EA's Moore on Worst Company in America poll
Publisher's COO says company can and will do better, but gets more hate than it deserves
Electronic Arts is going to win Consumerist's Worst Company in America poll for the second year running. That's the prediction from EA COO Peter Moore, who addressed the dubious honor in a blog on the company's website today.
"This is the same poll that last year judged us as worse than companies responsible for the biggest oil spill in history, the mortgage crisis, and bank bailouts that cost millions of taxpayer dollars," Moore said. "The complaints against us last year were our support of SOPA (not true), and that they didn't like the ending to Mass Effect 3."
Invoking the expression, "The tallest trees catch the most mind," Moore compared EA to the historically successful and much-hated (outside their own fanbases) New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Lakers, and Manchester United. Like them, Moore said, EA "is defined by both a legacy of success, and a legion of critics."
He acknowledged the company has made plenty of mistakes, directly referencing the bungled SimCity launch, and said it owes its customers better. However, he was quick to defend the company against some of the more common criticisms it has received. Specifically, he insisted SimCity's always-online requirement is not a DRM scheme, that a market exists for Origin as a Steam competitor, and that tens of millions of people love the free-to-play and microtransaction-based models EA has implemented.
Moore also said EA had received thousands of complaints about its decision to include LGBT options in its games, saying, "If that's what makes us the worst company, bring it on. Because we're not caving on that."
Moore summed his post up, saying, "We can do better. We will do better. But I am damn proud of this company, the people around the globe who work at EA, the games we create and the people that play them. The tallest trees catch the most wind. At EA we remain proud and unbowed."
EA has cruised into the final four on the Consumerists' tournament-style bracket of the country's 32 most terrible companies. It has so far ousted Anheuser-Busch InBev, Facebook, and AT&T head-to-head, posting the most lopsided victory of each round (Facebook proved the toughest opponent for EA, but still only mustered 21 percent of the vote). It is currently matched up against Ticketmaster, with the "winner" going on to face Bank of America or Comcast in the finals.