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EA is not this year's 'Worst Company in America'
That's right, after two years as The Consumerist's Worst Company in America, as voted by the site's online audience, EA was knocked out in the first round by Time Warner Cable. EA received 48.8 percent of the vote, while TWC got 51.2 percent. In response to EA's win last year, COO Peter Moore said the company had made plenty of mistakes: "These include server shut downs too early, games that didn't meet expectations, missteps on new pricing models and most recently, severely fumbling the launch of SimCity. We owe gamers better performance than this." This year, we launched a critique of online service to supplement our standard game reviews, called State of Service. It was driven by the need for more longterm evaluation of games as customer service, as illustrated in part by EA's SimCity and Battlefield 4 launches. Still in the running for the Golden Poo are TWC, Comcast, Koch Industries, Monsanto, Verizon, Wal Mart, McDonald's, Bank of America, Ticketmaster and American Airlines, with more still to be named. [Image: EA]
EA named 'Worst Company in America' second year in a row
Gamers aren't letting up on Electronic Arts for its record and attitude. The games publisher was voted "Worst Company in America" for a second year in a row in The Consumerist's poll. EA trounced the other finalist, Bank of America, with 78% of the tallies. The Consumerist provided commentary as to why EA earned that reputation with customers and what it could be doing to not earn this title next year. The site identified EA's three main problems as failing to provide a product people want and like, failing to sell products at reasonable prices, and failing to support its products. EA COO Peter Moore posted a letter last week responding to the probable second win, admitting mistakes while attempting to refute popular complaints. His response to the poll? "We can do better. We will do better."
EA is The Consumerist's 'Worst Company in America,' wins Golden Poo
Today marks another resounding success for the gaming industry! Be proud, everyone; call your parents, have a glass of fancy wine and kiss your spouse: We've won the Golden Poo.EA was voted the "absolute worst company in America" in The Consumerist's 2012 poll, defeating Bank of America with 64 percent of the vote. EA and Bank of America fought through four bracket rounds against companies such as Sony, Apple, Walmart, PayPal, Comcast, GameStop and others from a wide range of industries to make the final round. The CEOs of both companies must be thrilled.EA provided Joystiq with a statement on its solid win: "We're sure that bank presidents, oil, tobacco and weapons companies are all relieved they weren't on the list this year. We're going to continue making award-winning games and services played by more than 300 million people worldwide."This is Bank of America's second loss in the final round, following last year's battle against BP. Perhaps if Bank of America was also discovered as the main investor in Soylent Green, rather than a major player behind America's housing crisis that left thousands of people homeless and in poverty for flimsy legal reasons, it would have won the title this year or last. As it stands, EA's win suggests online voters find poor customer service a more egregious sin than destroying lives.250,000 votes were cast in The Consumerist's poll and the people online have spoken. The people in reality, however, may disagree.[Thanks, Andy.]
EA still in running for The Consumerist's Worst Company in America
Two weeks ago, The Consumerist launched the "Worst Company in America 2012" challenge, featuring 32 businesses from a variety of industries, including gaming, which this year threw three companies into the running: EA, Sony and GameStop.EA and Sony battled it out in the first round, with EA fighting for its consistently high prices, DLC blitzes, poor reputation and quiet support of SOPA, and Sony for the major hack and subsequent change to its PSN terms of service that disallowed class-action lawsuits. EA won with 81 percent of the vote. EA has since beaten Best Buy with 66 percent of the vote and is in the final eight, facing Comcast tomorrow at noon ET.GameStop, playing on its link to high, stagnant prices, poor customer service and the industry-wide pre-order exclusive maze, beat Netflix in the first round with 71 percent of the vote, but later lost to Wal-Mart with 46 percent. Voting on the remaining eight companies (including EA) runs today and tomorrow, and the final four will be announced Thursday.Go team?
Debunking another hacked authenticator story
One of our readers, Bill, sent us a tip about a WoW account issue on The Consumerist. It seems that the ownership of Anonymous's friend's account is under dispute and Blizzard won't let him use it in the meantime. The ownership became disputed after the account was allegedly hacked, even though there was allegedly a mobile authenticator on the account. His friend has given up on the account, complete with Val'anyr, and has created a new one. We can't confirm any of the facts in this case. I am willing to believe that Anonymous is truly upset and believes the story he tells to be true, even though he is posting anonymously. There are some serious red flags, however, that seem to point to Anonymous not having all of the facts:
Despite manual's claim, Spore only allows one account per copy
The latest Spore controversy comes courtesy of some false information printed in the game's manual. The Consumerist reports that despite the game's manual stating purchasers "may have multiple Spore accounts for each installation of the game," they only have one. An EA forum rep stated that the information was a "misprint and will be corrected in future printings of the manual."Spore has been lambasted in Amazon.com's user review section for its "draconian DRM" measures. There's no clear indication whether Spore was originally meant to allow for more than one account -- did DRM measures put the kibosh on that plan?[Via GamePolitics]
Warhammer Online access details for pre-orders and Collector's Edition
Warhammer Online fans, the promised day is almost here. Mythic has announced early access details for pre-order and Collector's Edition customers. Pre-orders get a headstart and will be invited to play as of September 15th; those who sprung for the Collector's Edition get to trump everyone else, gaining access to WAR on September 14th in addition to some of those other sweet extras that come with the CE. Still, not all Collector's Edition customers are happy about how CE customers are being treated. One Collector's Edition buyer named 'Micah' had a nightmare of a problem with his order from Electronic Arts (EA). A simple request to not have his CE shipped to an address he no longer lives at was met with a bizarre choice to be made -- either cancel the order and lose out on the sold-out CE, or let the order stand and have it shipped to the complete strangers living at Micah's former residence. Check out the entire correspondence between EA and Micah at The Consumerist. We hope this is an isolated incident, particularly given the cost and apparent rarity of the Collector's Edition. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
