There will be no three-peat. After winning the title of Worst Company in America for two straight years, Electronic Arts has been "upset" by cable and Internet provider Time Warner in the first round of The Consumerist's annual poll.
For those that might not be familiar, every year The Consumerist sets up a March Madness-style tournament in which 32 companies go head-to-head for the dubious distinction of "Worst Company in America." Previous winners of the award have included British Petroleum and Comcast, but for the past two years video game developer Electronic Arts has run away with the title.
Although the competition is more of an opportunity for customers to vent rather than an actual indication of working conditions, for a company like Electronic Arts winning was a hard pill to swallow. They hoped that things would change in the future though, and, at least on the surface, it appears they have. Time Warner is moving on and Electronic Arts is out of the running.
That being said, it might have been Time Warner's pending merger with Comcast (another candidate in this year's vote) that helped it eke out the win. Many subscribers of Comcast have long maligned the company, and so when they announced a merger with Time Warner, the move was met with pure disappointment. Adding even more fuel to that theory is Comcast's trouncing of Yahoo! in their first round match-up.
Still, it should be noted that Electronic Arts has not gotten off scott free. Rather, the company was only barely beat by Time Warner, which suggests the developer could still rank pretty low as far as public perception is concerned. For that matter, if Time Warner makes it all the way to the finals, what does say that about EA?
For as much as Electronic Arts promised to do better after winning Worst Company in America for the second year in a row, gamers have seen little change over the past 12 months. In fact, around the time EA was headed for its repeat last year there was a lot of talk regarding the failures of SimCity. Sure, this year's game has changed (Battlefield 4), but the problems are largely the same. What happened to becoming the "Best Company in America?"
Do you think that Electronic Arts is one of the worst companies in America? Do you think they were lucky that public hate for Time Warner and Comcast is so high?
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Source: Consumerist