EA is the worst (American) company of 2012!

Well i guess you would be taxed for that too. I'm not sure exactly were the line goes.

I know I'm late to the party, but I'll put out my thoughts anyway. Apologies in advance, it's going to be messy and disjointed because I'm in a bit of a rush.

EA is very, very far from the worst company in America. I would even say that they're far from the worst gaming company.

People are saying that EA are ruining the entire games industry,. Bullshit. Utter fucking bullshit. No game company has released more high quality original IP games than EA. No other game company has put anywhere near the amount of resources EA has into unproven games that attempt to innovate. In the past year they've had Alice: Madness Returns, Bulletstorm, Darkspore, Shadows of the Damned, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Syndicate and Warp. Now give me a single decent game from Activision from the past year that wasn't a traditional sequel and had interesting and innovative ideas. I couldn't. Ubisoft was a little better, but still way behind EA. That's not to say EA neglects its sequels either. That was the EA of old, it happens a lot less now. The EA sports games are unparalleled. Their sequels are generally treated with some degree of care.

EA puts out shovelware and crap games. Actually, EA's average Metacritic score for their games is well ahead of any other top 10 publisher. But that's only because EA buys out companies like Bioware and DICE, right? Well they accepted EA's money. EA is no different from anyone else in this regard. Welcome to capitalism.

EA treats their employees fairly well. Everyone loves Rockstar who always releases quality games, right? Yes, but there are costs you might not hear about. The developers behind their last major title, L.A. Noire, were so poorly treated that they were forced to close down. Rockstar also received formal complaints about the working hours of devs of the game before that, Red Dead Redemption.

EA doesn't force draconian DRM on it's games like Ubisoft. Ubisoft's anti-piracy measures on the PC meant that you had to have a constant internet connection and you had to buy a new copy of the game if you even upgraded your system at all.

But wait! Valve! Valve is a perfect company, right? First, you know who publishes most Valve console games? That's right, EA. Secondly, well yes. If you want a company that does almost everything right, Valve is probably the best example. But Valve also puts out one new original game every couple of years. Same thing for Blizzard. Are you satisfied with 1 quality game every two years?

But wait! Bethesda! They take care when they make games! Errr... not really. Brink, anyone? Rage, with it's horrible driver issues? Even their trump card, Skyrim, was a very poorly coded console port, and it shows in the controls, interface and performance. They didn't bother to optimize the code in that game at all when the ported it over to PC, and a quick mod by a single talented coder was able to boost performance by 60%. People are also quick to forget that it was Bethesda who released DLC so bad that it's still a live joke six years later.

But let's be honest here. The real reason EA won was because of the whole Mass Effect 3 mess. It's certainly something to be upset about, I honestly agree. But let's put it into perspective:
Bank of America: Steals billions and billions, unethically changes rates, illegally forecloses on your home, crashes global economy
Comcast: Spies on you, lies and breaks contracts, grossly overcharges the ignorant, pays off politicians.
Walmart: Relentlessly strangles thousands of small businesses, abuses foreign labor, engages in illegal monopolistic practices.
EA: One of their fantastic games has day one DLC and a disappointing ending. THOSE FUCKING MONSTERS.

BoA's actions have been a great contributor to the destruction of countless livelihoods across the world. But because the ending to one of their games (that was still a fantastic game otherwise) wasn't as good as some butthurt crybabies on the internet wanted it to be, EA are somehow a worse company.

Some people need to sort out their priorities.

People don't hate EA because the ending to Mass Effect 3 was bad.

People don't hate EA because they make bad games.

People hate EA because they take good games, they take good developers, they take good ideas, and then they rip them to shreds in front of you and charge you twenty bucks for the pieces.

People hate EA because of day one DLC, because of Origin, because of online passes and premature server shutdowns. People hate EA because they have the worst customer service in the industry, because they get away with shit that no other company in any other industry could ever get away with; simply because people treat them like you're treating them. EA deserves the title of the worst company in America because they behave that way.

You know what EA's response to the announcement was?

"We’re sure that British Petroleum, AIG, Philip Morris, and Halliburton are all relieved they weren’t nominated this year."

You're a real fucking champ, EA. Way to go.

Pretty much all true. I hate EA for almost all that crap. I hate Origin with a passion and it's a smack in the face when I hear that EA has closed another talented developer or when I play a new EA game from a series I love and it's rubbish. But EA is far from alone in these acts. Is it only EA who drives good ideas, franchises and developers to the ground? Are EA the only publisher that has day one DLC? Are online passes exclusive to EA? Have people had perfect experiences with the customer service of every other game company?

I know people don't hate EA solely because of the whole ME3 fiasco. I'm one of them. But the ME3 fiasco had an instrumental part in EA winning that title. The title was awarded based on the results of an open internet poll that began right as ME3 launched. EA, the publisher of ME3, wins, amid a great deal of backlash against aspects of the game. Coincidence?

I'm not arguing against the idea that EA is a bad company at all. I'm not saying that people have no legitimate reason or shouldn't hate EA. I simply believe that they are very far from the worst company in America. I don't believe EA as a gaming company should be singled out when really they're all guilty, in my opinion some more so that EA. It's especially unfair when in other areas EA is a very good gaming company.

Clarify and give examples. If you're talking about the day one DLC, they got away with it because people refuse to vote in any real numbers with the only thing that really matters, their wallets, and just whinge afterwards. And speaking of getting away with things, that's what regularly happens to a lot of the other game companies because people are so focused on EA.

Yeah I thought that was douchey to the extreme. While I don't believe they are the worst company in America, the result of this poll does say something: lots of people are very unhappy with EA. A message it seems EA is content to makes excuses for, and are too arrogant to even heed. Though honestly, if they did, would you believe it? I guess it would have been the better option, but people would have dismissed it anyway.

Biggest gripe with ME3 apart from the ending was the amount of autodialogue and more streamlining (the weapon customisation was a slight improvement by adding a little more depth). Every conversation was like with Kasumi from ME2. ME1 and ME2 (ME1 was better in this way) had more opportunities to roleplay your own character by giving him/her a unique personality, you could choose how Shepard responded. ME3 just forces a personality upon you, like with those stupid dream sequences that in my opinion is out of character especially for renegade Shepard. Bioware has been cutting out so much from their games since ME2. The ME3 issue isn't the first fiasco for Bioware, Dragon Age 2 also was recieved poorly by the fans.

I also noticed that the animations (especially the running and conversation ones) look incredibly awkward, not sure why.

As for EA, ME3 isn't the only misstep they made. Origin, The Sims 3 (and its endless supply of ridiculously expensive DLC), yearly copies of sports games that they sell for full retail price (lol CoD), and I think there also was this incident with TOR (I'd personally call the entire game a fucking incident, where's my KotOR 3, damnit) where at the end of the free month people didn't get the option to cancel the subscription or something.

And this makes them worse than Bank of America, Walmart and Comcast how? Once again, your criticisms are valid, but next to what BoA has done in particular, they are positively minute. EA's handling of ME3 meant that you weren't as entertained as you thought you were going to be. BoA has directly and illegally made thousands homeless, and indirectly on some level has caused millions of job losses and a lower quality of life.

Oh, no, of course, in the overall "contest", EA has no place, I was referring more to the comparison between the video game companies.

Oh ok sorry. On that debate, and I'm being extremely general here, but I think that EA has done the most bad things for the gaming industry as well as the most good, if that makes sense. Activision does a bit less bad, but a lot less good. Ubisoft are on another level down, but they are the worst to PC gamers. That's how I see it anyway.

PC gamers are generally being neglected by companies who don't focus solely on PC gaming, it seems. However, there seem to be very little companies that actually listen to their customers, assuming sales will be good enough anyway. Buying over the major reviewers didn't help either, as ratings from professional reviewers and actual users strongly contrast (although there are probably plenty of biased user ratings as well), showing the general unhappiness of the customer about the situation.

Yes, Paradox provides plenty of modding support, and has a very active modding community. They also listen to their community, and even ask for feedback and suggestions. The upcoming CKII DLC is a community request, I believe.

However, while this is very positive, they're less lenient with release dates. CKII is an exception (maybe because it actually had a beta?), but in general, it takes a lot of patching, expanding and modding before Paradox (published) games become good, or even playable.

While not a disaster, it's still a very bad thing, especially when it happens as frequently as it does at Paradox. I mean, I love them and their games, but it's ridiculous to think it's normal they can bring out a half finished product.