Anyone who has played quite a few video games over the past few decades can attest that EA is a terrible company. Even people with no gaming experience can probably say something negative about them. They have no respect for their customers, they treat their employees like computers and their games are pay-to-win. In other words, they are the Ellen DeGeneres of video game companies, only their content is somehow less entertaining.
The $36 billion company has lasted 40 years, and the past 20 have been particularly brutal. Over the past two decades, their business practices have been more grotesque than the monsters in their Dead Space franchise. In the early 2000s, EA began adopting a new business tactic that swallowed up competitors in their entirety. First, they would innocently take over a small video game company with the alleged intent to grow their products. A few months later, they would strip the game of half of its creative work and replace it with an in-game monetization plan that maximized profits. After that, all they had to do was release the cash joke they called a game, take the bulk of the profits and screw up their newly acquired business along with their player base.
The most notable victim of this tactic was Origin Systems, which was completely disbanded after EA deemed their game unfit for their profit margin. Not only did they lose the creative freedom to make the game they wanted, but after it was finally finished, EA pulled the plug. There hasn’t been such a threat to the sanctity of video games since moms discovered there was a power button on the Xbox.
Unlike moms, EA was great at spotting potential. But instead of giving such talents the respect they deserved, they chewed them up and spit them out like raw chicken. By adopting such a ruthless business tactic, EA made it clear that they were not interested in the artistic quality or playability of their games. Instead, they saw their games the same way Ellen saw her guests: items to make a profit from. And while they claimed to have cleaned up their act in the mid-2000s, EA took their impersonal relationship with their games to the next level in 2017 when they released Star Wars Battlefront II.
If you’re one of the lucky few who wasn’t unlucky enough to play this monster early in the release, let me guide you through the experience as best I can. Imagine just coming home from work and loading up your Xbox for a relaxing night of shooting with your best friends. A friend details your failing relationship as they fire virtual bullets between sips of alcohol. Another friend knocks your self-esteem down with insults strong enough to ruin a career. Until now, it was the pinnacle of human entertainment.
Then, suddenly, a man wearing the plot armor of all nine “Star Wars” movies combined flies around the corner, killing your entire group of friends faster than you can mutter, “I’ve got the high ground.” In any other game, a carnage of this magnitude would be the result of hard-earned skill. But with the release of Battlefront II, skill wasn’t the factor determining who won. Instead, it was money.
The power behind EA’s greed at the time of Battlefront II’s release was so powerful that they sacrificed the quality of their product to make some extra cash. Rather than adding features to make the game progress more enjoyable, they chose to implement a pay-to-win system that would maximize profits. That’s why players like the one you killed in your secondhand gaming experience did so much damage; the game had a feature that allowed players to buy their advantage. Instead of grinding the game until they are good, players can waste all their money buying loot boxes so that they have better weapons and skills to give them an edge over their more frugal opponents. So even if you quit your job, play 24/7, and use a bucket to avoid wasting time in the bathroom, you’d still have helped a 10-year-old with access to his mom’s credit card.
And of course, they’ve since made changes that restructured the progression system enough to be considered playable again. But that doesn’t even make up for the hours of suffering their controller-wielding soldiers endured. Has the parent company of the entire Battlefield franchise seriously never heard of reparations?
In all seriousness, if they had to compensate anyone for damage done over the years, it would have to be their own employees. As shocking as it may sound, working for a video game company is just as bad as any other job. One reason for this is the extra workload that comes with the upcoming release of a new game. If I had to guess, I’d say EA employees probably have about the same degree of procrastination syndrome as their players. But instead of their project being a mindless assignment for some hungover professor, it’s a large-scale video game played by millions of people and their employer is a money-guzzling machine.
The stress alone would be enough to make the job miserable, but the lack of paying overtime and working there sounds like sheer torture. But somehow, amid all the turmoil in the workplace, there have been only two internal lawsuits in recent years. Both cases were filed in response to the failure to receive overtime pay and both cases were settled with a fair payout. But even if their working conditions are now slightly better than before, I don’t believe there were only two issues with EA’s benefits. With all the other schemes they’ve tried to run, it wouldn’t be surprising if they settled a few hundred under the radar.
It’s hard to imagine EA could get any worse. Their games are essentially designed to be hated, their business tactics are ruthless, and the people who interact with them are treated worse than anyone at an Xbox Live party in the early 2000s. , is the only other thing that can make EA even more despicable, if a worse company takes them over.
According to rumors on the internet, that horror game is becoming a reality. Recent reports claim that not only is EA planning to sell or merge with another company, but they have already met big names like Amazon, Apple and Disney. A merger of this magnitude would turn the gaming markets into Battlefront II, but this time around, the newly formed gaming giant would be the sole owner of their pay-to-win weapons. Even if EA decides to sell rather than merge, any of these companies would have no problem filling their shoes as the most hated conglomerate in the gaming industry.
Of the three, Disney seems the most likely to make a deal with EA. They own the rights to the “Star Wars” movies, so they would be willing to pay top dollar to buy the video game franchise. With full control over the name, the combined mega-company would have the freedom to coordinate games with new movies or TV series released after their pairing. But more importantly, their cultures seem to blend perfectly.
If EA’s treatment of people makes them the Ellen DeGeneres of gaming companies, Disney’s reputation makes them Gordon Ramsay. Instead of the kitchen of hell, the working conditions in the factories that Disney outsources can literally be considered hell. If paying next to nothing to their employees isn’t enough to give EA a run for their money, then the fact that they employ children under 16 should be. Even in the comfort of one of their theme parks, Disney somehow finds a way to make work as miserable as possible. As a result, they have faced several lawsuits for unfair wages, one for changing their credit information, and every type of discrimination case you can think of. One’s gender, religion, race and even age have been discriminated against in one of their parks, which are supposed to be family friendly by the way.
It’s safe to say that if Disney merged or acquired EA, things would get a lot worse. The only way this can have a happy ending is if Disney gives EA a taste of their own medicine by squeezing out their company for cash and hanging it out to dry like the game company did with everyone else. The flip side of this outcome would obviously be the loss of half of the video games on the market, millions of jobs and the ambitions of many developers. But honestly, if Disney’s slaughter of EA were even half the satisfaction that Gordon Ramsay berating Ellen DeGeneres would, then it would probably be worth it.
0 Comments