This poll doesn't seem entirely useful. How can a game company's consumer offenses even be accurately judged against a bank's? Why is EA on there to begin with? The worst thing I can think of them doing that actually has real world consequences is forcing employees to work crazy hours, and as far as I know they are compensated pretty well for doing so.

The passive aggressiveness that Alex is still exhibiting about the ME3 ending fallout is amusing. There is no indication in the article that ME3 players influenced the poll so it is a baseless assumption. The Internet shining a spotlight on EA, deservedly or not, isn't going to suddenly make people forget that BoA is bad.

Then again I use Bank of America as it's the only place with ATMs near me to deposit and withdraw money. But yeah, I think EA shouldn't have won. It doesn't matter in the end as you can see. It makes Bank of America content with not being the worst and EA just doesn't care (as seen above).

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314

Yeah, EA sucks. But they're not engaged in the horrific fraud and criminal behavior of Bank of America. EA isn't trying to take your house with a robosigned foreclosure notice.

Read this and get some goddamn perspective. EA is a shitty company, but they aren't fucking evil like Bank of America.

@NaDannMaGoGo: You seriously think that EA deserves to be the worst company, in the WORLD? And you seriously think it has nothing to do with the fact that literally hundreds of thousands of people have been screaming at them for the past 3 weeks about one of the biggest gaming franchises of all time's ending?

Yeh EA does slimy shit, everyone knows that, and they deserve some flak of course even if the Mass Effect series never existed.

But EA is an entertainment company, a subjective company. You don't agree with their way of doing business? Hey, you really don't have to support it. Of course regardless if the company is messed up enough it should be getting attention, but they are not the worst company in the world. They don't even have that kind of impact in the overall world to deserve that kind of title. Unlike BoA which controls millions of peoples LIVING FUNDS and still fucks them over.

Not to mention slimy shit and all, EA still knows how to make some great entertainment. Mass Effect 3 and SSX are already two of my favorite games this year.

It is always a fight between EA and Activision to see who can be the dirtiest most abhorrent game company. But compared to actual problems in the world, EA and Activision are perfectly fine. I mean, the do deal in the business of giving us games we want to play dont they?

From the Matt Tabbii Rolling Stone Article.

The bank's list of victims goes on and on. The disabled? Just a few weeks ago, the government charged Bank of America with violating the Fair Housing Act by illegally requiring proof of disability from people who rely on disability income to make their mortgage payments. Minorities? Last December, the bank settled with the Justice Department for $335 million over Countrywide's practice of dumping risky subprime loans on qualified black and Hispanic borrowers. The poor? In South Carolina, Bank of America won a contract to distribute unemployment benefits through prepaid debit cards – and then charged multiple fees to jobless folk who had the gall to withdraw their money from anywhere other than a Bank of America ATM. Seriously, who hasn't this bank conspired to defraud? Puppies? One-eyed Sri Lankans?

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314#ixzz1r66S7YRf

Battlefield 3 and Origin are occasionally crippling but it doesn't cause me mental or phsyical pain.

EA isn't that bad.

How did this award not go to Activision?

@AlexanderSheen said:

@NaDannMaGoGo: John Riccitiello run over your dog or something?

Yes he did (or a previous CEO).

And my good dog used to create fantastic RTSs and other games before he got run over :'(

The only interaction with EA customer staff is me asking a origin rep if I bought Dead Space 1 for xbox 360 would it the platinum edition and he said it wouldn't be annnnnnnnnnnnnd it was. So I guess its not perfect.

As a Business student who uses Bank of America and Plays most of EA's titles; they both suck in the business sense. But BoA didn't release Dead Space 2, so FUCK those guys!
(still peeved about Dragon Age 2 though...)

The Internet shining a spotlight on EA, deservedly or not, isn't going to suddenly make people forget that BoA is bad.

selling your products well and being a great company is still a major difference

The nickel and diming of DLC sucks, but more companys than EA do this. I haven't played me3 yet, just bought the kasumi, shadowbroker, and arrival DLC yesterday. I tried to buy me3 at the same time on origin but it can't verify my debit card which is fucking stupid, but whatever. As I was saying, I can't believe that the ending of me3 is soo bad, SOOOOOOOOO BAAAAAAD that, that alone makes a company worse than ATnT or Bank of America. Bullshit internet.

Forbes has a pretty decent article on this. They're a little more on The Consumerist's side of things though.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/04/04/ea-is-the-worst-company-in-america-now-what/

Yeah EA is pretty awful. No surprise here.

EA isn't even the worst game company so them "winning" this is a fucking joke. EA is a company that makes entertainment, they don't hurt you in any way or form. And don't go saying that "They close down studios and fire people", big fucking whop. That's every damn game company. Even comparing EA to a company like Bank of America is downright retarded.

Internet, fuck you.

I guess this shows what the internet cares about in polls? EA surely isn't the worst company in America, but I'm so glad they're figuratively getting shit on. They move away from competitive multiplayer to social leaderboards, as it that's the future, disgustingly find a way to monetize content in any product they make, and all and all tend to suck the soul out of anything risky or creative in games. Fuck them.

I vividly recall Shepard punching me in the face and foreclosing on my home.

I spent too much time compiling this not to crosspost it from the other Consumerist thread.

@qawsed said:

BoA pays $3 billion to settle charges of misrepresenting securities

BoA pays $8.5 billion to settle charges of defrauding investors

BoA pays $8.4 billion to settle charges of illegal foreclosures and lying about loan terms

BoA pays $108 million to settle fee overcharges

BoA pays $624 million to settle charges of defrauding NY pension funds

BoA pays $??? million to settle charges of defrauding CA pension funds

BoA pays $410 million to settle charges of bogus overdraft fees

BoA pays $400 million to settle charges of defrauding investors

BoA pays $1.1 billion to settle charges of defrauding insurer

BoA pays $? billion to settle charges of forging documents

BoA/exec pay $75 million to settle insider trading and fraud charges

BoA faces $10 billion settlement for defrauding insurer

BoA faces $2 billion settlement for defrauding insurer

EA offers $10 DLC to customers

@PJ: GRR I'M MAD OVER AN INTERNETS POLL!

A little extreme to consider EA the worst company in America.

I am cringing so much right now. EA are turd burglars but this has just gone too far >.< . I think Grondoth sums it up well enough for me.

@Grondoth said:

EA makes videogames. And while I'm sure there's cruelty in that company too, the nature of what they do precludes them from being as horrific as others. This is just plain embarrassing to see, and anyone defending this needs to spend a few good hours reading up on what's going on in the world.

I only hope that when I wake up tomorrow I have forgotten that I ever heard about all this. On a more positive note, Alex's articles ALWAYS make me laugh :)

Moving away from the whole discussion about real world shit, mainly becauser I'm British & we have our own cunty bankers to revile as immoral, greedy & generally awful so I'm not in a position to talk about Bank of America. Back to videogames.

I didn't catch the name of the guy, because I wanted to read everything before commenting & saying "there's no coherent argument for X" when you haven't read everything is a bit...potential for embarassment. But someone wrote a great post on the wrong-doings of Activision. And I'm just not sure why they are suddenly not worse than EA. EA has it's staple sports titles out every year, often monopolising licences & so cut-off the market in NFL games or NCAA football games, whatever, & that really sucks. But they are putting out new games, taking risks. Activision are doing what Activision have done for quite some time, take a franchise that gets big & milk it for every penny until the well goes dry (awful mixing up of metaphors, I'm sorry).

So why, if videogame fans were going to be so angry with a company are they angry with EA more than Activision? I just don't get it? Is it all off the back of Mass Effect 3? I still haven't played it, have somehow managed to avoid spoilers about the ending (except I know it can never be as awful as the hype as made it out to be, so thanks internet, you'll probably help me enjoy it more), but this reaction over one game seems disproportionate even by the silly standards set by the internet.

@darkdragonmage99 said:

@Maajin: Doesn't change the fact as a developer EA is shit and as a publisher they are EVIL They don't make good games they buy developers that make good games and then run them into the ground.

That's not being evil and the complete opposite of being shit. In fact, the one single time EA tried to invest in new, original ideas with games such as Mirror's Edge and Dead Space, they lost money like never before. In fact, publishers that don't do what EA and Activision do, simply do not survive. Just look a THQ.

Clearly BofA is worse than EA but BofA is a bank. Last time I checked everyone hated fucking banks and this is not the first time BofA has been on the list. We know they suck. We also know that other companies suck too though and I see this as nothing more than consumers giving EA the finger and reminding EA that there are limits to what is and isn't acceptable business practices in this industry. Just because they were voted the worst this year doesn't mean they are the worst of all time.

I do agree this contest was just stupid, but I think there is a point to be made here.

With Bank of America being the douchebags that they are, one simply has to stop doing business with them and put their money in another institution that won't try to screw them over on a constant basis. There is nothing to tempt or force anyone to do business with them as there are usually several banks or credit unions available as alternatives.

EA, on the other hand, has gone a feeding frenzy devouring any promising developer that it can afford. It's easy to say "just don't buy their games", but since they seem to cannibalize every damn developer not owned by Activision, the "not buying their games" option will severely limit your choices in games. So if you played and enjoyed a particular game or franchise you want to see more of and EA bought the studio out in the meantime, the publisher now stands as a barrier between you and the content you want to consume, monetizing almost every aspect of a game, forcing you to register or download DLC through their own site as opposed XBL or PSN, etc.

So basically the whole contest was dumb, but fuck EA anyway.

you know what, I've liked EA since 2008. For a good long while I couldn't stand them and their crappy rip offs and their exclusive deal with the NFL and so on and so forth, but since 2008, really with Burnout Paradise, the company has really seemed to shift their focus off of quantity of games with quality of games. Lets be honest, since then they've made the ME series, Mirror's Edge, they brought back C&C, and Battlefield 3 is awesome. Sometimes I think the internet likes to be angry just to be angry.

Justice is served.

I agree that it's an absurd situation. The comeback, however, sounded like it was ccoked up by a kid.

So EA is the bad guy again.

EA was once, only two or three years ago releasing some really great and risky games, MORE FOR GAMERS, and while they did get some success their profits were going down quite a bit.

We, the community that just voted EA as the worst company in America, sent them a message that working on great games and taking risks was a bad thing. So it's understandable that they went back to some of their older ways. They made more profits when they were doing business that way.

There lack of success was like us telling an ex-prostitute that she sucks now that she's doing something worthwhile for charity, and that she was nicer when she was walking the streets late at night sucking cock for dollars.

Hey Alex, if you thought BofA should have won, perhaps you should have voted for them, and let everyone else vote for who they thought should have won. That goes for just about everyone else commenting as well. Stop acting like "The Internet" is one entity, some kind of collective spoiled brat that throws a fit when it doesn't get its way. Probably not many people actually think that EA is the worst company in the country, but that's not the point. The point was to send a message to EA, the message being that a large subsection of the video game community is not satisfied with their business practices. We, as customers, have the right to tell a company what we want from them, and voice our displeasure if they behave in a manner we do not agree with. If this was the only way to get EA's attention and convey that message to them, then so be it.

What the fuck? Where's Activision in this shitty contest? Oh right, they paid their way out. Activision is the worst thing that happened to this planet after Hitler. And Just Bieber.

The internet will do what it does... but the sad part people are actually gonna try to defend this with all their heart... and that is the part that is just pants-on-head retarded/

Oh internet.

Makes sense, really. Not the reasoning, but the outcome. The poll was open to the internet, meaning that those companies whose branding was not directly interacted with by an international audience already had a lower chance of garnering votes.

Besides, the worst company is Monsanto, so it isn't as if anybody should take this particularly seriously.

Every move the anti-ME3 mob makes just reflects poorly on them. They can't help but paint themselves as petty idiots.

Everybody Loves EA DLC 2013 exclusive edition pre-order now available. 2014 edition available for pre-order next month.

HEY! There is NOTHING wrong with Phillip Morris!

*puff puff* Ahhhh.

@forkboy said:

Moving away from the whole discussion about real world shit, mainly becauser I'm British & we have our own cunty bankers to revile as immoral, greedy & generally awful so I'm not in a position to talk about Bank of America. Back to videogames.

I didn't catch the name of the guy, because I wanted to read everything before commenting & saying "there's no coherent argument for X" when you haven't read everything is a bit...potential for embarassment. But someone wrote a great post on the wrong-doings of Activision. And I'm just not sure why they are suddenly not worse than EA. EA has it's staple sports titles out every year, often monopolising licences & so cut-off the market in NFL games or NCAA football games, whatever, & that really sucks. But they are putting out new games, taking risks. Activision are doing what Activision have done for quite some time, take a franchise that gets big & milk it for every penny until the well goes dry (awful mixing up of metaphors, I'm sorry).

So why, if videogame fans were going to be so angry with a company are they angry with EA more than Activision? I just don't get it? Is it all off the back of Mass Effect 3? I still haven't played it, have somehow managed to avoid spoilers about the ending (except I know it can never be as awful as the hype as made it out to be, so thanks internet, you'll probably help me enjoy it more), but this reaction over one game seems disproportionate even by the silly standards set by the internet.

I think you answered the question yourself. Activision just milks their franchises to death. EA on the other hand undermines the competition through business deals instead of making better games. They have the exclusive rights to Porsche in racing games, so no other racing game for more than a decade has featured Porsche except Forza. Forza eventually lost Porsche but got it back again through business deals. And it's a lot like that with many other licenses and car models. If a new and exciting car isn't in Forza or Gran Turismo, chances are that EA have the exclusive rights to it.

Maybe Activision shit on their own fans. But EA shit on everyone.

@Xeridae said:

Clearly BofA is worse than EA but BofA is a bank. Last time I checked everyone hated fucking banks and this is not the first time BofA has been on the list. We know they suck. We also know that other companies suck too though and I see this as nothing more than consumers giving EA the finger and reminding EA that there are limits to what is and isn't acceptable business practices in this industry. Just because they were voted the worst this year doesn't mean they are the worst of all time.

But at the same time EA does not effect as many people as many other companies on that list. This is only a "win", if you can call it that, for gamers. The self-centeredness of the gamers that voted for EA took away the title and the awareness that some people think it can bring from other companies that have done more. A lot of people won't even care that EA won because EA doesn't effect most people in the world. Probably not even most people that read the consumerist (conjecture). Ea doesn't care because hey have always been getting hate deserved or not. Especially with the recent stuff about BioWare from BioWare employees getting death threats to the entire Take ME back thing they have enough reason to believe that is the internet being reactionary. This probably isn't bothering EA all that much since it's only 160000 people.

I love how Reseburg pointed out that BioWare made it to the finals of some Escapist "Best Developer" contest. Which means nothing because Bioware made good games and they bought them out.

Publishing =/= creative aptitude

I agree with EA winning as an indictment of the entire gaming industry and their generally anti-consumer tactics and EA being the representation of the absolute worst of the gaming industry's need to put profits before people. I do not agree with EA being the worst company in America by a country mile.

For everyone blaming "the internet" (editor included) Guess what? You're part of the internet. Did you vote in this pole? No? Then shut the fuck up.

I hate them for only releasing 2 games out of a trilogy on Steam. And even though I think Origin is a fine system, holding their games hostage on it put a bad taste in my mouth.

I still hate Activision more.

@Mihos said:

I still hate Activision more.

I'm not going to lie I'm no EA fanboy but I'd vote for zynga way before EA.

Yeah this is pretty dumb. I mean, I wouldn't go so far as saying that EA is a "feel good" company, but it's certainly not the worst company out there; in fact, it's not even the worst video game company.

*cough*activision*cough*

I love EA, I don't give a shit about anything they do except giving me the games I want to buy from them, anything outside of that stuff is meaningless to me, so eh, same goes for other companies, I don't get emotionally invested into a company, gimme the games, I give you the money, this is why I don't hate Activision like most others, I don't care.