re: EA named the worst company in America...again

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This is just stupid.

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Nah, not really.

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“EA has become a company that releases mediocre products created by faceless teams,” wrote Penny Arcade’s Ben Kuchera in a story about the WCIA finals. “There is no real vision at work, no grand design. Just the idea that free-to-play games and microtransactions are the wave of the future, or at least they better be, because none of the company’s $60 boxed releases are finding much success with either critics or gamers.”

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Beyond any possible price-fixing or consumer chiseling, EA is making money by allowing advertisers into its games — even the ones that people pay a lot of money for. Most recently, people who purchased SimCity 5 were treated to their first piece of extra content — a de facto ad for the Nissan Leaf. So EA gets paid, while its customers get to download an interactive advertisement.

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“Until EA stops sucking the blood out of games in order to make uninspiring sequels, or at least until they begin caring about how much gamers hate their lack of respect for our money and intelligence, this is going to continue,” writes Penny Arcade’s Kuchera. “We don’t hate them because we’re homophobes, we hate them because they destroy companies we love. We hate them because they release poor games. We hate them because they claim our hate doesn’t matter as long as we give them our money.”

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And since Moore brought up Mass Effect 3, let’s take a brief look at that problematic title. Eager to cash in on a hugely successful franchise, EA rushed out the third and final installment of the series in 2012. Many users had spent years playing Mass Effect and developing a history and connections with other characters that carry through all three games, that is until the very end, which landed with a mammoth, unsatisfying thud for an awful lot of people who had paid nearly $200 (or more) for these games.
By all appearances, this wasn’t a case of a movie director having a different vision from his/her audience, or a novelist choosing to take a story off in an unexpected direction. For many people, it felt like having the plug pulled on a really good concert just as their favorite song was getting started, and it reeked of being a business decision on EA’s part, rather than a complete artistic disaster like, *cough* the finale of Lost.
We wonder how Moore would feel if he spent at least $180 on something that failed to deliver what it had been promising for years?

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In coming out and responding to its previous win — and possible repeat victory — EA had the opportunity to show the gaming community the respect it deserves, but instead has insulted its intelligence by asking it to accept that its quite obvious faults are really just minor problems and that the actual source of trouble are faceless, homophobic hatemongers.
A sampling of gamers’ reactions to Moore’s post indicate to us that EA has only done itself a disservice by trying to pin its own high-profile problems on homophobia and whiny gamers. These people are EA’s customers.

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The point of consumers voting EA the worst company in this poll is to try to convince EA that their strategy isn't working and to get them to actually put effort into the games they put out instead of going for the quick cash grab. Obviously it falls on deaf ears considering Peter Moore blamed it on homophobes and Madden fanboys instead of taking responsibility for fricking up franchises over the recent years, and they know the fanboys will still buy their products regardless. People just don't want to see them keep ruining great gaming series in favor of the almighty dollar.