vote tech related (isps, gaming). No need to let Mansanto feel left out.
 
The quote sounds like at one point they wanted to be the worst, and now they've "been there, done that"?
 
To say EA is the worse company over some companies that have benefitted from slave labor is ridiculous honestly folks. It just a game. First world problems I guess. :rolleyes:
 
The only way they won't be the worst company in America is if the majority of the people participating in the votes aren't gamers who have no idea what the other companies that are actually "more evil" are doing.

The only way this would happen is if the voting happened at a physical location instead of on a website.
 
fdiaz78 said:
To say EA is the worse company over some companies that have benefitted from slave labor is ridiculous honestly folks. It just a game. First world problems I guess. :rolleyes:
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I do agree with your statement, I always thought calling it the worst company was hyperbole also, although calling it "first world problems" makes it sound like exploitation of its employees and other developers is just something to sweep under the carpet.
 
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