It?s been a big, big year for game publisher Electronic Arts. The launch of the Origin game service, Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3, and now it has won a very prestigious award. Your friend and mine, EA has won the annual Worst Company in America award from the Consumer Union?s Consumerist blog. EA is now the proud owner of the iconic Golden Poo trophy.
Each year, the Consumerist pits all the most hated big companies in the US against each other in a capitalist version of the March Madness brackets. This year there were 32 firms to start with, but slowly the matches pared things down. Walmart beat out Gamestop, AT&T took out Facebook, and Bank of America silenced Ticketmaster. In the final battle of Bank of America versus EA, Electronic Arts took an incredible, record breaking 64% of the vote. This victory is made all the sweeter by the fact that this was EA?s first year on the list.
The last year has brought the situation with EA into stark focus for many?gamer. The gaming monolith continues to gobble up smaller, more innovative companies. If you ask the fans, they?ll tell you that things are never quite the same for those game studios after being bought (case in point, Bioware). Angry gamers also cite EA?s increasing reliance on downloadable content as a money making venture in top games.
There have also been multiple reports of shady business practices like manipulating media coverage with viral marketers posing as real users. Employees too seem to be getting trolled; EA has famously miserable working conditions where employees are badly overworked. As?legitimate?as that concern is, I imagine it had less to do with the win than anger over the ending of Mass Effect 3 did.
When word got back to EA about the award, the PR machine fired off a quick response. ?We?re sure that bank presidents, oil, tobacco and weapons companies are all relieved they weren?t on the list this year. Reference was also made to creating award winning games and serving 300 million gamers.
The Consumerist will be?attempting?to deliver the traditional Golden Poo?trophy to EA soon. Congrats, guys. You really did it.
Consumerist via VentureBeat
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