Top 10 Worst Things EA's Ever Done

Leave it to EA to ruin a beloved franchise all in the name of profit. “Dungeon Keeper” served as a reboot to the classic series, but EA hopped on the freemium model like there was no tomorrow. The game was absolutely riddled with microtransactions, and the public cried foul regarding EA’s greedy business practices. EA was then caught manipulating Google Play reviews, as the system would filter out any review below five stars. In typical EA fashion, they tried to defend their scummy practice, saying, “We wanted to make it easier for more players to send us feedback directly from the game if they weren’t having the best experience.”

And here we have EA ruining yet another beloved franchise all in the name of profits. We feel like we’ll be saying that a lot throughout this list. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, it was announced that EA’s Victory Games would be handling “Command & Conquer: Generals 2.” However, hearts took a real steep dive when it was revealed that the entire game was being repurposed as a free-to-play “client-based game” simply titled “Command & Conquer.” The response to this change was so toxic that EA completely canceled the game, stating, “Your feedback from the alpha trial is clear: We are not making the game you want to play.” Yeah, no duh.

Did anyone really want a digital distribution service from EA? And even if you did, did you really expect it to be good? Origin has had an enormous amount of controversies under its belt. Where should we start? How about the fact that EA would ban players on their forums for saying negative things about the company? Or when users read the terms of agreement and discovered that EA will completely delete your account and games if you don’t log on for two years? Or how about the fact that, by using Origin, EA can monitor your computer and its data? Yeah, it’s a mess. We’ll stick to Steam, thanks.

The hype for “Spore” was well deserved, as the game was extremely promising. EA caused a lot of uproar when it was announced that the game could only be installed on three computers. This was a huge mistake, as the backlash hit fast and it hit hard. The game received horrible reviews on Amazon, with most critics citing its terrible implementation of DRM, and many people pirated the game from torrent sites. The damage wasn’t done yet. Soon after release, consumers filed a lawsuit against EA over the implementation of SecuROM. That won’t be the last time you hear the word “lawsuit.”

And this is how you completely screw over a development team. BioWare Montreal was created in 2009, mostly to help the main branch in Edmonton with the “Mass Effect” games and their DLC. They were given their chance to shine with “Mass Effect: Andromeda,” as the Edmonton branch was busy focusing on a new IP. However, the production was completely bungled - BioWare needed to start from scratch to accommodate the new, incompatible Frostbite 3 engine, and the game’s development was rushed. As a result, the game was released to a myriad of technical issues and mediocre reviews, and BioWare Montreal soon merged with Motive. So much for that.

The release of “Battlefield 4” was a war zone in and of itself, as many gamers had issues upon release. For some, it would randomly crash in the middle of a game. Others were lucky to even get in a match. Glitches and bugs were rampant. It all made the game an unplayable disaster, and it resulted in various lawsuits. One suit claimed that EA issued “materially false and misleading statements” regarding the game’s quality, while another claimed that they intentionally kept the game’s poor state from investors, which violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. One year after release, a producer admitted that the game’s launch permanently damaged their reputation and trust. You think?

We all know that working in game development is no walk in the park, and crunch has become something of an industry standard for better or worse, but this another level. In 2004, a blog was released which detailed the terrible working conditions at EA. It was revealed that regular hours were 9 AM to 10 PM, employees worked seven days a week, and they were given Saturday evenings off for “good behavior.” Seriously, what? That sounds straight-up dangerous. If that wasn’t all, they failed to pay overtime. This resulted in two lawsuits – artists were awarded $15.6 million in damages, and programmers were awarded $14.9 million.

EA is really not that good at PR, are they? It was announced that “SimCity” would be launching with a form of DRM which required the user to always be connected to the internet, even if they were playing by themselves. To address the complaints, EA said that the game’s multiplayer component was massive, and as such, it required cloud-computing to run properly. Well, this went about as well as you’d expect. “SimCity” experienced a huge server load upon release, and it caused many computers to crash and/or experience a wide variety of technical issues. How is that DRM working out for you, EA?

EA had a real gold mine on their hands, but they completely bungled it. Gamers took notice of the game’s implementation of loot boxes during the beta, and it all snowballed from there. Players soon estimated that it would take 40 hours to unlock heroes like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, and EA responded on Reddit by saying that it provided players with a sense of “pride and accomplishment.” This soon became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. EA tried backpedaling by removing the microtransactions, but the damage was done. Government officials soon weighed in, namely Hawaiian politician Chris Lee, who called the game “an online casino.”

If you ever hear of your favorite development studio being purchased by EA, make sure to say your goodbyes, because chances are that it is just a matter of time. A has closed a HUGE number of beloved development studios throughout the years, including Westwood, Mythic Entertainment, Pandemic Studios, and Visceral Games, just to name a few. By now, it seems to be a gaming tradition that EA purchase a studio and shut them down only a few years later, and it looks to continue into the future as well. Let’s hope this isn’t the case for Respawn, EA’s newest acquisition.