Mike's BlogOnce again I ran into one of those articles I just can’t seem to make myself NOT react to. As usual when this happens to me, this is an article defending something and doing some rotten things to dismiss valid criticisms and pretend problems aren’t problems. This one is about EA.
Here’s the link: http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/14/why-do-people-hate-ea
I am actually super hesitant to post this because it pretty much directly disagrees with what someone whom I really respect recently said (not the author of the piece. I don’t know him) and it is the sort of thing that pretty much HAS to somewhat offend a bunch of my friends and it would be silly of me not to expect them to get a bit defensive about it.
I better start by making super clear some things:
- This is not about you guys working for EA with little to no impact on these decisions. You guys are great.
- It is about the problems that make people dislike EA. Which is different from disliking you guys.
- You can enjoy working there and still have problems with aspects of how things are scheduled and managed.
- Criticizing or having complaints about something is not the same as hating it.
- I am not arguing that EA is completely evil nor do I mean to defend anyone who does.
- This isn’t about whether you should or shouldn’t like EA. This is about why a lot of people don’t and that they aren’t stupid, weird, crazy or haters-just-to-be-haters.
Problems with the article
There are a number of really nasty things going on in this article! The first, and probably the cause of the rest, is that in an article about the problems with EA, the only source quoted or even mentioned is EA itself. A representative of the company speaking on behalf of its critics is not exactly a formula for a fair and balanced article. The other big problems are 1) it suggests being a big company trying to make money and adjust to digital distribution excuses EA’s behavior and 2) it dismisses criticism as ‘haters’ instead of dealing with what they actually have to say.
Problems with EA
The article left the actual issues people have with EA pretty vague, so I’ll spell out some of the ones I can think of:
- gobbling up competition e.g. Bullfrog
- expecting ridiculous hours of employees and a culture that makes folks feel guilty about not staying late
- people feel that when EA bought competing studios, they ruined future games in the franchises acquired that way, or stopped making them altogether
- the exclusivity deal with the NFL (and resulting lack of competition) is seen as bad for customers
- customers feel cheated by content they have to pay extra for even though it is included on the disc (they bought a disc, but the things on it still need to be bought…again!?)
- customers feel cheated by day-1 DLC (why wasn’t it just included in the game?-type thing)
- customers feel cheated for how online pass means you have to pay extra to use certain game features if you bought it second-hand. (or if you failed to realize your box included a code, which it turns out a lot of folks do)
- despite what Peter Moore says, a bunch of producers sitting down and trying to find ways to exploit people for more money in MUT, FUT, Facebook games, etc. is in fact what actually happens when they design games at EA
- one day 1 out of every 6 EA employees in the entire company were let go
Notably NOT in the list:
- people don’t think game companies should make money
- that EA shouldn’t look for new ways to make money
- that people think EA should be on some intellectual or moral mission
- that EA working conditions are worse than mining diamonds in Africa
He points out that the things in the second of these lists would be silly to be mad at EA for. He’s right, but the previous list still matters! You may not agree that all of these are reasons to dislike EA but I can certainly see where people are coming from with all of them.
People don’t dislike EA because of imaginary “so-called” problems or because they are “haters”. That’s just weasel words and name-calling. People dislike EA because of things EA did or is still doing.
Companies will be companies
The article carefully emphasizes that EA is a company, and companies have to make money. This is true and it’s fine but it’s not why EA is so disliked. It goes on to point out that EA has to adapt to a changing world and that it makes mistakes doing so. It suggests that because something the company did is a mistake it should get a pass. It assumes that these things even are mistakes, even though EA continues to do them despite the outcry.
If they are making their customers feel cheated, it is not excused by the fact that they are a company or that they have to make money or that they make mistakes and are still just learning digital distribution. They still made folks feel cheated.
Crunch
The article says EA_Spouse was a while ago and things have gotten better. They’ve improved, but people are still asked to work ridiculous hours. The company culture still makes you feel guilty about going home on time. Schedules are still made planning to crunch and even when they don’t, crunching is still treated as necessary and unavoidable. Obviously on the whole, the people who stay with the company still enjoy or need the job enough to keep working there, but this hardly makes the expectation of long hours a good thing. And yes, some places have it worse, but again that doesn’t make it good.
You don’t have to be an employee or former employee for that to make you think less of a company.
Silencing your critics
The article claims to be talking specifically about “hate” defined as a mindset where no matter what EA does it will be criticized. Unfortunately what this this does is cast criticism no matter what it is as hate. The article is assuming the worst motivations for the those with complaints and the best motivations for the company. Maybe the author tried to talk about just these very few extreme cases, but everyone with something unfavorable to say about EA is getting lumped in with the “haters” which is a group/term much easier to discredit and dismiss.
EA is in a position of power in a way that customers who feel slighted are not. Criticism and scrutiny of the company is quite justified.
EA isn’t even what I’m interested in here
I have had my own rocky relationship with EA, but I hope I have been able to put that aside enough to get the important part across: You don’t fix things by pretending they aren’t problems and trying to silence and dismiss criticism as ‘haters’ just makes you an asshole.
If you want to understand why people don’t like an entity like EA, you need to actually look at what it is doing and what the complaints are. And if you want it to stop, you need to own up to it and change, not deny that there’s a problem or use name-calling to dismiss your critics.
I don’t think anyone (including me) was trying to imply that EA shouldn’t be disliked for legitimate reasons. Obviously everyone has their own personal reasons for disliking whatever it is they dislike.
I just believe that this particular article was FOR ONCE trying to put a positive message out there to maybe-ever-just-once say that before you blindly bash all-of-something that you have had a negative personal experience with, you should consider whether real people are involved trying to make the real problems just a little bit better. Which (I believe) they are.
That was my intention when it came to sharing the article as well. JUST ONCE it’d be nice to put a positive message out there, and just let it float around for a moment to make it known that a thing that nearly everyone bashes isn’t 110% awful.
Goodness knows there is plenty of (legitimate or illegitimate) negativity out there already.
And, sorry, also!
In our experience, here’s why my family is happy to be supported by EA:
-Good salary
-Consistent and reliable pay-increases
-Fair and regular promotions for good work
-Great bonuses
-More days off than we even use (including an extra 6 week sabbatical this year)
-Amazing health, dental, life insurance benefits
-Discounted ESPP
-Good retirement matching
-He feels respected/listened to, like his ideas matter
-Partnerships/discounts from local businesses
-Awesome family appreciation/support events & parties several times per year.
-Most importantly: He gets to get up in the morning and do what he loves. He gets to work on and improve games that enhance the lives of millions of people. He’s living his dream! Is it for everyone? Of course not. But he is TRULY excited every day to go to work, and how many people can say that? And the love he has for his work is rewarded and appreciated and makes it so that I can stay home with our little girl full time.
I’m not about to ask for more.
Melanie’s EA sounds like a different EA than I worked for.
When I hear (read) people angry at EA, I never hear it about MUT/FUT/Facebook sales. Instead, I hear it about DLC unlocks or OnlinePass. I don’t understand this, as I think MUT/FUT/Facebook – where you pay for consumable card packs – has way less savory practices than charging for content – like new courses, equipment, and characters.
As for OnlinePass, I am consistently amazed that people do not see the code card in the box, and then completely fail to read the message that tells you “You can put in the code that came in your box” and THEN proceed to find the option (buried behind a “More options” button) to use their money to purchase it. Admitting you didn’t realize the code came in the box seems to be admitting that you refuse to pay attention and are willing to spend money without thinking about it. I can’t speak toward the second-hand sales issues because I don’t buy games used.
As far as expecting late hours and such is concerned, I agree it can get pretty bad (though I think it’s way better than it had been a few years ago). But I also see this as a problem for many companies in many industries, not as something specific to EA. It’s a problem, but by no means is it a unique problem.
I wish there had been more analysis of the first list of reasons people “hate” EA as well, because some of them still baffle me. My apologies for line-iteming these but I think some of them are interesting to discuss.
– gobbling up competition e.g. Bullfrog
Guilty, but not recently, right? How many years ago was the last time we gobbled up a competitor? I don’t recall one recently, at least.
– expecting ridiculous hours of employees and a culture that makes folks feel guilty about not staying late
Perfectly fair, although I’m not convinced this is unique to EA or to games, of course
– people feel that when EA bought competing studios, they ruined future games in the franchises acquired that way, or stopped making them altogether
Definitely true, but not recently – I’m hesitantly hopeful that we finally figured out how to acquire developers without turning around and crushing them with corporate stupidity. Bioware and Popcap seem to be marked improvements over past acquisitions.
– the exclusivity deal with the NFL (and resulting lack of competition) is seen as bad for customers
This one is such a pet peeve of mine. The NFL decided to grant an exclusive license. I don’t know if that was purely their decision or if they were lobbied for it, but once they’d decided to grant an exclusive license, EA would have been idiotic not to try and get it. God knows 2K put in their own offer for the license. If having only a single NFL game pisses you off, talk to the NFL.
– customers feel cheated by content they have to pay extra for even though it is included on the disc (they bought a disc, but the things on it still need to be bought…again!?)
Yeah, this sucks. Industry problem, but fair. Although ironically sometimes it results from “we planned this DLC for later” -> “oh hey it’s ready to go early” -> “why not just put the assets on the disc so we avoid a lengthy download?”.
– customers feel cheated by day-1 DLC (why wasn’t it just included in the game?-type thing)
The interesting thing to me here is that DLC that’s available on day 1 sells ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more than DLC that arrives later. The extra exposure of your game launch is a significant factor! When you release DLC later a huge chunk of people never even know about it. So increasingly, if you’re going to do DLC – and you have to do DLC or else… I don’t know, but it’s expected now – you should have it ready on day 1. And the approval pipeline for console games is long enough that it’s definitely true that content that was NOT ready in time for the product launch CAN be ready as DLC on Day 1. That said, the specifics of the DLC in each case make this way more or less stupid.
– customers feel cheated for how online pass means you have to pay extra to use certain game features if you bought it second-hand. (or if you failed to realize your box included a code, which it turns out a lot of folks do)
This one is borderline to me (I am obviously biased) but again, the whole industry is experimenting with such things.
– despite what Peter Moore says, a bunch of producers sitting down and trying to find ways to exploit people for more money in MUT, FUT, Facebook games, etc. is in fact what actually happens when they design games at EA
I know I personally haven’t worked with anybody who designed a feature purely to nickel-and-dime some more cash out of our users. But I haven’t worked on MUT/FUT etc and it sucks if that’s how they’re operating. The thing that bugs me about this one is that EA is SO less evil in this regard than Zynga, but EA is apparently more “hated.” Unfortunately EA is moving toward more Zynga-esque models (esp on Facebook) all the time, which makes me sad.
– one day 1 out of every 6 EA employees in the entire company were let go
Not sure how this is something that the “community” hates EA for, actually… a lot of studios have imploded from financial pressure in the last 5 years, though, and
Whether or not this article did an adequate job of examining the issue of public “hate” or criticism of EA, I find the article and the issue interesting. To me, EA was deserving of hate back in the early ’00s – in sports we were adding bullshit uninspired micro-features more for marketing than for users, instead of taking risks and being creative. We were buying studios and cluelessly squashing them like Lenny and the rabbits. We were being safe and boring and yet working nightmare hours to do it.
But in EA these days I find a lot to like. In the last 5-8 years we’ve dropped our stupid meaningless franchise expansion (Arena Football?!) to focus more effort on the ones that are important and to take chances on new original IPs (Dead Space! . We’ve committed repeatedly to long-term investment in order to produce genuinely good features instead of just hacking something together. I love that we ate the cost of NBA Elite 11 and didn’t release it because it Wasn’t Good Enough – that’s a commitment to quality. I find a lot to admire, and not much to hate that’s not an industry-wide issue.
Obviously this is an insider’s perspective, but it does bum me out that some portion of the gaming population still reviles EA – and I can’t tell: is it just carryover ill will from EA’s past actions? And if so, when can the past be left behind? It baffles me that EA won that Consumerist poll, but maybe that was just ME3 haters… I don’t see anything EA’s done recently that would seem to deserve that kind of hate. And you DO have to hate a company to vote for it as the Worst Company In America – that’s not just “criticism.”
As evidenced above, I think there are valid criticisms to be made, but the thing that I think this article was saying, and the thing that I find weird, is how EA seems to be somewhat singled out for criticism. Were any other game companies in that Consumerist poll? How are the day-to-day actions of EA possibly more objectionable than those of Zynga? Or Activision? Or THQ?
Hooray for talking about actual positive things about EA! And addressing actual complaints instead of weird caricatures of them! We are not insulting and dismissing critics! I did some good maybe? Yay!
I don’t think the why-is-everybody-picking-on-EA-when-everyone-else-is-bad-too angle holds up. Activision, Ubisoft, and Zynga definitely get a lot of flak too. I think it’s just that we are reading/seeing/caring a lot more about EA because we or our friends and family work there.
And anyway if one company gets it worse than another, we should probably be open to the possibility that it’s because they’ve done more lately to piss people off than the other. (Or maybe just doing it more blatantly but you get the idea) That seems like the most likely explanation.
EA can be a good employer and a BAD company at the same time. Saying that the world is changing and also being a driver of that change is like saying the tree was crashing into your car. Sooner or later the hate is going to bubble up like bad soup.