And the worst company in America in 2012 goes to....

[Novocaine]

EA according to consumerist.com

Whether it's on a console, a PC, a smartphone or tablet, hundreds of millions of people play video games every day. Yet most mainstream media covers the industry the same way it treats adult dodge ball leagues and cat fashion shows (both noble ventures, but neither of them multi-billion dollar industries). And the only time you hear legislators discuss video games is when some politician decries them as the death knell for all things righteous in the world (hint: they're not). Now, after years of being ignored and relegated to steerage, game-players have voted to send a message to Electronic Arts and the gaming business as a whole: Stop treating your loyal customers like ****.

[Ash_Williams]

Can't agree more with that. After what they have done to the Battlefield and Mass Effect games I now hate them.. Oh and Origin as well!

[cyclobs]

rightfully earned too

[Sathias]

What a joke.

No it's not BP spilling millions of tonnes of oil in the Mexico gulf.
It's not the multinational cigarette companies killing millions of people.
It's not Monsanto buying up food stocks world wide and forcing farmers to grow GM crops.
It's not the private security firms such as Blackwater profiting off war and outsourcing all sorts of atrocities.
It's not our supermarket duopoly sending farmers and other suppliers to the wall while making massive profits from their merchandise.
It's not the wall street financial institutions who made billions betting that the market would fail while it did due to their own trading of dodgy securities, then made more billions from the bailout.

No, it's a company that makes games that are completely discretionary entertainment products.

What an embarrassment.

[Otto-matic]

Note that this is from the consumerist. They base this kind of stuff off direct complaints.

While I agree that those other companies are terrible, those companies also don't have a consumer focus.

[Matty]

What a joke.

No it's not BP spilling millions of tonnes of oil in the Mexico gulf.
It's not the multinational cigarette companies killing millions of people.
It's not Monsanto buying up food stocks world wide and forcing farmers to grow GM crops.
It's not the private security firms such as Blackwater profiting off war and outsourcing all sorts of atrocities.
It's not our supermarket duopoly sending farmers and other suppliers to the wall while making massive profits from their merchandise.
It's not the wall street financial institutions who made billions betting that the market would fail while it did due to their own trading of dodgy securities, then made more billions from the bailout.

No, it's a company that makes games that are completely discretionary entertainment products.

What an embarrassment.

Agreed

[Sathias]

Note that this is from the consumerist. They base this kind of stuff off direct complaints.

While I agree that those other companies are terrible, those companies also don't have a consumer focus.

I can see your point, although BP, Phillip Morris and Halliburton have been past winners.

They certainly shouldn't have "won" the award over Bank of America (who were the other finalists)

[FryzieDelta]

What an embarrassment.

Is consumerist.com a website worth getting embarrased about? I've never heard of it before.

And as for the comment on cig companies, as far as I'm concerned it's their customers fault.

[Ninja Catfish]

Ugh, obviously lots of crying man babies in the US sad that their favourite video game is different.

The way I see it, if a game no longer fulfils your needs, you're not enjoying it or changes made to it, chances are there's another game out there that will. There's so many games out there these days that it seems silly for people to get all up in arms about one, when there's 47368394738* other games they could be playing instead of complaining.

*approximation

[Matty]

And as for the comment on cig companies, as far as I'm concerned it's their customers fault.

Wait what?

[thefinn]

Yeah I bet they won't even be smart enough to sit back and say "we earned this" to themselves

[Nekosan]

That was an online survey that got skewed results because of the disproportionate amount of gamers who browse sites like Reddit, Monsanto and Goldman Sachs called... they want their awards back.



edit:

It's not Monsanto buying up food stocks world wide and forcing farmers to grow GM crops.
It's not the private security firms such as Blackwater profiting off war and outsourcing all sorts of atrocities.

Just thought I'd mention for interest sake, pretty sure Monsanto actually owns Academi (Blackwater/xe) now, that's about the scariest thing imaginable.

[FryzieDelta]

I've seen people mention Monsanto before. Can someone give me a TL:DR version of why they keep getting brought up? Quick google seach showed it as being a controversial internasional agricultural company so that's all I know.

And as for the comment on cig companies, as far as I'm concerned it's their customers fault.

Wait what?

Without the customer there is no need for the business. If people want to smoke that's their fault. They could just, you know, not do it, but they do and so people make money and everyone's happy until someone winds up on life support. I stand by my previouse comments in other threads that a law should be made that lets you punch smokers in the gut as you walk past

[cyclobs]

dunno, we deal with Monsanto at my work but we mostly buy chems from them i believe

i remember the name from work cause it's the first time i saw it

[Nekosan]

I've seen people mention Monsanto before. Can someone give me a TL:DR version of why they keep getting brought up? Quick google seach showed it as being a controversial internasional agricultural company so that's all I know.

Basically they're positioning to be in control of the worlds food supply and they're totally ruthless, their crops are engineered in a way that they're extremely resistant to everything and will displace native crops but they only last for a certain life cycle and then you have to re-buy the seed stock, you can't use heirloom stock like with traditional strands of wheat etc, the GM crops also get into the food chain and we end up drinking all kinds of stupid **** in our milk.

There's been a fair bit in recent years regarding them covering up problems with some GM food side effects, they also ruthlessly persecute "copyright infringement" of their genetic patents, there have been cases where a neighbours Monsanto wheat blows onto someone else's property and then Monsanto inspectors "discover" it and the innocent farmer gets sued to hell and back.

The nature of their GM products also ensures that poor rural areas in countries like India are dependent on continually buying the aforementioned seed stock, basically they're keeping the poor poor, when you combine that with the fact that they now have what's essentially a private army you can see the problem.