After sorting through a mountain of nomination e-mails, we’ve whittled down the field of competitors for this year’s Worst Company In America tournament to 40 bad businesses. Here’s your chance to have your say on how these players will square off in the bracket, and which bubble teams will get left out in the cold. [More]
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EA Doesn’t Really Want People Sharing Negative Game Reviews Where Someone Might Read Them
By 2.10.14
It’s almost time to start thinking about this year’s Worst Company In America tournament, which can mean only one thing — two-time reigning WCIA champ Electronic Arts is once again making a final push to be hated by its own customers. This time, the video game giant has been caught apparently trying to game the Google Play review and ratings system. [More]
EA Finally Decides You Don’t Need To Be Online To Play SimCity
By 1.13.14
When reigning two-time Worst Company In America champ Electronic Arts released the hugely anticipated SimCity game in April 2013, it unleashed a hornets’ nest of bad publicity by not only requiring that players be online in order to use the game but also grossly underestimating its ability to deal with all of those users trying to play the game at the same time. Many owners of the game were unable to play for weeks until EA resolved the issue, but the company stood by the ill-advised decision to require an Internet connection. Now, ten months and ten updates later, it’s finally relenting. [More]
Consumerist’s Most Popular Stories From 2013
December 31, 2013
2013 ends in a few hours, and in the year since we last popped champagne corks and pretended to know the words to “Auld Lang Syne,” we’ve posted more than 5,000 stories to Consumerist, covering everything from Wall Street to Capitol Hill to the drive-thru lane. Some of these posts attracted a few more readers than others. [More]
Is EA Due For A Third Worst Company In America Crown?
By 12.30.13
We haven’t even begun to ask for nominations from readers for the next Worst Company In America tournament, but some are already making the case for once again giving the Golden Poo trophy to reigning two-time WCIA winner Electronic Arts. [More]
Lawsuit Claims EA Execs Knew Game Was Broken, Cashed Out
By 12.19.13
Irritating your customers may be bad corporate practice, but it’s not illegal and won’t earn you anything worse than a golden poo or two. Irritating your stockholders, on the other hand, can indeed earn you a trip to court. [More]
Digital Delivery Allows Companies To Ship Broken Products Without Refunds Or Returns
By 11.19.13
Not so long ago, if you bought a book with missing pages — or a DVD that skipped, or a CD or video game that wouldn’t play — you took it back to the store and got an exchange or a refund because obviously the manufacturer did not intend to provide you with an incomplete or broken product. The relatively new era of digital media delivery has improved upon this by allowing content providers to patch files and fix errors, but it’s also allowing companies to knowingly release inferior and/or broken products, often without giving the consumer any way to seek redress. [More]
Did You File A Claim In Price-Fixing Class Action Against EA? Watch Your Mail
By 11.12.13
Did you file a claim in the recent class action settlement with EA that claimed they took advantage of an unfair marketplace for officially licensed football games? Watch your mailbox: tipsters report receiving their settlement checks in the mail. [More]
EA CEO Says Winning Worst Company In America Title Was “Wake-Up Call”
By 11.6.13
For two years in row, Consumerist voters have awarded video game publisher Electronic Arts the title of Worst Company In America. Unlike other WCIA champs, EA has publicly responded to news of its wins, but often in a dismissive tone that only made things worse. But new CEO Andrew Wilson is now claiming that the company is listening to angry customers. [More]
EA Ditches Plans For College Football Game After Settling Lawsuit With Former Students
By 9.26.13
For several years, reigning two-time Worst Company In America Electronic Arts has been fighting a lawsuit filed by former college athletes that accused the video game publisher, along with the NCAA and a third-party licensing firm, of illegally profiting off the likenesses of student-athletes. Now that it looks like the case could finally go to trial, EA has reached a settlement with the plaintiffs — and has ditched plans to put out a college football game in 2014. [More]
Another Former College Football Player Sues EA For Using Athletes’ Likenesses In Video Games
By 9.5.13
In the midst of a right to publicity lawsuit (which is part of a larger antitrust lawsuit) currently underway against video game publisher Electronic Arts, another athlete has lawyers filing a proposed class-action suit claiming that EA’s use of college athletes’ names and likenesses in its games is “blatant and unlawful.” [More]
Worst Company Champs Comcast & EA Team Up To Let You Play Games Through Set-Top Box
By 8.28.13
Two of the most-reviled companies in America — cable colossus Comcast and gaming Goliath Electronic Arts — appear to be working together, presumably to figure out a way to nickel-and-dime customers and then provide them horrible customer service, via a new gaming system that serves up “console-quality” games through Comcast’s set-top boxes. [More]
EA Will Actually Let Customers Request A Refund On Digital Games Purchased Through Origin
By 8.20.13
Remember five months ago when all those disgruntled Electronic Arts customers were peeved at the launch of SimCity, but barely anyone could get a refund? Of course you remember — it was a smorgasbord of shenanigans and muck-ups, and didn’t go toward easing the sting of EA winning the Worst Company In America tourney for the second year in a row. In what could maybe, possibly indicate that EA has finally learned a little something from those legions of unhappy customers, the company is debuting a new refund program for certain titles purchased from its Origin digital distribution system. [More]
EA: SimCity Is Coming To Mac (For Real, This Time) Aug. 29
By 8.5.13
Isn’t it funny how a company like Electronic Arts (our Worst Company In America for two years running, don’t forget!) can say one thing and then do another? Like when it said the Mac version of the newest SimCity would be released on June 11. It wasn’t, but now the company says the long-delayed game will finally arrive in a digital-only version on Aug. 29. [More]
EA Makes Case That It Shouldn’t Be Part Of Lawsuit Over NCAA Games
By 7.31.13
Even though reigning, two-time Worst Company In America Electronic Arts is no longer in the video game business with the folks at the NCAA, the once-inseparable couple are both defendants in an antitrust lawsuit brought by former college athletes who allege that NCAA-branded games illegally made money from the players’ likenesses. Now EA is distancing itself even further from NCAA, claiming it was just doing what NCAA told it to do. [More]
New Monopoly Teaches Kids The Importance Of Xbox, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and EA!
By 7.26.13
The folks at Hasbro have never had a problem letting everything from towns to universities to movies to big-name commercial brands slap their names on licensed versions of Monopoly, but a new version of the classic board game is unabashedly all about learning the value of today’s biggest fast food, retail, tech, and entertainment companies — everything a growing child needs to get ahead! [More]
EA Definitely Moving On With NCAA-Less College Football Video Games
By 7.19.13
Two days after the NCAA announced it would not be renewing its football video game partnership with reigning two-time Worst Company In America champ Electronic Arts comes confirmation that the gaming giant will indeed continue to make college football games, but they simply won’t carry the “NCAA” brand. [More]
NCAA: EA Won’t Be Making Our Football Titles Anymore (But It May Continue To Make College Games)
By 7.17.13
While we know in our heart that winning a second consecutive Worst Company In America title was the most heartbreaking moment for video game publisher Electronic Arts, this news has to come a pretty close second. The NCAA, which had an exclusive arrangement with EA to produce the wildly popular NCAA-branded college football game, has decided it won’t be signing a new contract with EA. However, it doesn’t look like it’s the end for EA’s association with college football. [More]
